While self-service and self-help IT are in common practice, about half of organizations surveyed are still struggling with full deployment and realizing its value, according to a new report by Ivanti and the Service Desk Institute (SDI). Time restrictions, and lack of appetite from end users and enterprises, are key hurdles in achieving more deployment, according to respondents.
Analyzing responses from 25,000 service desk professionals, predominantly in the UK, the survey found that uptake of both self-service and self-help services has grown due to a need to improve user experience and save time.
While end user uptake has been slow because of a continuing preference for "human touch," respondents cited several major benefits of these services such as better user experience, reduced call volume, 24/7 support, and a better perception of the service desk.
Key findings of the report were:
■ 74 percent of service desk professionals use self-service (a 10 percent increase from 2013) and 58 percent offer their users self-help.
■ The largest motivation driving the implementation of both self-service (90 percent) and self-help (81 percent) is improving services to the end user.
■ Uptake on the end-user side is slow, with 83 percent of users preferring to call the service desk rather than use self-service, and 88 percent preferring to call the service desk rather than use self-help.
■ Respondents overwhelmingly claimed this was due to a preference for "human touch" (72 percent regarding self-service and 88 percent for self-help) but a lack of marketing awareness within the service desk could also be a factor (i.e. professionals are struggling to build an understanding of the role and value of these tools.)
■ The biggest obstacle to implementing both self-service (50 percent) and self-help (53 percent) within organizations is time, closely followed by a lack of appetite from end users and the business (43 percent self-help and 40 percent self service.)
Ollie O’Donoghue, SDI Industry analyst and author of the report, said, "As industry trends change and new generations enter the enterprise IT user base, the demand for self-help and self-service capabilities will undoubtedly increase. Both have an integral role to play in supporting the modern service desk, and organizations armed with the experience and knowledge of a vendor organization, and supplied with the right tools, will undoubtedly overcome the obstacles facing them when implementing these tools."
Self-Help Report Implications
This report raises a very important point – that the customer (and what they want) must be at the heart of any strategy. When developing any service management technology, it is imperative to make meeting business and user demands the priority.
Modern service delivery requires that stakeholders inside and outside of IT be continuously engaged. Solutions such as workflow automation and cloud-based or on premise deployment options enable IT to quickly configure solutions that can increase customer satisfaction.
In encouraging further use of self-help and self-service, organizations need to increase the efficiency of these tools so that the end user is satisfied with letting the "human touch" go. In parallel, more internal communications need to occur so that all stakeholders understand self-service and self-help will contribute business value to the organization.
The Latest
Organizations that are working with artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML) have, on average, four AI/ML projects in place, according to a recent survey by Gartner, Inc. Of all respondents, 59% said they have AI deployed today ...
The 11th anniversary of the Apple App Store frames a momentous time period in how we interact with each other and the services upon which we have come to rely. Even so, we continue to have our in-app mobile experiences marred by poor performance and instability. Apple has done little to help, and other tools provide little to no visibility and benchmarks on which to prioritize our efforts outside of crashes ...
Confidence in artificial intelligence (AI) and its ability to enhance network operations is high, but only if the issue of bias is tackled. Service providers (68%) are most concerned about the bias impact of "bad or incomplete data sets," since effective AI requires clean, high quality, unbiased data, according to a new survey of communication service providers ...
Every internet connected network needs a visibility platform for traffic monitoring, information security and infrastructure security. To accomplish this, most enterprise networks utilize from four to seven specialized tools on network links in order to monitor, capture and analyze traffic. Connecting tools to live links with TAPs allow network managers to safely see, analyze and protect traffic without compromising network reliability. However, like most networking equipment it's critical that installation and configuration are done properly ...
The Democratic presidential debates are likely to have many people switching back-and-forth between live streams over the coming months. This is going to be especially true in the days before and after each debate, which will mean many office networks are likely to see a greater share of their total capacity going to streaming news services than ever before ...
Monitoring of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) infrastructures has become a key concern over the last several years. Modern versions of these systems need continual monitoring to stay energy efficient and deliver satisfactory comfort to building occupants. This is because there are a large number of environmental sensors and motorized control systems within HVAC systems. Proper monitoring helps maintain a consistent temperature to reduce energy and maintenance costs for this type of infrastructure ...
Shoppers won’t wait for retailers, according to a new research report titled, 2019 Retailer Website Performance Evaluation: Are Retail Websites Meeting Shopper Expectations? from Yottaa ...
Customer satisfaction and retention were the top concerns for a majority (58%) of IT leaders when suffering downtime or outages, according to a survey of top IT leaders conducted by AIOps Exchange. The effect of service interruptions on customers outweighed other concerns such as loss of revenue, brand reputation, negative press coverage, or the impact on IT Ops teams.
It is inevitable that employee productivity and the quality of customer experiences suffer as a consequence of the poor performance of O365. The quick detection and rapid resolution of problems associated with O365 are top of mind for any organization to keep its business humming ...
Employees at British businesses rate computer downtime as the most significant irritant at their current workplace (41 percent) when asked to pick their top three ...
