The Future of Service Management

One of the problems faced by service provision industries, such as IT support, is that measurement of success is difficult because there are so many intangibles involved. That considered, with great interest I read a report called The Future of Service Management put together by a group of consultants (Downton, Taurel, Noventum) which claims to have discovered the types of organisation that can virtually guarantee sustained revenue growth, and those who are destined to fall further into the pit of cost cutting and tumbling margins.

The report identifies two types of service organisation, and the shared traits which help them to become profitable. Rather than use the report's overtly complex terms, it is easier to describe the two favourable business methodologies as 'large corporate service leaders' and 'smaller, niche providers providing premium service’.

The report argues that smaller businesses which put emphasis on service excellence can succeed by putting faith in staff to facilitate top-notch support and develop relationships with customers. The service in this example is so good that customers will pay a premium for goods and services to ensure support levels are maintained and are likely to buy more products from people they trust, all which lead to ever burgeoning profits for the business.

The problem for businesses in this segment is, as they grow, it is difficult to maintain the one-to-one intimacy that smaller businesses can offer. The solution for organisations in this position, according to the research, is to redevelop the business to move to the next category. The key for larger businesses is to develop a brand, embed service focus throughout the organisation and create processes which facilitate quality service for customers. Such a brand – the example given was John Lewis – doesn't have to rely on a specific individual to maintain a long-term rapport with the customer. Instead the business performs in such a way that the customer knows that whoever they deal with, they will be offered consistent service.
The report carries on by listing various other segments that businesses can fall within the category of negative service, falling profit margins.

I won't detail each of the business types here, but they generally try to compete on price and, as profits fall, have less to spend on the actual service delivery. As service levels fall, further price cuts are the only way to appease customers and the negative cycle continues.

There is much that the IT services market can learn from this way of thinking. IT services do have a direct impact on the profitability of service, and therefore investment to follow one of the models as set out in this report can ultimately impact the bottom line.

A detailed summary of the report can be found at www.thefutureofservice.com

Security secures more funding

Could other IT services become as important in the boardroom?

Security now accounts for 10 per cent of spending on IT, with further investment expected in the sector. A survey of 1200 enterprises by Forrester Research says that despite the economic downturn, 21 per cent will increase spend on security, with all but six per cent of the remaining organisations keeping budgets constant.

Security has also succeeded in transcending IT to become a boardroom level issue, with almost 50 per cent of respondents reporting directly to the board. Whether or not this exposure will help highlight other IT issues is as yet unclear, but perhaps there are lessons to learn about how security has been promoted as a business rather than technical issue that could be applied to other IT services.

A bad day out the office for Canadian support technician

“I’m holding you hostage until you fix my PC”

IT support staff are used to dealing with unreasonable and sometimes abusive customers, but a Canadian woman has taken the concept of awkward customer to a new level by holding a technician hostage until a connection problem was fixed.

Canadian actress Carol Sinclair said that she had been on the phone to her ISP over 20 times with no conclusion until finally an onsite repair visit was arranged. Sinclair claims that when the engineer couldn’t fix the problem she asked for him to stay until the second technician arrived.

However, local police said that in reality she told the man he couldn’t leave until her issue was resolved, implying she had a gun to keep him hostage. Sinclair was charged and banned from speaking to Aliant employees.

To read the full article:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2008/09/02/technician-hostage.html

Customer Strategy Magazine Highlights 3 Fold increase in First Level Resolutions

Read an interesting article in the Customer Strategy Magazine which highlighted results from a survey conducted by the Service Desk Institute (SDI) into the changing role of Service Management.

A total of 159 service desk managers across 11 industry sectors responded to a questionnaire to understand their views on the industry performance, trends and service quality provided by the service desk software vendors.

The article highlighted that companies are both investing and elevating their IT Service Management with the aim of achieving best practice through the use of standards like ITIL in their IT support operations with the aim of raising customer service levels.

Three main points highlighted by the SDI Service Desk survey included:

1. First-level resolutions have increased 60% from only 21% when the SDI first conducted the research in 2004

2. ITIL standards are continuing to be adopted by organisation from only 30% using the methods and procedures in 2004 to 68% in 2008.

3. Organisations are increasingly favouring a two tiered approach to IT Support with more staff on the front line. If they are unable to deal with the request they elevate the incident to a second tier to handle. This second level comprises of more specialist technical support technicians to help establish the cause of the IT support incident.

