The nightmare of password resets
You have definitely been there: early morning, you just started working, you have your priorities and plan set for the day, you check your emails and there they are, these dreadful tickets from people asking to reset their passwords once again. So long nicely laid-out plans! You will probably now spend half your day working on these tickets, leaving more important projects on hold.
You probably feel that all you do is reset passwords! Considering that 20% to 50% of all IT help desk tickets each year are for password resets according to the Gartner Group, you are right to feel this way: password tickets consume 31% to 40% of the help desk's time . Password resets may seem like an easy problem to solve, but they are not, and if you add on top the volume of requests, it makes them an extremely time-consuming, repetitive, boring task. For every hour you spend on a password reset, an hour is taken away from more high-value strategic projects you are supposed – and want - to work on.
At the same time, 30% of employees’ time is wasted waiting for a password reset ticket to be solved. During the waiting period, the employee may be unable to complete their core work responsibilities, which will result in impacted business processes and will ultimately cost the business. In some customer-facing companies, waiting 20 minutes to reset a password may also diminish overall customer experience and satisfaction, as the employee may be unable to serve customers.
And we haven’t even talked about costs yet. A higher number of help desk tickets equals more wasted money – both from paying the help desk employee to handle it and from using the necessary backend infrastructure to reset it. So the more password reset tickets you have, the higher the cost. Forrester Research estimates that one password reset can cost $70 , so yearly costs for these common requests seem unreasonable.
But why are password reset requests so arduous?
When an employee requests for a password to be reset, to maintain security protocol, IT needs to verify the identity of the requesting employee. The process to verify their identity by manual means can be time-consuming. Then, IT has to track down all the places where the password needs to be changed as passwords may be stored in several locations. Most companies use interconnected systems that require manually changing passwords in multiple places rather than a single change flowing across the environment seamlessly. The manual process required for the helpdesk team to ensure a password is changed correctly is labor-intensive, as it can require the helpdesk team to log in and use many different tools for changing a password in multiple systems for a single user account.
Auto-reset passwords instantly with conversational AI
Thankfully, conversational AI can make all these dreadful password reset tickets disappear! Meet Gaspar , our Conversational AI chatbot or Virtual Support Agent (also known as IVA – Intelligent Virtual Agent) that uses artificial intelligence and natural language processing to automatically resolve requests right where employees are, on Slack or MS Teams . Gaspar does not use rule-based algorithms to just answer questions like simple chatbots: it integrates with the existing applications and maps written input to an intent so as to fulfill sophisticated tasks for employees without human involvement.
When you install Gaspar AI, you have the ability to enable password-related applications for end users and integrate with them, including SSO and MFA apps. When an employee forgets a password, they will ask Gaspar on Slack or Ms Teams for a password reset. In seconds, Gaspar will identify the employee thanks to the multiple relevant password integrations and will provide the necessary temporary password to the employee in order to reset it. Then, the employee will choose a new password, and that’s all! Password is changed across all places that use it.
And all this without you having to be involved! Imagine the things you could do when you get all these password reset tickets time back, and how your days at work will be more magical than frustrating! Let alone the money and productivity you can save your company.
If you are interested to see passwords disappearing in seconds, contact us for a demo