How To Boost Customer Experience Using ITIL

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In today’s business environment, delivering a great customer experience is more critical than ever. Organisations that excel in this area often enjoy higher levels of customer loyalty, increased sales, and better overall business results. In fact, research has found that organisations that earn $1 billion per year can increase their sales, on average, by more than $700 million by investing in their customer experience.For smaller businesses, it’s good to know that 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for organisations that deliver brilliant customer service. Conversely, poor customer experience can significantly harm businesses in one quick swoop. Over half of customers say they would switch to an organisation’s competitor if they received just one bad experience.So, with customer experience (CX) being a huge differentiator for businesses and a vital component of customer retention, more organisations are looking for ways to boost their service for end-users. One way organisations can improve customer experience is by adopting the ITIL framework.

What is ITIL?

ITIL is a set of best practices that helps organisations to manage their IT services more effectively. While initially designed to improve the efficiency of IT operations, it has evolved to become a powerful tool for enhancing the customer experience. Using ITIL, organisations can establish clear and consistent processes for managing service requests and incidents, ensuring that customers receive timely and effective support.

How ITIL improves the customer experience

One of the key benefits of ITIL is that it helps organisations to develop a customer-centric approach to IT service delivery. This involves understanding the needs and expectations of customers and aligning IT services with those needs. By doing so, organisations can ensure that they are delivering services that meet the needs of their customers and that they are continuously improving those services.Another way that ITIL can help organisations to enhance the customer experience is by promoting better communication with customers. By using ITIL best practices, organisations can establish clear communication channels and ensure that customers are kept informed about the status of their requests and incidents. This can help to reduce customer frustration and improve satisfaction.ITIL can also help organisations to measure and improve customer satisfaction. By using metrics such as Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), organisations can gain insights into how well they are meeting the needs of their customers and identify areas for improvement. This can help organisations to make data-driven decisions and improve their overall performance.Finally, ITIL can help organisations to establish a culture of continuous improvement. By using ITIL best practices, organisations can establish a framework for identifying and addressing areas for improvement. This can help ensure that they constantly strive to provide better service to their customers.

Seven ways to use ITIL for excellent customer experience

ITIL can help improve the end-user experience in several ways, including:
  1.     Service Management Alignment
ITIL helps organisations to align their IT services with the needs of their end users. By understanding end-user requirements and expectations, organisations can deliver services more closely aligned with their needs.For example, research shows that over 80% of customers like to solve their own queries before reaching out. ITIL can help create a knowledge base that allows customers to have another avenue of service that closely aligns with their expectations and requirements for a self-service option.
  1.     Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
ITIL 4 recommends the use of SLAs to define service commitments and expectations. This helps establish clear expectations with end users and ensure service levels are met.ITIL recommends the cyclical continual improvement service model of Plan, Do, Check, Act, which can help regularly review and improve service level agreements. The consistent review of service level agreements helps to refine and improve the service level, creating a better customer experience.
  1.     Improved Incident Management
The focus of ITIL is to help restore normal service as quickly as possible when there is an unplanned event or service interruption. Incidents or service interruptions can significantly hamper the customer experience and have wider impacts, negatively impacting the brand and its reputation.ITIL provides guidance on how to manage incidents more effectively. By following ITIL 4, for example, it offers the best practices for incident management so that organisations can minimise the impact of incidents on end users and ensure that they receive timely and effective support. This includes aspects such as real-time incident tracking to help monitor progress and ensure a quick resolution.
  1.     Problem Management
Another benefit of ITIL is that it helps organisations to identify and address the root causes of problems more effectively. By reducing the number of incidents and problems, organisations can improve end-user experience and minimise disruptions.ITIL 4 offers a comprehensive process flow for problem management to maintain continuous quality improvement. This includes interactive steps of problem identification and logging, categorisation and prioritisation through to problem resolution and closure.
  1.     Change Management
Change is essential to continually improve the customer experience and ensure the organisation is up to date with the changing requirements of consumer preference. However, implementing change can come with interruptions and risks when it perhaps doesn’t roll out how it’s planned.ITIL 4 provides guidance on how to manage changes more effectively. By minimising the impact of changes on end users, organisations can reduce the risk of service disruptions and improve end-user experience.
  1.     Service Desk
The service desk is a vital component of the customer experience, and ITIL recommends using a centralised service desk to manage service requests and incidents.By providing a single point of contact for end users, organisations can improve communication and ensure that end users receive timely and effective support. ITIL recommends aspects of service desk management such as the use of chatbots, automated updates and progress alerts, and ticket routing so customers know that their request is seen, taken seriously, and actioned promptly.
  1.     Continual Improvement
Finally, ITIL promotes a culture of continual improvement. By regularly reviewing and improving IT services, organisations can ensure that they are meeting the changing needs of their end users and delivering a better overall experience.If you want to invest in a better customer experience to boost your business, having ITIL in place for IT service management is a great next step. You can get your team ITIL-ready with an ITIL® v4 Foundation Course – our 3-day certification course can give a detailed understanding of adding value to customers and stakeholders through the holistic ITIL approach.To add greater value to the customer experience, TSG Training also offers an ITIL® 4 Specialist Drive Stakeholder Value qualification. This helps providers to journey map the customer experience in exceptional detail to drive the organisation forward while fostering the strong relationships that excellent customer experience can deliver.To learn more about TSG Training’s ITIL® certifications and training, please get in touch with our team, who can help you find the ideal next step in your professional development.

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