To read the source article please follow this link:

http://www.customer-strategy.co.uk/csnews/index.cfm?ccs=584&cs=3772

ICT software that FITS

The need for enhanced ICT support services in education has resulted in ICT managers looking for ways to effectively manage schools ever increasing ICT estate. Richmond Systems are running a series of online presentations covering the five essential topics to consider when looking for ICT helpdesk software.

These webinar presentations use the on-line Webex software for live demonstrations of the Richmond SupportDesk helpdesk software to:

• Manage the increasing ICT estate in education
• Effectively track phone, email and web support requests
• Implement BECTA best practice framework (FITS) and ITIL processes
• Improve the efficiency of ICT support departments within education
• Analyse ICT support needs with comprehensive reporting

The next two webinars take place on Wednesday 18th June at 3.00 and Wednesday 25th June at 3.00, there is no charge for the event. To register, simply visit www.richmondsys.com/web/education/registration.asp.

The first ten people to register and attend the presentation will be posted a free USB hub.

For more information about FITs and the Richmond SupportDesk Help Desk software for education visit: www.richmondsys.com/education.

Specialist Schools and Academies Trust team up with Richmond Systems

Richmond Systems is helping the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust’s new IT manager, Jahangir Janmohamed (JJ), to integrate service support into the running of the organisation, following the extension of its use of Richmond SupportDesk. The service desk software has been used to log calls to the IT team for the last two years, but under JJ’s leadership it has been further enhanced to integrate more fully with the Trust’s internal processes.

JJ commented: “My predecessor had bought Richmond SupportDesk but it wasn’t being used to its full potential. With help from the team at Richmond Systems, we have been able to extend its use from the IT team logging calls into a service that all staff members can use to flag IT problems. Richmond SupportDesk works intuitively, so was quickly taken up across the organisation whilst raising the profile of IT and making a real difference to the way employees interact with the department.”

Ease of use was particularly important in facilitating system acceptance by employees. Richmond SupportDesk actively encourages system use through clear screen layout, customisable views and time-saving features like single click recording of common issues.

“Now, all IT requests are logged, although it took something of a culture change in the organisation, as some people seemed to think their problem wouldn’t get answered unless they visited the IT team in person. The Trust’s 320 users now realise that going through the proper channels ensures an effective and timely response to their IT issues. Calls are managed properly so that mission-critical problems take priority without other issues being ignored. The IT team now has the tools to prioritise workload, preventing unfair ‘queue-jumping’ and, ultimately, everyone knows they are having their requests dealt with effectively with the resources available.”

“We’re now much better able to support all of the Trust’s employees, which is really important as we’re looking after seven regional offices as well as those based at our Millbank Tower headquarters. At first we got the usual complaints that HQ was getting better service than the branch offices, however using Richmond SupportDesk’s Customer Satisfaction Surveys we are able to directly monitor the service experience of every employee in the trust and use satisfaction scores to allay misconceptions about preferential treatment. Using Richmond SupportDesk has enables us to answer queries in a timely manner, wherever they are in the country, and provide best practice service to the Trust.”

Alleviate IT Staff Work Pressures with Self Service and Mobile Solutions

With the ever increasing demand on IT Staff to deliver, support and maintain new technology, whilst adhering to stringent service levels, the need for innovative solutions to assist them in their challenging roles has never been greater.

Companies are starting to realise that ‘going mobile’ is a necessary way of increasing productivity whilst saving money. IT support staff must not be forgotten as they play a key role in making this happen. They need tools not just to support the mobile workforce effectively, but to make their own work more flexible; being able to access job information while off-site or on the move.

In addition to mobile solutions for IT staff, extending support capability to provide customer self service empowers users to find answers to their support questions whilst reducing workload and freeing up service desk resources.

Richmond Systems will be launching two new solutions at the Service Desk & IT Support Show 2008, Richmond SupportDesk Mobile and a Self Service Portal to help address the work balance requirements for IT support staff.

Richmond SupportDesk Self Service Portal provides customised, interactive access to the service operations via web browsers. The fully configurable solution is designed to meet the specific support needs of diverse internal and external customer groups. Managed Service Providers can add value to their services by tailoring the interface and user experience for each customer.

Richmond SupportDesk Mobile provides service desk staff with live incident management on the move through any device supporting the Windows Mobile™ operating system. This maintains real-time interaction with the central service desk.

“IT support staff face huge demands on a daily basis, providing them with the tools to work as effectively as possible with limited resources helps alleviate some of their daily pressures” commented Eric Wright, managing director at Richmond Systems.