All the responses so far are amazing.

Here’s the second question. @manns - there you gooo! 

Q2: How would you rate your self-service success to date, and why?

As always, use the Quote option.

A2. I’ve various sets of self-service success stats to share here.

In 2017, the Service Desk Institute (SDI) found that:

“The increase in the adoption of self-service tools is undoubtedly due to the range of associated benefits that comes with the implementation of such a solution, most commonly reduced support costs, increased customer satisfaction, and a round-the-clock support channel. However, the number of organizations that have realized these benefits and have achieved the anticipated return on investment (ROI) are few, less than 12% according to recent SDI research.”

It validated what we knew and people didn’t want to talk about.

Spot on! It’s about creating stellar employee experiences. 

For adoption of any new technology I like following the framework in the book “Switch” by Chip and Dan Heath. In a nutshell you need to: 

1. Have a logical reason for why we are doing this change. (example: will help us close more business with customers and make more $$$)
2. Have an emotional reason for the change. (example: We are going to help our work friends combat burnout)
3. Shape the path, make it easier to change (making the new solution easier to adopt or a default option when someone begins a process)

A2. I do presentations at ITSM events and ask the audience about their self-service success - one or two hands raised would be the limit (sadly).

Would you be able to touch a little bit on some potentially proven ways to drive adoption further in a general sense?

@keefe.andrews looking very “organizational change management”-like :)

@Josh.Slocum I’ve some pointers to share

@foxcubmama … Really interesting thought prompts here...

A2. (part 2) Last year, we ran a State of IT Self-Service survey with Freshworks to ascertain how well the IT industry has moved on from these SDI findings.

It found that both email and self-service are now more popular methods – in terms of channel availability – for accessing IT service and support capabilities than telephone:

• Email – offered by 84% of organizations
• Self-service portal – 82%
• Telephone – 76%

In terms of success, only 21% of organizations reported that the expected ROI for their IT self-service investment was achieved. It’s a better level than the 2017 stat but not close to where it should be.

A2. (part 3) A 2022 ITSM Benchmarking survey, this time with AXELOS, also found that self-service is still an ITSM capability that organizations struggle with:

This data can be filtered to show the percentages based on self-service adoption:

Dipping into the survey detail:

• The largest organizations (5000+ employees) were the most likely to have service catalog/self-service capabilities in place, but they weren’t the most likely to have them “working well”; these were the organizations with 500–999 employees.
• The organizations in Australasia were the most likely to report their service catalog/self-service capabilities as “working well” (please note the small sample size).

*** Self-service is definitely an area for many organizations that have struggled despite having good intentions ***

A2. (part 4) So, we still have issues with self-service as an industry. However, the employee experience data I’ll share shortly will show that things can be improved

@Isaac Thomas one of the biggest time savers we recognized was with our employee onboarding process. Using the Service Catalog and workflow automator we took a process that took 30 minutes down to just one or two minutes. With an average of 50 new hires a year (lots of internships) we are saving 25 work hours a year. 

Next prompt for the day, @manns 

Q3: What are the most significant issues you faced in introducing your self-service capabilities?
 

@Josh.Slocum … Well organized thoughts from @keefe.andrews … Something that surely would help in change management...

Wow - I’m loving all the responses! I’ve just joined in and playing catch-up! Looking forward to reading and learning lots !!

@keefe.andrews plus it delivers a great service experience to these new employees :)

I remember a decade ago speaking with a bank where new employees had to wait 6 weeks for a working laptop :/

@alyssia.correa I’ve a version of FOMO where I keep checking I’ve not missed something :)

@manns - Those were such detailed and insightful stats on self-service success. Thanks, for sharing them. 

I’ve been around since the beginning and I’m still playing catch-up for all the responses. @manns, you’re on fire with your three/four part responses to the questions 

A3. There are some common reasons why self-service hasn’t attained the anticipated level of success in organizations (the root causes). These are in no particular order:

• A lack of organizational change management, including selling the “what’s in it for me?” to employees, marketing the capability, and ongoing education
• Employees might still prefer the human touch
• Self-service introduction is seen as a way to cut costs, not to help employees better
• Self-service takes too long to use, and calling the IT service desk is quicker
• Not easily accessible
• ITSM tool capabilities are outdated or ill-conceived
• Self-service is challenging to use, and the corporate capability doesn’t live up to consumer-world-driven expectations of self-service

The aforementioned Freshworks survey also found that (and this is the IT, not employee perspective):

• 16% of respondents stated their IT self-service portal is “Great – Our employees love using it”
• 43% stated that it is “OK – Our employees aren’t fans but still use it”
• 14% stated it is “Poor – Our employees avoid using it.”

So, too many organizations are not doing the right things to encourage self-service adoption (and the benefits this brings).

But people are learning and benefitting as the successes and mistakes of others are shared :)

We’ll make sure to compile that into a post so all of them read it. 

It’s because I sat and prepared some response posts yesterday :)

@manns The points you make around ease of use and communicating the why are spot on. I know personally I am tempted to send out an email about a change, create a training video/host a lunch and learn session, post the training video and call it a day. Part of our job as project leaders is to keep reminding team members about the resources available to them. Also too many projects do not adopt feedback loops during implementation that could help address blind spots or opportunities to make the self service solution easier to use.

I’m still playing catch-up, you all! 

Q4: How does your organization encourage employees to use its IT self-service portal? In particular, how did/do you market your self-service capabilities?