Cultural Aspects and Excellence in Customer Service (part 1)

It would appear obvious that, in order to prosper, a business should have customer satisfaction as its prime objective. Unfortunately, until recently, many IT departments have been too obsessed with technology to recognize that they have customer at all.

Due to pressure in recent years, IT departments have become more aware of their role in supporting the IT departments of the business. IT departments are now raising the priority of customer satisfaction from being merely a ‘nice to have’ to ‘essential’. They are also aware that the way in which the service delivered is dependent on the people delivering the service.

A customer is someone who deals with a trader and habitually purchases form them. A service is an act performed for the benefit or advance of a person, institution or cause. Customer service therefore is concerned with performing acts that benefit customers in a way that will encourage them to purchase services again and again.

Process Improvement and Service Improvement Program
Organization should not be over ambitious when implementing service management. Most organizations will already have elements established and in operation. Therefore, the service management implementation activity is actually one of process improvement.

Overall process improvement is an interactive activity and would normally consist of the following stages:

• Process improvement definition
  
• Communication
  
• Planning
  
• Implementation
  
• Review and audit
  

The objective of process improvement should be to improve the service, hence, a service improvement program (SIP). A SIP is an activity that should support the corporate missions and organization’s business objectives. It is an ongoing program of implementing service improvement initiatives.

A SIP has no end date – improving the service is an ongoing initiative that has senior management commitment and is continually moving from good practice to best practice. A SIP is made up of a discrete series of project, which have clear objectives.

These series of projects follow the process improvement stages listed above with a clear start and end date.
A SIP should at a minimum, consist of the following steps:

• Assess current practice and processes against ITIL best practice (gap analysis)
  
• Concentrate on problem areas such as ‘where the most pain is being felt’ by the business.
  
• Build on existing good practice rather than throwing everything away and starting again.
  

The key thing is that a SIP must be seen as a senior management initiative with support from the top and be an ongoing program made up of a series of projects with the objective to move to best practice.

Management Commitment
Management commitment is about motivating and leading by example. Management must support the use of best practice openly and demonstrably. It has to start from the top with a total quality approach to leadership. Any attempt to alter an organization’s culture must originate from its leaders. The vision and mission statement must be endorsed by senior management and communicated to all employees. All staff must realize that, either directly or indirectly, they play an important part in delivering service and therefore, in the organization’s success.