Service Request Management Challenges: Why Requests Stall

Service request management challenges show up when a ten-minute task, such as granting access to a reporting system, takes a week to finish. In that case the delay can sit between people, while the task itself stays small. A service request is a planned ask for something standard, such as access, software or a laptop, as opposed to a fault. This article is for IT heads in India and the GCC who run the desk or depend on it. The end goal is standard requests with set forms and approval paths.

Where Service Request Management Challenges Begin

The trouble begins with the first message, because it lands in one person’s inbox. The example below is illustrative, built to show the pattern, and is not a client story or a measured result. Take Priya, a finance analyst in a Pune office, who needs read access to the sales reporting system for a quarter-end review.

On Monday she sends a chat message to an IT engineer she knows. He is on a site visit, so he reads it on Tuesday and forwards it to the IT shared mailbox. On Wednesday someone in IT replies that her line manager must approve it. Her manager approves by email on Thursday, but the reporting system has its own owner in Dubai, who also wants a say. That owner says yes on Friday. Then IT grants the access the following Monday, after a reminder from Priya.

The work took ten minutes. Every other hour of that week sat in an inbox that only its owner could see. Priya had no way to check where her request was, and she chased it twice. Meanwhile, nobody in IT could tell her who held it, because the request lived in four separate threads.

In Signisys’s working view, the useful question for a leader is where a request waits. Six places can explain waits like this one, and they fall into three groups.

Service Request Management Challenges at Intake

The first two stalls happen before anyone has agreed to do the work. IT requests via email or chat arrive as plain text. The first person to read one has to decide what it is and where it goes.

A Request With No Clear Type

A message like “please give me access to the sales tool” does not say what kind of request it is. It could be access to an application, a software install, an equipment ask or a fault with an account that already exists. Each type can follow a different path.

The type also decides whether the request needs approval and whose. When that is unclear, the request can reach the wrong approver or the wrong team. It then sits there until someone notices and sends it back. A request that needs no approval may also wait for one that nobody asked for.

Missing details and the questions a form should ask are a separate problem, covered in what happens once a request becomes a ticket.

Threads Forwarded Between Inboxes and Chat Apps

Requests sent to one person’s chat depend on that person being at work and reading it. When he forwards the thread, earlier messages can drop off, and the next reader sees only part of the ask.

Two people can also pick up the same request. One sees it in the shared mailbox, while another sees the chat version, and both start work. Neither knows about the other until the requester gets two replies, or none.

Firms in India and the GCC with branches in several cities can add a further layer. Head office may use email, while one branch uses one chat app and another branch uses a different one. As a result, the same kind of request can arrive in three places and be tracked in none.

Service Request Management Challenges at the Approval Step

Once IT knows what a request is, it waits for a yes. The next two stalls come from manual approvals sent to people who are busy, away or not clearly named.

One Approver, Named by Role, Away This Week

An approval path set to a role, such as “department head”, works only when everyone agrees who holds that role today. If the role has no named person, the request goes to whoever IT guesses, and it may wait there.

Even a named approver goes on leave, travels or sits in a different office. For example, a regional approver in Riyadh may review requests from a team in Bengaluru. Riyadh is where the working week runs Sunday to Thursday, while a Bengaluru team may work Monday to Friday or Monday to Saturday. When nothing reminds the approver and nobody steps in during the absence, the request simply waits. The requester sees no movement and has no one to ask apart from IT, which is waiting as well.

Approval Steps Added One at a Time

Approval paths can grow over time. A manager’s sign-off comes first. Later, finance asks to approve anything with a license cost, and then security asks to approve access to sensitive systems. Each step made sense when someone added it. Together, they turn one wait into three.

A firm that has cleaned up how requests come in can still miss this. The intake looks tidy, while the request waits for manager, finance and security approval behind it.

Some approvals also happen outside any record. A manager says yes on a call, or in a chat message to the engineer. The work moves faster that day; however, the approval leaves no trace that anyone can find later.

Service Request Management Challenges After the Approval

Service request management challenges also appear after the yes, when the work itself, such as identity and access management changes, depends on people and leaves a weak record. An approved request can still sit and wait.

Steps Carried Out From One Person’s Memory

Once a request is approved, someone has to do the work by hand. Creating an account, installing software or preparing a laptop may depend on whoever knows the steps. If that person is on leave, the request waits even though it has every approval.

Fulfillment can also be split across teams. For a new hire, the identity team creates the account, the device team prepares the laptop and facilities arranges a desk. Each team finishes its part. However, if nobody owns the end result, nobody checks that the new hire can log in and work on day one. The request then looks closed in three places while the person is still unable to start.

An Approval Kept Only in an Email Thread

Months later, an auditor or a customer’s security review asks who approved a person’s access to a system, and when. If the answer sits in one manager’s mailbox, finding it can take days, and it may be gone if that manager has left.

In its guidance on identity and access, the UK National Cyber Security Centre says an access policy should cover how audit records are collected and protected from tampering (NCSC, 2021). It should also name the actions, if any, that need more than one person to authorize. The NCSC also calls for a joiners, movers and leavers process and for regular reviews of privileges. An approval kept only in email makes each of these harder. A record that answers an auditor should hold four facts: who asked, who approved, what access was granted, and when. Project access can also outlast the project, which is why old access stays in place.

Who Notices Each Stall First

Each stall shows up first to a different person, which is one reason service request management challenges go unseen for so long. The table below sets out how each one shows and who may spot it.

We recommend starting with the person who notices first when you ask where your own requests wait. That person has already seen the delay.

Why Service Request Management Challenges Matter to Leaders

These stalls reach the business before they reach an IT report. A new hire may spend the first day without a laptop or a login. A project can wait a week for access to one system, while the client deadline stays fixed.

The service desk can also take the blame, even when the wait sits with approvers outside IT. An on-time SLA report can make this worse. The clock may pause while a request waits for approval, or a request may carry the wrong type. Then the report can show on time while the requester waited for days.

For firms in India and the GCC, distance adds to the wait. Branches in several cities, approvers in another country and different working weeks all stretch a request that one office would close in a day.

If the longest wait in your requests sits with an approver, look first at how approvals are set up. Extra desk staff would still wait on the same approver. If the longest wait sits in hand-offs after approval, ask who owns the end result.

Setting up forms, routing and approval rules is outside this article.

Signisys provides IT service management and operations automation within its consulting and managed IT services. Weigh what you read here with that interest in mind. If you want a second view, we can look at where your own requests wait, starting with a short call. No charge, with a fixed scope.

Service Request Management Challenges FAQ