Strategies to Transform End User Services as the Centerpiece of ITSM

End user services are constantly evolving to address important items such as mobility, BYOD, virtualization and service component standardization. Aligning End user services to meet the evolving requirements generated by social, mobile, analytics etc. requires a focus on adapting to rapidly changing client requirements.  Many companies choose to outsource end user services to drive lower servicing costs.  In our view, this should not be the only goal. Transforming end user services as the centerpiece of IT service management (ITSM) operations is key to realizing the most important benefit; improved IT service quality across the business.

End User services is an area where IT can truly deliver phenomenal value to their customers. To make this transformation with your service provider, (many of these strategies will apply even if you don’t outsource these services) it’s important to focus on a few key strategies:

• Focus on ‘left shift’ incident and service request management; Enable self-service; develop and drive use of knowledge bases (FAQ’s etc.), automatic software delivery and automate as many repeatable tasks/requests as possible
• Improve the information security and data loss prevention capabilities and services across all end user devices
• Drive “zero-touch” desk side support through diagnostic trees and remote control
• Staff a “Techie Bar” in a popular place for ad hoc mobile device support.
• Use six-sigma and total quality techniques such as Pareto and root cause analysis as a means to drive down service ticket volumes and costs
• Use industry accepted and easily integrated service desk tools such as ServiceNow or Remedy to manage incident, request, change, configuration and asset management processes
• Minimize the number of ‘Gold’ images and automate the software distribution, release management, and re-imaging processes
• Choose the location for off-site / off-shore service desk personnel for language neutrality and full 24×7 coverage (follow the sun); In recent years, Service Desk locations have shifted to the Philippines and Singapore, due to their better English-speaking capabilities, and increasingly, other languages are supported in eastern European countries such as Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, etc.
• Improve the quality of staff assigned to your account.  Demand a say in the hiring and evaluation of service desk resources to ensure/certify technical and language proficiency
• Contract for market-current resource unit baselines and business-focused SLAs based on service provider motivation to optimize both service quality and price over time
• Define and manage SLAs to drive behavior

These strategies, along with other best practices, can help drive toward achieving key outcomes such as improved; customer satisfaction, cost position for service desk operations and business perception of IT service quality. Deciding which of these strategies work best for you is the biggest challenge, Wavestone US has years of experience in helping to determine what’s best.

To learn more about Wavestone US’ services, visit https://www.wavestone.us/capabilities/.