A Consistent Start to the Customer’s Service Experience

By Robert Hall, Support Analyst, Marval

Service Catalogues are becoming increasingly popular lately, as many Service Desks have recognised the need to develop and introduce one to their customers and staff. This organized collection of technology-related services provides an accurate overview of the services that can be delivered by the Service Desk for the enterprise and its customers. The benefits are many.

A Service Catalogue helps the business identify the services it can (or should) offer, and any resources required for the timely and successful delivery of these services. By providing standardized services, the Service Desk can reduce its OPEX while improving allocation of its available resources and optimizing their use.

This clear and detailed description of available services helps increase confidence of Support Staff and accelerate decisions and fix rates; also improve team productivity. Furthermore, it helps set the right expectations; the customers can refer to the Catalogue to check what services are available, what the expected resolution time is, and how much it will cost them.

In terms of Marval MSM it actually means a consistent start to the customer’s service experience. When a call comes in to the Service Desk, the User can be guided by a single or multi-level Service Selector.

For example;

Infrastructure / Internet Connectivity – where Infrastructure is the Top-Level Service and Internet Connectivity is one of the possible Sub Services.

Using this approach there is no ambiguity when the calls are logged, and it is a simple task to educate the Users if new or old services are planned or retired from the Catalogue, say Internet Connectivity became Internet Access.

In Marval MSM, individual services can be set up and have a wide range of information associated such as:

• Restrict services by customer, request type or support groups
• Make services available on the Self-Service Portal
• Group services into packages
• Capture stages of a service by using portfolio statuses
• Catalogue class and sector information
• Services required for business continuity

The system also allows the service development to be recorded using planned go-live, actual go-live, next review and retirement dates. Furthermore, references or business cases such as service design plan, service transition plan, service operation and support plan or service improvement information can be stored as attachments.

Service Catalogues are becoming increasingly popular and there are several good reasons for that; from operational to business benefits and also the introduction and promotion of a culture that encourages consistency in service delivery, making the service experience richer and better for every customer.