Published: ServiceTalk - The Journal of the itSMF - February 2001

itSMF Australia - November 2001

THE IT SERVICE CENTRE –

BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER 

Karen Ferris

What’s in a name? 

There are many titles currently banded about, each intended to describe the single point of contact provided to a customer of an IT organisation or department. These include Help Desk, Service Desk, Call Centre, Customer Service Centre, Customer Hotline, etc.

I often hear the comment “what is in a name?” and my response is “more than you may think”.

The name you give your operation indicates what you are trying to achieve both to your customers and, (just as importantly), to your staff. The name will set expectations.

For instance, a Help Desk prime objective is to manage incidents from start to finish without losing any along the way.

A Service Desk provides more services than the Help Desk. It takes a more holistic approach extending its responsibilities into areas such as Service Level Management, Supplier Management, Availability Management, Change Management and Configuration Management.

The Call Centre. 

The Call Centre is aimed at handling large volumes of calls for commodities.

During recent consultancy projects I have come across IT organisations that are trying to adopt a Call Centre approach to the management of the IT Service Desk. There are similarities in the technologies and practices but they are essentially two different beasts. Call Centre Staff have a discrete amount of knowledge available to them regarding products, services, prices, availability, delivery times etc. and their responses are usually scripted. Inquiries outside these scripts are usually immediately referred to another level of support.

The IT Service Desk 

The IT Service Desk aim is to continually increase the level of knowledge available to it by diagnosis and investigation. A primary objective is a reduction in the amount of recourse to other levels of support.

Organisations trying to evolve their IT Service Desk or Help Desk into a Call Centre have a focus on call wait times and call talk times, with a view to reducing both. Whilst this is not a bad thing in itself, it is dangerous if an equal focus is not placed on increasing the knowledge and skills of staff through training and access to supporting tools and technologies. 

Some of the organisations I am now working with are seeing the results of their actions to adopt a call centre philosophy. These include staff dissatisfaction, high staff turnover, a widening gap between 1st line and other levels of support, customer dissatisfaction with the level of first line resolution, inconsistent service, and customers bypassing the desk as they perceive no value added service.

Call Centres are Call Centres; and IT Service Desks are IT Service Desks.

So what direction should organisations take?

The IT Customer Service Centre 

My preference is a move towards an IT Service Centre structure or the IT Customer Service Centre as shown in the diagram below.

This portrays the concept of a centre that can deliver ALL services required by the customer and will act on behalf of that customer.

The IT Customer Service Centre is not only there to provide a single point of contact for customers but also to identify and drive improvements to the service provided

< Click to enlarge

The Customer Service Centre as a minimum should encompass the IT Service Desk (as its customer facing front line), Problem Management, Change & Configuration Management, Release Management and Service Level Management. I have seen IT Service Centres also include Supplier Management, Security Management and Customer Relationship Management very successfully.

Integration. 

The integration between these disciplines makes their consolidation into a Customer Service Centre deliver benefits of economies of scale, effective use of technologies, more consistent service, improved communication and a more interesting environment for staff.

The Service Desk provides the single point of contact for incidents, queries, and service requests Requests For Change are passed to the Change Management function and in turn Release Management. Incidents that the Service Desk are unable to resolve will become problems managed by the Problem Management section. Other levels of support will be involved in the resolution of these problems under the control of Problem Management. Service Level Management will monitor the level of service provision and utilise management information provided by the other functions.

I would recommend that Change & Configuration Management are a single entity. Except for small IT organisations I would also recommend that Problem Management and Change Management are kept separate due to an inherent conflict of interest. Problem Management will present Requests For Change to remove known errors from the infrastructure which must be assessed alongside all other Requests For Change. If Problem Management and Change Management are the same entity, one may have a vested interest in authorising changes related to problems ahead of other changes.

Staff opportunities. 

The IT Customer Service Centre offers the opportunity for staff to work in other areas of Service Support and Service Delivery without them being lost to the technical domain which is often the career progression from the Service Desk. This allows the IT Customer Service Centre to realise its investment in staff recruitment and training. Staff can be given a career development plan within the IT Customer Service Centre and the ability to work in other areas provides staff with variety and a more interesting working environment. They will have the opportunity to develop a broader base of skills and have a more complete picture of what is happening, which makes it easier to resolve incidents and problems.

There are other benefits to be realised.

It is easier to implement integrated, end to end processes in a consolidated IT Customer Service Centre. Similarly, monitoring and managing these processes is also easier.

So, what is in a name? 

I posed the question at the start of this article – “What is in a name?” Consider these questions?

As a customer would you rather deal with:

1. A Help Desk – a provider of information for computer users

OR

2. A Customer Service Centre – a business department dealing with customers

(Source: Encarta World English Dictionary) 



As an employee would you rather “provide information….for…users” or work for “a business department” that deals with “customers”?

Karen Ferris Copyright © 2002 KMF Advance. All rights reserved.