Short Guide Through the Successful Help Desk ITIL Implementation

When companies find themselves overwhelmed with work or experience problems such as:

• unavailability to track and manage support resources
• lack of relevant metrics for planning activities
• constant repetitions of same problems
• undefined procedures for managing incident or service requests
• unidentified support staff expenses
• reduced productivity and increased costs
• declining sales due to lower customer trust

they start considering automation of customer support services through a help desk software solution and adoption of ITIL best practices.  For a successful implementation, when we talk about spending business dollars, acquiring a software solution is among last steps. Running a customer support in effective manner usually needs more than just a piece of software, and focus should be on ITIL implementation since that will increase the business value of IT and influence the result.

As we all known, ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) provides a cohesive set of best practice, drawn from the public and private sectors internationally. It is the most widely accepted approach to IT service management in the world. (source: official ITIL website).

What does it mean in terms of the successful help desk implementation and ITIL adoption? It means that ITIL defines all elements and processes of a perfect help desk (such as incident management, service level management..), but it does not tell you how to do it inside organization. It is quite understandable since there is no one-fits-all ITIL workbook plan as well as one-fits-all business strategy.

How to successfully implement help desk solution and adopt ITIL

To manage IT infrastructure in line with business expectations, a company should develop process-driven IT organization – a process that requires a high level of organizational effort. Besides a good read about organizational changes, this small guide may assist to accelerate ITIL implementation and help to successfully deliver benefits.

Get Support; involve management and end-users

An ITIL implementation leads to changes in an IT organization that usually affect all core factors; people, technology, information, and processes. Therefore, decision to implement help desk software on ITIL should be treated as a strategic business decision supported by the management, stakeholders and IT staff.  Everyone must understand why ITIL, what are business objectives, and have a clear picture of risks and critical success factors as well as of benefits.

Since process improvements can be costly and timely, management support is often the critical one. They can secure you the right budget and they have the authority to accept and promote changes vital for success.

Begin at the end of your mind

To reduce effort, cost, and risk, start from defining your vision and goals. They should be the initiatives an ITIL environment is built on. When defining goals, make sure that they are measurable through exact periods. For example, a goal like; “to resolve incidents as soon is possible, at minimum operational cost, and at the best possible level” is hard to measure. Try rather with; “reduced operational costs by XY% at the end of the first year, reduced resolving time per incident, increased cross-selling and repeated purchases” etc. Those goals provide you with opportunities for evaluations and corrections.

In clarifying your goals, further analysis are necessary:

• analyze your current situation
• analyze help desk users and their benefits
• analyze customers and their behavior/expectations

The last one could be critical since the good ITIL help desk implementation and excellent support has focus on customers expectations.

Make a plan on a phase-based approach

Getting the best of the ITIL is a timely process. Start simple, make overall plan and than develop annual or quarter goals to avoid complexity and break your plan down through phases. For every phase:

• set priorities
• point critical success factors in terms of people, processes, and technology
• define a proper set of metrics that measure quality as well as performance
• identify responsible people and decision rights
• define clear procedures and map out help desk processes
• include communication plan to communicate quick wins to all users

Between phases, it would be good to give users some time so they can get used to the change and explore benefits.

Don’t avoid training and education

A training and education can be the triggers that will provoke the right attitudes towards ITIL among staff and make a fear of change disappear. All users especially support and IT staff must understand that they provide customer service (is as good as the weakest factor) and a piece of software will not make their job right easier. Teach them how to be proactive, to listen customers and learn from them on everyday basis.

Do not forget educating customers. Let them know how and when they can get help and encourage them to use a knowledge base. They will appreciate when they see you are making efforts to assist them with straightforward resolutions and serve them better.

Measure, Correct & Improve Constantly

There is a saying; What gets measured, gets attention. I can’t tell you how much truth is in it. People want to do a good job, but when they don’t have benchmarks and feedbacks about their job, they start asking if anybody cares about what they do.

In order to drive positive behaviors, define a few key customer-oriented metrics that will help you measure both, staff and procedures.

Advertise and ‘sell’ your changes

As I said, a ITIL help desk solution can extend your service-based competitive advantage. As soon as it start delivering benefits, you should “sell” it.  Express it in words your clients and customer understand and include it in your advertising copies.

Even ask customers to advocate it for you. Remember, your future success depends on marketing your competitive advantage.

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