experience and the pre- and post-sales processes . Whether it be :
• Optimizing the capabilities of inside and outside sales teams
• Supercharging customer support personnel with customer and product knowledge
• Speeding up and providing greater insight into the product and / or service delivery pipeline , or
• Delivering an easy-to-access-and-use online company presence – from accessing product information , through purchase , to post-sales support .
while – that “ IT support ” is really “ people support ,” “ business support ,” or even “ customer support .” With the reality now , in an increasing customer-experienced obsessed world , that IT is ultimately delivering a better customer experience through a potentially long value , or business outcome , chain .
Which starts to raise questions about the adequacy of current IT service delivery and support strategies , policies , processes , people , technologies , and measures . For instance , when evaluating a new ITSM tool , is your company still focusing on features and functions or is it asking the tool vendor to show how their solution will help to deliver the required customer-centric business outcomes ? For me , this is all a CIO “ can of worms ” whose lid will continue to be opened wider as customer obsession becomes more and more important to business , and thus IT , success .
From an ITSM point of view , the question is : “ How do IT service delivery and support activities effectively support business operations and the customer experience ?”
Some ITSM aspects might be pretty straight forward . For instance , availability – if the right things are measured , in the right places , using the right mechanisms . But other aspects , such as IT support , might not be so clear ; or at least clear across the board . Because , while some things might be pretty straightforward , such as the importance of the mean time to restore ( MTTR ) for the online ordering system , others will be less so . For instance , the quality and availability of IT services employed by outside sales personnel and how these impact their ability to fulfill their role and to deliver a good customer experience . It ’ s an extension of what I ’ ve written about for a
About the Author Stephen Mann
Stephen Mann is Principal and Content Director at the ITSM-focused industry analyst firm ITSM . tools . Also an independent IT and IT service management marketing content creator , and a frequent blogger , writer , and presenter on the challenges and opportunities for IT service management professionals .
6 itSMF Bulletin — August 2017