Free checklist
AI service desk evaluation checklist
Compare AI service desks using the same tickets, permissions and acceptance criteria. Use the checklist below and download an editable pilot worksheet before choosing a platform.
Pilot scorecard
Score a 30-day pilot on your own tickets
Write these down before you start
Tickets per month and how many are repeat questions
First-response and resolution SLA attainment
Technician handling minutes and reopen rate, grouped by ticket type
What you pay today for the tools NetZen would replace
Keep a pilot record
For each ticket, record the category, automation outcome, approval decision, technician minutes and whether it reopened. Compare similar issues over the same business hours. Report sample sizes and exceptions; exclude staged demo tickets from customer outcome metrics.
Decide whether to expand, revise or stop the pilot against the thresholds you agreed before starting. Review failed runs and reopened tickets before counting a resolution as successful.
Define a pilot that can change your decision
Choose one representative client or team and name the people who will review the results. Include repeated how-to questions, device faults and requests that need human authorization. A vendor demo is useful for learning the interface, but it is not evidence of performance on your ticket mix.
Write down the success thresholds before testing: answer accuracy, correct handoff, completion without reopening, technician handling minutes and setup effort. Decide which failures would stop deployment even if average handling time improves.
Use the same evidence across vendors
Give each vendor equivalent access to the permitted documents, test endpoints and integrations. Record the exact product edition, enabled AI features and required add-ons. Where a vendor cannot demonstrate a capability, mark it unverified and identify the missing evidence.
The scorecard uses platform-neutral evidence locations. NetZen’s evaluation guide also shows the relevant NetZen screens and an illustrative investigation. Review the original output or audit event behind each claimed result, rather than relying only on a sales summary.
Include failure paths and client boundaries
Reject an approval, take an endpoint offline, remove a required document and ask a question that is outside the tool’s scope. Check whether the assistant explains the limitation and sends the ticket to the correct owner with the context it collected.
For an MSP, test two clients with similar names and different procedures. Confirm that restricted knowledge, credentials and action permissions stay within the intended client. A correct answer sourced from another customer’s document is a failed test.
Turn pilot results into a rollout decision
Keep the sample size, ticket categories, unsuccessful runs and reopen window with the score. Compare like-for-like business hours and handling work. Faster acknowledgement alone does not establish faster resolution, and released capacity does not establish a reduction in paid staff costs.
Use the calculator with the measured completion share and remaining handling time. Proceed only when the evidence meets your agreed thresholds; otherwise narrow the scope, change the setup or stop the pilot. Keep the completed worksheet for the next review.
FAQ
Questions about this resource
Test answers against permitted documentation, investigation quality, action permissions, approval rejection, handoffs, resolution reliability, SLA attainment, technician time and rollout effort. Keep the underlying evidence for each result.
Yes. Apply the same criteria and representative cases to every vendor. Record product editions, integrations and permissions so the demonstrations are comparable.
Use a period long enough to collect representative ticket categories and observe reopen behavior. Set the sample and success criteria first; extend the pilot if the available cases cannot support a decision.