Top 10 ITSM Best Practices for Ultimate Team Success

Why does your IT team always feel like they’re running on empty? The truth is, relying on sheer effort isn't sustainable. To consistently deliver great service and free your team from constant reactive chaos, you need proven structure. This is where IT Service Management’s (ITSM) best practices play a key role.

These best practices – along with comprehensive ITSM software – will transform your service desk from a reactive contact center into a high-performing asset that’s always prepared. Let’s learn what they are and how to apply them to team success.

ITSM is a structured approach that businesses use to plan, deliver, and improve their technology services for employees and customers. For example, when your laptop breaks, ITSM is the system that allows you to submit a help desk ticket, tracks the repair process, and makes sure it’s fixed within a reasonable time frame. It's like having organized workflows and procedures to efficiently handle all IT-related requests and problems.

ITSM best practices are often guided by the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) framework. They align your IT services with business needs, helping you focus on value delivery to the customer. These practices foster a culture of continuous improvement through regular service reviews and feedback loops. Set key metrics like mean time to repair (MTTR) or first-call resolutions to measure how ITSM practices are working for your business.

Let’s say multiple employees report slow application performance during peak hours. Following the procedure you set, the service desk identifies a pattern and escalates it to the infrastructure team, who discovers a capacity issue and implements auto-scaling based on usage metrics. They update the change management process to include performance testing before deploying resource-intensive applications, preventing similar incidents.

But before diving right into it, why should you follow these practices? Benefits include:

• Improved efficiency: Standardized processes reduce time spent on repetitive tasks and reduce confusion about who does what. This fosters accountability.
• Better user experience: Faster problem resolution and more reliable services keep employees and customers happy.
• Cost control: Proper planning and monitoring help avoid unnecessary IT spending and reduce downtime costs.
• Risk reduction: Structured change management and incident handling prevent small issues from becoming major outages.

These best practices will enable smooth operation and success of your IT team. They’ll take your business from being reactive to proactive, while being disciplined and productive.

Set clear, measurable service levels to manage expectations and ensure your IT team remains accountable for delivery quality. When everyone understands what "good service" looks like, it becomes easier to meet those standards consistently. This involves establishing Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that define response and resolution times, Service Level Objectives (SLOs) that set specific performance targets, and Service Level Indicators (SLIs) that measure actual performance against those targets.

Pro tip: Look for an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered ITSM tool like Agentforce IT Service. It can automatically generate SLA templates based on historical data, continuously monitor performance in real-time, and recommend adjustments to service levels when patterns show they're too strict or lenient.

A structured incident management process is essential for reducing system downtime and keeping users productive. When problems occur, clear procedures help address issues quickly and consistently. Plus, it prevents small issues from escalating into major disruptions. This includes systematic incident identification and logging, proper categorization by type and impact, prioritization based on business criticality, and structured resolution workflows. Each step should have defined roles and timelines to prioritize quick resolution.

Pro tip: AI can automatically detect anomalies and create incident tickets before users notice problems. It can categorize incidents based on symptoms and historical patterns, and provide technicians with intelligent suggestions for resolution steps. Automated workflows can also handle routine incidents, freeing up staff to focus on issues that require human expertise.

A continuous improvement mindset supports the evolution of your IT services. And they get better over time rather than becoming stagnant. Have monthly and quarterly review cycles to measure what's working and what isn't to adapt to changing needs and deliver increasingly effective support. Establishing feedback loops with users and stakeholders, and optimizing processes based on lessons learned. Also, documentation of improvements helps build knowledge and prevents repeating past mistakes.

Pro tip: An AI-enabled ITSM like Agentforce IT Service can analyze vast amounts of service data to spot trends and improvement opportunities. It can recommend next steps for process enhancements, and implement routine optimizations. Built on autonomous agents, our platform fully automates processes, providing scalable digital labor. This frees your team from repetitive work and accelerates innovation.

A well-organized service catalog acts as a single source of truth for all IT services, making it easy for users to find what they need and know what's available. This transparency reduces confusion, making sure everyone can access standardized services. This involves creating detailed service descriptions with clear requirements and procedures, integrated with a self-service portal for common requests like software access or password resets. Build a knowledge base and troubleshooting guides directly into the catalog, so users can easily search and access everything they need.

