How ITSM services on mobile devices power employees, boost service
Delivering ITSM on mobile devices boosts productivity through the enterprise and will help CIOs drive digital transformation. Here's why and what you need to do.
How many employees avoid opening a service desk ticket because they find the process too hard and cumbersome?
CIOs and other IT leaders have embraced digital transformation by improving customer experience, becoming more data-driven and empowering the workforce. Digital transformation entails different initiatives depending on an organization's industry, goals and customer needs, but several IT capabilities are table stakes for all businesses. IT service management (ITSM), for example, is the most basic service IT leaders need to make easy, fast, effective and efficient decision-making.
If IT can't deliver essential services, then it becomes challenging for IT leaders to implement more strategic organizational practice changes and drive digital transformation.
ITSM capabilities that drive adoption
Which ITSM capabilities drive adoption? Spoiler alert: It's mobile!
Before digging into ITSM services on mobile devices, let's consider some data on mobile trends in the enterprise. In a 2019 Enterprise Mobility survey of its audience of IT leaders, nearly two-thirds of respondents (64.5%) listed mobility as a top enterprise technology investment. In fact, 59.2% allowed employees to access data and apps on a wearable device. My read: If you're not considering how mobile and wearable devices can improve employee experience, you are behind many others who have already invested in these capabilities.
Employees are typically happier when they can interface with enterprise services when and where they need them. A 2018 summary of mobile enterprise app usage showed the following:
- 71% of employees spend more than two hours per week accessing company information on mobile devices.
- 59% of employed Americans work beyond the hours of 9 to 5.
- 34% of work productivity is improved when companies allow employees to use enterprise mobile apps.
But not just any mobile application will spur employee productivity. A cumbersome web user experience ported over to run on a mobile device isn't going to entice employees to use it. A gigantic data entry form asking users a laundry list of questions to classify, prioritize and route an incident is too intimidating and laborious on a mobile screen. Similarly, asking users to provide all the details around an IT request for services can be daunting.
ITSM services on mobile devices need a different UX paradigm. Like consumer applications, the service should be designed for the end user in mind, aligned with their job function and simplified to capture the necessary information.
Guided navigation simplifies the process of opening requests and escalating incidents. An ITSM mobile application must be designed to leverage information on who the employee is, what department they work in, what level of seniority they have in the organization and where the employees are located when requesting assistance. From there, your ITSM services mobile application should guide the user with one or two questions at a time to establish sufficient context on the incident or request.
For example, let's say I work in a legal department and I'm struggling to open a document on my phone while traveling abroad. When opening the ITSM mobile application, it immediately recognizes who I am and what my location is. Guided navigation then allows me to answer a few questions in sequence. I don't know if it's a hardware or application issue, but I can specify the resource I am trying to access. The ITSM mobile app also allows me to screenshot and upload what I see on the phone while trying to open the document.
ITSM on mobile for the service fulfiller
Enabling users to easily submit a service desk ticket is only half the battle. To improve resolution time and employee satisfaction, IT must ensure that the fulfiller of the service request can also review, respond and resolve an increasing number of incidents and requests through a mobile application.
My mobile ITSM request for help opening a legal document may float to the top of the queue because of my seniority in the organization and because legal teams are assigned higher service levels. Gabriella is assigned the request because she's the most experienced working with the legal team, but she's away from her desk when the request comes in.
No problem, as she can review and often resolve issues while away from her desk. She opens a chat with me through the mobile ITSM application and confirms that I am trying to open a specific document that's on the network. She then realizes it's a large document and that I'm opening it over a relatively slow network. She's able to resolve the issue by sharing a compressed version of the file and providing instructions on how to open it. Issue resolved and ticket closed.
ITSM on mobile devices takes the headache out of approving work
In the example above, the IT interface isn't the bottleneck and Gabriella can resolve the issue quickly and easily.
Other types of needs such as procurements for new equipment, requests for access to applications or data sources, signoffs on completed work or reviews to onboard new employees often require actions from a service approver. It's important to also make the service approver's workflow easy and seamless. The last thing managers and leaders want is to spend time at their desks logging into multiple systems and reviewing detailed work orders for approvals. They don't want to become bottlenecks, nor do they want to approve work without considering the nature of the request.
Delivering ITSM services on mobile devices offers the opportunity to consolidate approval requests from multiple systems and streamline the level of detail displayed for making approvals. Mobile notifications alert leaders and managers on approvals that require their attention and enable them to review approvals at more convenient times and locations.
Providing ITSM services on mobile devices is thus an opportunity to improve experience and effectiveness in three groups of employees involved in an incident or request's lifecycle. For IT leaders trying to drive digital transformation, improving these essential workflows entices more employees, leaders and technologists to collaborate on broader strategic initiatives.
