One of the strategic goals of IT leaders today is shifting from the traditional focus on technology to an emphasis on business demands and user expectations – from supply to demand. This change in perspective is a true paradigm shift, one that Forrester Research calls “outside-in thinking” and that reflects the ITIL focus on supporting service lifecycles. Besides conceptualizing the work IT does as service delivery rather than technology availability, this transformation also requires an emphasis on customer experience.
One important way for IT to deliver great customer experience is to provide a satisfying environment for users to resolve problems and ask for service. Enabling powerful user self-service requires more than providing tickets and forms for users to submit to the Help Desk. To maximize user autonomy when solving issues and making requests – and to reduce costs and repetitious tasks for Service Desk staff – IT needs to offer users:
- An intuitive user interface that guides them through options and steps.
- Automated, simple-to-follow procedures for common tasks that you want users to be able to perform on their own.
- Access to knowledge needed to solve problems.
- Transparency and updates throughout a process so expectations are set.
- Options for requesting help when needed.
- Ability to suggest enhancements and track the fate of the submission.
Where is your IT organization in user self-service maturity? Keep an eye on this space for a questionnaire to help you assess your user self-service capabilities.
