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

Coffee Chat on May 17 at 11:00 AM EST: Successfully implementing self-service within an organization
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manns
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Hey everyone! In another 10 minutes, we’ll begin this discussion with @manns.

So let’s do a roll call now :D 

Say hello if you’re going to tune in here.  

 

 

I’m here :)

Cheers, Stephen || https://ITSM.tools
akshara.sruthi
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Hey everyone! In another 10 minutes, we’ll begin this discussion with @manns.

So let’s do a roll call now :D 

Say hello if you’re going to tune in here.  

 

 

I’m here :)

Yaaay! I’m here too. 

Joining in for the first time here :)

Welcome to our coffee chat, @WHeine 

akshara.sruthi
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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 

 

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.

That’s amazing!!

Isaac Thomas
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Hey everyone! In another 10 minutes, we’ll begin this discussion with @manns.

So let’s do a roll call now :D 

Say hello if you’re going to tune in here.  

 

 

I’m here :)

Yaaay! I’m here too. 

Joining in for the first time here :)

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

-- Isaac
rashmi.nag
Userlevel 7
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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 

 

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.

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.

Cheers, Rashmi || Team Refresh Community
foxcubmama
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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 

 

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

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? 

excited to see the answers to this one!!

akshara.sruthi
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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 

 

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.

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

J
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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 

 

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

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? 

@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.

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

manns
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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 

 

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

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? 

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)

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

Cheers, Stephen || https://ITSM.tools
manns
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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 😊

Cheers, Stephen || https://ITSM.tools
alyssia.correa
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Wow - I’m loving all the responses! I’ve just joined in and playing catch-up! Looking forward to reading and learning lots 🤓!!

Alyssia, Freshworks Community
akshara.sruthi
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Wow - I’m loving all the responses! I’ve just joined in and playing catch-up! Looking forward to reading and learning lots 🤓!!

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 🔥

 

foxcubmama
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I can’t post for some reason - might be the image

once again constant refreshing and nothing new 😭

akshara.sruthi
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Since we’re running out of time and lot’s more to talk, I’m posting the last two questions together:

Q5: What are some of the good or best practices you’ve adopted to drive your self-service success?

Q6: Have you extended your IT self-service portal to other business functions? If so, what was involved?

 

manns
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Since we’re running out of time and lot’s more to talk, I’m posting the last two questions together:

Q5: What are some of the good or best practices you’ve adopted to drive your self-service success?

Q6: Have you extended your IT self-service portal to other business functions? If so, what was involved?

 

A5. These are some standard points I talk to when it comes to winning with self-service:

  1. Focus on what’s needed for employee adoption. Importantly, employees won’t automatically use self-service capabilities just because they do in their personal lives. So, corporate self-service capabilities must be as good as consumer-world self-service. Plus…
  2. Recognize that self-service is a people-change initiative. It’s a change to the existing way of working, not just introducing new technology. You need to apply organizational change management tools and techniques.
  3. Focus self-service on better employee experiences, not cost savings. When self-service capabilities are created based on employee expectations, the higher usage volumes will allow the anticipated benefits to be achieved.
  4. Design self-service capabilities with the end-user front of mind. Don’t be swayed by the IT-led view of how self-service should work.
  5. Don’t overlook self-help. The real benefits for IT, employees, and the organization’s bottom line come from self-help. This needs effective knowledge management and automation. Increasingly “smart knowledge management” and “intelligent automation” that leverage AI-enabled capabilities.
  6. Use the Level Zero Solvable technique (this is a link to an HDI paper). It helps to ensure that self-help knowledge articles are sufficient – in both quantity and quality terms.
  7. Still offer a choice of support channel. Self-service will not always be the right channel. So, provide a range of support channels. You can always make self-service the best channel (in the eyes of employees) such that it’s likely chosen.
  8. Appreciate that your self-service journey will never end. Expectations will change over time, so regularly assess your self-service capabilities and take the opportunities to improve them further. Measure self-service performance and course-correct as needed.
Cheers, Stephen || https://ITSM.tools
manns
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Since we’re running out of time and lot’s more to talk, I’m posting the last two questions together:

Q5: What are some of the good or best practices you’ve adopted to drive your self-service success?

Q6: Have you extended your IT self-service portal to other business functions? If so, what was involved?

 

A6. The aforementioned Freshworks survey found that 44% of organizations had already shared their self-service capabilities with other business functions as follows:

  • Human resources (HR) – 30% (this is 68% of the organizations that had shared their IT self-service capabilities)
  • Finance – 20%
  • Facilities – 19%
  • Security – 17%
  • Business operations – 15%
  • Customer service – 13%
  • Procurement – 12%
  • Legal – 12%
  • Sales and marketing – 12% (this is 27% of the organizations that had shared their IT self-service capabilities)
Cheers, Stephen || https://ITSM.tools
manns
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A6. (part 2) This Freshworks survey level of self-service adoption was echoed in the AXELOS ITSM Benchmarking Survey, which found that 46% of organizations had shared the IT self-service portal with other business functions:

ITSM Tool Capability

In multiple business functions

Only in IT

Planning to adopt

No plans

Don’t know

Self-service portal

46%

27%

18%

6%

3%

 

This data was correlated with the reported level of ITSM success – that 83% of the organizations with “great” ITSM success had shared their ITSM tool’s self-service portal capabilities with other business functions. In contrast, the lowest level of self-service portal sharing was for organizations with “we’ve still much to improve upon” at one-third (33%).

In some ways, this aligns with the need to optimize ITSM capabilities before sharing them with other business functions. Self-service is not an exception :)

Cheers, Stephen || https://ITSM.tools
rashmi.nag
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How wonderfully buzzing this conversation was with stats, information and learnings. Thank you @manns for taking out time to share your knowledge with us and thanks to the rest of the community for actively engaging, listening and sharing to this conversation. Looking forward to the next one :D

Cheers, Rashmi || Team Refresh Community
manns
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How wonderfully buzzing this conversation was with stats, information and learnings. Thank you @manns for taking out time to share your knowledge with us and thanks to the rest of the community for actively engaging, listening and sharing to this conversation. Looking forward to the next one :D

Thanks @rashmi.nag, this was great fun and entertaining (especially as I’m quarantining due to (finally catching) COVID right now).

Cheers, Stephen || https://ITSM.tools
Keither
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Hi, was there a recorded zoom on this?  I really wanted to attend but couldn’t connect with the right manager for this, for some reason.  We are a new customer using Freshservice and it sounded like a really great topic.  Thanks again

-Keither

Isaac Thomas
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Self service is so important! Great topic - I hope I can attend live but otherwise I’ll chime in after seeing all the smart answers.

Hi Jeannie… We hope you can chime in live… Would love to have your inputs too!!! 

 

-- Isaac
alyssia.correa
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Looking forward to this! :)

Alyssia, Freshworks Community
Isaac Thomas
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Hi @AMGJimmy… Do join us today for a coffee chat with Stephen Mann! 

We hope you like the topic and are excited to share your thoughts and post some questions to Stephen!!! 

-- Isaac
Brindha
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What do we need to consider as MVP for an IT self service portal? 

Brindha
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What do we need to consider as MVP for an IT self service portal? 

@Brindha do you mean the most valuable element of a self-service portal?

 

If our customer wants to start using an ITSM tool, what are the features they should start with? 
For example, they can start with Incidents, service requests in phase 1 to go live and then move to Problem, Changes and Releases in phase 2.
I know this is very subjective to a customer’s requirements as well :) 
I’m trying to understand this from a consultation point of view.. what are the modules a customer needs to start with for them to see the value of using an IT system so that we can provide consultation accordingly

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