Pro tip: Use AI to simplify service catalog maintenance. It can generate descriptions from existing data, suggest knowledge articles based on requests, and provide personalized recommendations.

Managing changes to IT infrastructure and services is crucial for preventing outages and maintaining system stability. Without proper change control, even well-intentioned updates lead to unexpected problems. This includes submitting a formal change request with a clear business reason, conducting a risk assessment, and getting approval from all necessary stakeholders. Next, follow a structured implementation plan that includes a roll back strategy. Finally, document the change and perform a review to capture lessons for future improvements.

Pro tip: AI simplifies this process by routing requests to the right people based on risk and scope. It also uses data to predict conflicts before they happen, recommends the best time to deploy changes, and continuously monitors the process to alert your team if any issue arises.

A good knowledge management system (KMS) is like having your most experienced employee available 24/7. It captures all the solutions, workarounds, and hard-won expertise that your team has developed over time. This way, nobody has to reinvent the wheel or wait for the one person who knows how to fix something. Plus, it empowers users to solve problems on their own, which reduces new ticket creation and helps your team move from reactive to proactive service.

Pro tip: Keep your documentation up to date as systems and processes change. Also, AI can turn your resolved tickets into useful knowledge articles and suggest the right documentation when someone's searching for help.

Your service desk is often the first (and sometimes only) interaction users have with IT. So making sure it runs smoothly directly impacts how people feel about technology support. You should manage tickets efficiently from start to finish. Provide genuine support that ‌ solves problems rather than just checking boxes, and keep track of how well you're meeting your promised response times. Good service desk operations also mean having the right people with the right skills available when users need help.

Pro tip: Use autonomous AI agents like Agentforce to handle the routine stuff like password resets and status updates. This gives your team more time to tackle the tricky problems that‌ need creative thinking. AI can also watch your SLA performance in real-time and alert you when tickets are at risk of missing deadlines. So you can jump in before users get frustrated with slow responses.

Your users are the best judges of whether your IT services work in the real world. Get their feedback to understand what's working, what's broken, and what they ‌need from you. Collect feedback from surveys and informal check-ins, and communicate what you're doing with their input. It's about building relationships where people feel heard and valued.

Pro tip: AI can send out surveys at the right moments (like after a ticket is resolved), and even personalize follow-up communications based on customer experiences. Instead of a generic "how did we do?" messages, AI can help you have more meaningful conversations about what each person or department needs. Salesforce Agentforce IT Service comes with Slack , a messaging platform that centralizes communication, collaboration, and resources to replace fragmented email and meetings. Whether you’re gathering feedback, or creating dedicated Slack channels for specific use cases or concerns, your communication flow will significantly improve.

Security and compliance can't be an afterthought in today's world — they need to be baked into everything your IT team does. When security is integrated into your everyday processes, you catch problems early and avoid the headaches that come with data breaches or failed audits. Build security considerations into your standard procedures, ensure you’re meeting regulatory requirements, and have clear plans for what to do when security incidents happen.

Pro tip: Use AI to monitor suspicious activity and compliance violations without human oversight. It can flag potential security issues before they become real problems, and provide step-by-step guidance during incident response so your team knows exactly what to do under pressure.

Your IT operations generate tons of data every day: ticket volumes, resolution times, user satisfaction scores, system performance metrics. The teams that use this information to make decisions outperform those that just collect it and forget about it.‌ AI can gather data from all your different systems without manual effort, predict future problems before they happen, and generate reports that highlight what you’ll need.

Pro tip: Start with one high-impact use case, like predicting ticket spikes during peak periods or identifying your most common incident types. Let AI prove its value on something concrete, then expand from there. The key isn't having all the data — it's having the insights that drive action.

Good news: With Salesforce Agentforce IT Service, you’ll embrace all the fundamental ITSM best practices. Built on top of Customer 360, it comes with Agentforce and Slack to make sure you stay on top of your services. While Slack streamlines your collaboration, Agentforce helps your ‌team stay more productive and prepare for bigger things.