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A Brief History of ITIn order to understand the essence of IT service delivery, you can best compare it with a magic trick. Magicians are renowned for making things that are tangible and visible simply disappear. IT specialists, in contrast, work in the reverse order. By measuring the quality of their services, they attempt to make ‘invisible services’ as visible as possible.

The trend to make IT service ‘visible’ can be best illustrated based on the development that ITIL has undergone in the last couple of decades. The series of books on ITIL were compiled in response to the need to improve the way in which IT services were described

Towards qualitative client satisfaction

TEXT: GÖKHAN TUNA

Within the last fifteen years, the role of IT service has

experienced explosive growth. What began as a small

group of system administrators, who managed the

network behind the scenes, has grown to become a

valuable department, which has a central place within

the organization. For IT organizations, providing good

service is now more important than it ever was, with

satisfied customers being a measure for success. Yet

as contact with the client grows in intensity, IT service

providers continue to measure the quality of their service

without involving the client.

and set out. ITIL version 1 was released at the beginning of the 1980s, during which the emphasis was exclusively on managing the technology. During this decade, IT organizations delivered sufficient added value, as long as everything, from a technical point of view, ran smoothly. The maintenance and development of the IT infrastructure took place predominantly in the background.

The second version of ITIL was released in the mid 1990s. It capitalized on a resolute change of mentality from the management of technology to the management of services. The reason for this change was that organizations were becoming increasingly

dependent on IT to reach their objectives. By offering technical innovations, the IT department enabled the business to realize its objectives more effectively. The contact between the IT organization and the client grew in intensity and, as a result, the service delivery was moved to the foreground.

The third version of ITIL has been around since 2007. In this latest version, the entire field of service management is laid out. The IT organization is no longer the invisible team that it once was, delivering and supporting only automation tools. IT support, in contrast, has become an essential part of the organization and

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responds to the prevailing demand for information technology. The IT organization and the business are involved in a continual process of finding the balance between supply and demand.

Delivering QualityThe IT organization must be able to deal with rapidly changing technological developments, while the commercial need of its clients changes at the same time. This tension between supply and demand puts IT managers under constant pressure to prove that

their service is client-oriented. Nowadays, the magic word in service delivery is quality. But what exactly is quality?

Scholars distinguish roughly three approaches to describe the concept of quality. First, the philosophical point of view: In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974) Robert Pirsig describes quality simply as ‘excellence’. One recognizes quality when faced with it, but cannot explain it. For example, “Music composed by Beethoven is of a high quality, but we still don’t know why”. 1 From a theoretical point of view, this approach is perhaps interesting, yet virtually unusable in practice because quality, according to this definition, cannot be accounted for nor measured.

The second – technical – approach is exactly the opposite. According to this approach, of

which Frederick W. Taylor laid the foundations in ‘The Principles of Scientific Management’ (1911), quality can be seen as an objective standard that can be measured. In this case, any divergence from the standard means a reduction in quality.

Finally, the client-oriented approach leaves the definition of quality up to the client. Quality is thus subjective and depends on the client’s individual experience. According to the definition of Joseph M. Juran, expert in quality

management, the quality of a service is good when the client is convinced that it’s good.

The Technical Approach Currently, numerous IT organizations use the technical approach to measure the quality of their IT services. By employing objective quality standards, organizations can acquire insight into the technical quality of the service: How many questions are being answered successfully? How many disruptions are being restored? How many bugs are being fixed? To guarantee this quality, checklists of quality standards are drawn up; for example, the telephone at the help desk must be answered within three rings.

To a certain extent, this is a useful method of measuring quality; however, it is no guarantee for success. In the example above,

help desk employees could answer all incoming calls within the given three rings, only to put the customer on hold. Sure, the quality requirement is met – the phone didn’t ring more than three times – but has a good service actually been delivered? Figures are conjured up out of thin air, creating the illusion that the service has been made measurable. The danger of this technical approach is that help desk employees aim to meet the quality standard, without it actually leading to a general improvement of the service.

Whether the client is satisfied with the provided service does not depend on what is delivered (the technical quality), but also on how the service is provided (the functional quality). The telephone might be answered quickly, but is the help desk employee at the other end of the line actually friendly? Does he or she use too much jargon? And if the client is offered a solution, is his or her schedule taken into account?

The Client-oriented ApproachResearch reveals that it is exactly this functional quality that is decisive in the perception of clients.2 The reason for this is the nature of providing service: services are not tangible, but are effected as the result of interaction with the client. The client is one inseparable component of the service. Therefore organizations that wish to gain real insight into the quality of their service, should then consider applying a client-oriented approach. What does the client think of the service? If an IT organization is really striving for client satisfaction, then the

“Quality is subjective and depends on the

client’s individual experience”

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emphasis should not only be on what is delivered, but on how it is delivered.

In order to promote a client-oriented attitude, in particular a change is needed in the way of thinking. Employees in service organizations must have a ‘service attitude’ in order to be able to deliver quality.3 This attitude comprises three elements that the employees of the IT organization should possess.

First, they must possess the technical knowledge and skills to meet the wishes of clients; in other

words, the help desk employee should know what he or she is talking about.

Additionally the help desk employee should be competent in assisting clients. He or she understands the client’s situation, finds out what the client wants and can offer alternatives that are useful to the client.

A third component of this service attitude concerns the capacity of the service desk staff to work together as a team. The client is often dependent on several persons at once, who together are responsible for providing the service. They have to be able to communicate with one another in order to prevent the client from being sent on a wild goose chase.

ResearchThese may all be good intentions, but how can you be certain that such an approach actually works? If the quality of the service is determined by the client’s perception, then it is important to take the client’s wishes and judgement seriously. Only in this way can you measure whether the service provided at the end of the day actually meets the expectations of the client. A client satisfaction investigation is an ideal way to do this as it offers a platform for clients to express their views and opinions. As a result, the IT organization has a much better

idea of which points they need to work on in order to improve their service.

Client satisfaction investigations can be conducted in the form of a survey. It is best to conduct such an investigation periodically – annually for example – in order to check on a regular basis whether the service (still) meets the expectations of the client. After all, expectations can change considerably over time.

It is useful not only for clients to fill in the survey, but also managers and employees. The results of the surveys can be compared in order to check whether discrepancies exist between the perception of service according to employees, managers and clients. If the survey

reveals significant differences between the three parties, then the employees or managers clearly do not know how to place themselves in the clients’ situation.

Use the results of periodic client satisfaction investigations to implement goal-oriented improvements, in order to ensure that, in the future, the service better meets the expectations of clients. The feedback of clients is an ideal way to evaluate the client-friendliness of the IT organization. The figures and statistics that were conjured up out of thin air in the technical approach perhaps create the illusion that the service has been made measurable; however, a client-oriented approach presents a reliable representation of the quality of your service. In the end, only by listening to its clients can the IT organization structurally improve the service it offers.

Gökhan Tuna is a Consultant at TOPdesk.

1, 2, 3 Kasper, van Helsdingen,

de Vries, Services Marketing

Management, 1999.

Sources

Christian Grönroos, Service and

Relationship Marketing (1990).

Kasper, van Helsdingen, de Vries,

Services Marketing Management

(1999).

“The danger is that help desk employees aim to

meet the quality standard, without it actually

leading to a general improvement of the service.”