I am in the process of building out a new instance of ServiceDesk Plus.  We've used it for several years, and haven't been taking advantage of the full features.  As a result, management has asked that I build a robust system that requires as little helpdesk interaction as possible.  In the past, users have just emailed their support requests in, and it was incumbent upon all our techs to monitor the queue and assign tot he appropriate group\take ownership of the incident where applicable.  We desperately want to get away from that model.

I made a first pass, essentially building 6 or 7 service "Categories" -- aka, desktop support, systems engineering, enterprise applications, network support, user account management, purchase request.  From there, I utilized subcategories to direct users into giving us enough information to auto-assign the incident.  

Management didn't care for this approach, rightfully pointing out that the average end user isn't going to know which of those categories to start with for many common support items.  They have requested a more "ITIL" approach, which I admittedly don't know much about, beyond the research I've done after that note.

They suggested something along the lines of "I'm experiencing an error with...," "I have a question about...," "I need a resource..." etc, and then steering them from broad to specific, based upon our application catalog.

Has anyone here had any luck with this model?  Do you have some examples of the way you built out your category structure?  I'm having a really hard time turning off my "tech" head and making this accessible, but I recognize that if it reads like jargon or is cumbersome to use, adoption will fall flat out of the gate.

Thanks in advance!