Improving user experience and service reliability for End User Computing (EUC) service delivery

Challenge:

I work for a leading IT services company, and currently play the role of an Account Manager for one of our  leading Natural Resources clients. Our firm has been responsible for the ongoing support, maintenance,  and enhancement of a variety of IT Applications and IT Infrastructure in use by this Natural Resources  company over the last five years.

During 2017, we were due to renew our contract for the next five years, and the Client chose to go through  a formal procurement and evaluation process. The Client shared a few key business and technology  drivers that partners and service providers were asked to consider in framing their propositions.  The key  business challenges and drivers included:

•  Adoption of a ‘manufacturing’ mindset and approach to IT service delivery

•  Prioritisation of ‘end user experience’ and applications performance and uptime

•  Focus on ‘innovation’ and ‘pervasive automation’

•  ‘Simplification’ and ‘standardisation’ of systems and processes

•  Improved productivity and reduction in non-discretionary costs for IT support

As the incumbent team, we were challenged by the Client to focus in particular on ‘how might we improve  the end user experience and service reliability’ for End User Computing (EUC) services. EUC services  involves the management and enhancement of end-user computing applications (Enterprise, Line of  Business, and Collaboration apps) as well as devices (desktops, laptops, tablets, mobiles) that were used  by the Client’s end users (over 25,000 users) globally. We decided to adopt a design thinking-led approach  to addressing the challenge of improving end-user experience and service reliability.

Selection:

I along with the team chose ‘visualisation’ as a design thinking tool and technique to navigate the ‘what  is’ and ‘what if’ stages of our problem definition and solving approach. In particular, we used ‘customer  journey mapping’ as a tool to achieve the following:

•  Gain an appreciation of the customer (end users) journey in engaging with us as a service provider  for any issues he/she may have with an end-user computing application or device

•  Identify the various touch points and channels used by the Client’s end users to communicate and  collaborate with our teams

•  Identify potential bottlenecks or choke points in the current as-is processes that are impacting  end-user experience or resulting in delays or dis-satisfaction

Application:

Me and the team used ‘customer journey mapping’ to map out the current as-is service processes for  Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 support of incidents, and the various touchpoints. We mapped our perception  of current areas of customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction along the journey from incident identification  to closure.

Once we had mapped the customer journey for Level 1, 2 and 3 support processes and had identified the  customer lows (or points of dissatisfaction) in the engagement model; the team then began to identify

potential process changes, automation opportunities, and user self-help interventions that can help  improve end user experience and satisfaction with our service delivery. These ideas were then written on  post-it notes, clustered together based on their similarity or affinity, and then stack ranked based on value  to the customer and ease of implementation.

Insight:

Some of the key learnings and insights gained by undertaking the customer journey mapping and  visualisation exercise were as follows:

•  Mapping the customer journey in the context of Level 1, 2, and 3 support processes and their  interaction with our teams helped the team gain better ‘customer empathy’ – earlier we had an  appreciation of the process, but not so much from the customers point of view

•  It was acknowledged that the customer journey and the highs and lows identified were our  perception, and should be validated with the Client by conducting a similar exercise

•  We realised that implementation of some of the improvement ideas identified had dependencies  on the Client’s IT team as well as third-party stakeholders such as other IT service providers or  vendors that we would need to gain buy-in from

Approach:

Some of the next steps in our approach will include:

•  Conduct a similar design thinking-led workshop with the Client’s end-users and have the Client  team undertake the customer journey mapping exercise, so we can compare our perceived view  against that of the Client’s end-users and stakeholders themselves

•  Jointly engage with the Client team to define and/or validate and refine some of our service  improvement ideas

•  Develop a napkin pitch or concept poster for the prioritised ideas in order to socialise and solicit  feedback from the Client (co-creation or co-innovation)

•  Engage with relevant stakeholders to conduct a pilot of the improvement ideas before evaluating  and rolling out to the broader user base

