Technology vendors must expand and evolve their offerings to meet customer needs and expectations for end-to-end enterprise service management. Vendor mistrust due to poor levels of service creates long-term disruption in the IT department and beyond. When a company has committed to an underperforming data center vendor that houses its service desk, ServiceNow® platform, and all related service management, a transition to a new vendor requires time, money, and trust. Now more than ever, it’s critical to leverage best practices for service desk improvement and build trust to provide the highest quality services possible.
Personalized, flexible services from a trusted partner
Organizations expect consistent delivery and data they can trust, often turning to vendors to manage their operations for high-touch departments like the service desk. Internal and external customers expect high-quality service and fast resolution, and providers expect high performance and consistent delivery from their service desk teams.
As such, it’s important that organizations prioritize quality, flexibility, and consistency for service desk improvement. Keeping this top of mind allows companies and vendors to form more successful partnerships built on a foundation of trust. Shifting the working relationship from one that’s purely transactional to one that is a true partnership can be the difference between shaky relationships and poor delivery and high-quality, efficient services.
Similarly, organizations must strike a balance between cutting-edge technology and high-touch, humanized services. Leveraging the right tools and technologies is of utmost importance, but so is providing a personalized experience and continuing to build trust with stakeholders and customers. This can be achieved through face-to-face interactions, personalized communications, heightened transparency, and consistency in points of contact, to name a few. With this in mind, and a solid foundation already built, stronger partnerships will yield better results.
Another key element to keep in mind pertains to knowledge sharing and transfer. When entering a new partnership, it’s critical that both partners have a clear understanding of the other’s culture, teams, and processes, especially those that will require close collaboration. Equally as important, service providers should look to provide continuous, accessible education to their partners throughout the duration of their work together. Doing so ensures all interested parties are in alignment with business objectives and processes, leaving little room for miscommunication that could lead to distrust.
By providing flexible, personalized services to partner organizations, technology vendors can more effectively build trust, creating more successful, longer-term engagements and greatly improving the customer experience.
Clear expectations and transparent communication
One of the most important qualities to look for in a partner is frequent and honest communication. Good communication sets clear expectations and provides the real-time updates clients need to be aware of on a daily basis. Having a service provider that communicates early and often can eliminate potential blips, identify the need for proactive course correction, and build trust. Setting clear expectations and providing key updates can make a big difference in relationship building and fostering a true partnership.
Technology partners should look to communicate frequently and take a consultative approach to their engagements, not simply providing services but acting as a resource to their partner organizations. Acting as a thought leader and providing best practices will establish further trust between partners, as many organizations look to their technology vendors for expertise and continued guidance, often beyond the scope of the original engagement.
Beyond providing technical knowledge and guidance, technology partners must also set clear expectations and report back as openly as possible. Supporting expectations with consistent reporting, metrics, and feedback improves transparency, and transparency builds trust.
Once trust is established and expectations communicated, it’s equally important that organizations work together to innovate and streamline wherever possible. In many cases, streamlined monitoring and reporting can be a critical success factor. For example, a CAI team responsible for monitoring a partner’s network and critical functions, and alerting their stakeholders if something fails, recently looked to streamline this process. They implemented a robocall process that provides automated calls for alerts, automatically contacting the on-call escalation team. Automating the process expanded the capabilities of the Level 1 service desk, freeing the team up to focus on other support areas and high-value activities, while also making the escalation and resolution process more efficient. As alerts are critical to both business success and partner trust, this was a key area for service desk improvement and optimization.
In cases like this, technology can augment human capabilities and work alongside project teams for continued improvement. Partner organizations should look to implement these best practices in their engagements to improve both internal and external customer satisfaction.
For high-touch, high volume departments like the service desk, vendors must prioritize transparency, communication, and consistent delivery. Building trust and balancing people, processes, and tools are key differentiators when it comes to optimizing enterprise service management.
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