Coffee Chat on May 17 at 11:00 AM EST: Successfully implementing self-service within an organization

Hello Everyone!

Hello

Wishes for your certification, @zachary.king. Make sure to add your thoughts on today’s topic and about your certification too, later with us :)

Here’s my first prompt for the day and @manns will chime in with his expertise. 

Q1: Which challenges and opportunities drove your organization to adopt IT self-service capabilities?

To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering the first question Q1, start your answer with A1 and use the Quote option 

Joining in for the first time here :)

A1 We are on the cusp of adopting IT Self-service capabilities - we are testing the waters so to speak, so I’m hopeful that this discussion will give me some good insight.

A1. I’m not being lazy (well, maybe a little), but I wanted others to chip in a few things first on this question :)

Welcome to our coffee chat, @WHeine 

@foxcubmama so much can be learned from the successes and mistakes of others

That’s amazing!!

Welcome @WHeine … The next hour is going to be crazy and insightful… Do share your queries!!! 

A1 we have grown quickly and we need to scale and also strengthen the access to knowledge which is why we are now looking at self-service as a general principle across all of our departments and not just limited to IT.

A1. OK, I’m twitching to type. So here’s my starting position on this :)

Self-service offers “better, faster, cheaper” IT service and support capabilities – but the primary motivation matters so much. Aiming to reduce IT costs (by letting end-users help themselves) or reducing ticket volumes through “deflection” (a horrible word that’s still used in IT support) is not the best focus for self-service initiatives.

Instead, “better, faster, cheaper” should be viewed in this order – that the focus on being better (think better employee experiences) means faster service and support experiences that ultimately reduce costs.

I’ll share some usage and success stats later, but I’d be willing to bet your organization’s primary motivation for self-service will have influenced how it has fared so far.

Ah, glad to know that @foxcubmama. I’m glad you’re here today. Feel free to drop your questions to Stephen @manns and to the rest of the participants.

This is my second day on the job to help my company integrate an IT self service system to better serve our customers and reduce the workload of our employees who have been using a few different systems in the past. I’m eager to see everyone’s wise words on how to implement these systems effectively!

@manns 

A1. We are finding that many of our team members are asking for self service capabilities and they like being able to solve their own requests in terms of getting equipment or approvals. We also found that we can standardize the inputs that we want from our team members which expedites our service request processing. 

A1. It’s not unusual for self-service adoption levels to be far lower than expected/needed. And even if there is a reasonable adoption level, it’s worth considering this: “How much of your self-service use is when the IT service desk is shut?”

The most common challenge that I have come across is ADOPTION. Change management has and always will be the first roadblock… What has worked for some organizations are Communicating the value it brings, the ease, and the additional coffee breaks that one can now afford… 

Your thoughts? 

A1 : We answer a lot of the same inquiries daily, and we would like to decrease the number of incoming tickets by allowing customers to self-serve and access helpful information without needing an agent to repeat answers and give the same info repeatedly.​​​​​​

excited to see the answers to this one!!

A1:
A few challenges that we faced were:
1. Making the Resources Discoverable and having the self-service portal updated
2. Managing Feedback and closing the loop

The opportunities that drove are:
1. An intuitive and easy to use portal 
2. Opportunities to use it on-the-go - Mobile friendly

A1. In many ways, it’s Q2. where the rubber starts to hit the road for this chat as we talk about how difficult self-service success can be and then how to increase the probability of success :)

@WHeine Welcome to the FreshService Community! One thing I have learned the hard way is to make sure the business process is owned by someone, well understood, documented, and followed before implementing any software platform. People > Process > Technology. It takes a little more time up front, but it will save you loads of time in the end. 

@Isaac Thomas it’s important to recognize that low self-service adoption is a symptom that’s likely caused by a mix of root causes.

@keefe.andrews, that’s interesting… Are you looking at some Performance Parameters to quantify any of the benefits while standardizing inputs? If yes, would love to hear some stats around this!!!