CHAPTER 1: THE USD IN THE ENTERPRISE
In general, enterprises require that all service processes relating to customers are handled in line with the perspective of the customer. This does not happen when the favourite framework of the IT organisation or department becomes the goal, rather than the tool. Focusing on the customer's perspective usually means that all services offered through the USD should be streamlined for efficiency and channelled for ease of access.
After reading this chapter, the reader will become acquainted with the subject of the USD and concepts of service delivery. Readers will understand how this book is structured. It is intended as a guide; it is not intended that you plough through every word and pass an exam that certifies that you know where to find a word in a diagram, but that you have no clue what to do about it.
1.1 Demand-oriented USD
The USD directs the bundling/combining and delivery of customer calls (or how to ignore them until they go away, your choice). The USD is, in essence, a concept relating to services or service delivery. In some organisations, a USD may not have a physical location; really, there is no need to have a USD physically in place (such as a bureau or a bunch of IT types with fancy headsets and nice shiny badges of credibility). For example, public services for municipalities and service centres for consumer support which are often wholly automated. A USD can exist as a telephone-based help desk (for your IT types), or as a portal on the Internet or intranet. A USD is not always a physical entity at a location where callers are seen, assessed and sent on their way. Large outsourced USDs are the exception to this rule; although in these cases, greed dictates that many staff work from home in foreign lands (such as County Durham), and get paid a pittance, and have to pretend their name is Derek or Jeff or Pierre or whatever.
In summary, the USD has many appearances.
There are many names for a USD (come to that there are many names for those staffing the USD but most should remain unpublished); you can have:
Contact centre;
Call centre;
Service centre;
Support centre; and
Help desk or just front office.
In this book we use 'USD' because it makes money.
No, we use USD because it should relate to demand-oriented working and where the customer request is a starting point. The USD is a key component of demand-oriented working (we said that twice to make sure you'd notice). The concept of the USD originates from the management concept of front and back office. This principle states that the demand and needs of the internal customer provides guidance within legal and policy constraints.
Of course there are many definitions of the USD. Here are some examples:
The central point of contact for services that respond to enquiries from internal customers;
The single point of contact;
The internal customer contact centre;
A functional unit with employees who identify and resolve service incidents. Contact may be made by telephone, intranet or automatic reporting;
A single point of contact within an organisation for managing customer incidents and service requests1;
A central department in an IT or business organisation. It may be a comparable department in an organisation, like a call centre or help desk. The USD is also a function that has been described in ITIL; and
A contact centre; that is a coordinated system of people, processes, technology and strategy that opens, makes available, and admits information sources and expertise, through chosen and qualified communication channels that make possible interaction and add value for the customer and the organisation.2
For this book, we practice the following definition of the USD:
The point of contact/central node of the enterprise where the customer can be admitted/can pose any and all questions and calls about (internal) service delivery. The USD then takes responsibility for appropriate action for the satisfaction of the customer in line with service level agreements.
Notice that this definition does not say anything about conforming to any framework or 'best practice'; service management should focus on the person at the other end of the enquiry, not on 'best practice'.
In this book, we show you how a USD within a demand-oriented organisation can be designed and implemented in a pragmatic and organic way. After all, the basic steps of demand-oriented working is acceptance of the customer question, registration of it, following up on it and to deliver a response as appropriate.
1.2 Why do you want a USD?
Enterprises need to react faster and faster to developments in the market or, in government, to societal changes. As a result, working flexibly in terms of time, place and capacity is a necessary condition to stay in business. The USD organisation/support adds (almost always invisibly), to the ability of the enterprise to provide business services. One development is that many enterprises want to provide employees the space to optimise their productivity.
Enterprises are increasingly tying to meet highly individual needs: maybe one employee wants to work at home while the other is a happy worker when they work while others are sleeping. One will a want a room, others like to work anywhere, anytime with their laptop.
An enterprise's USD:
Is part of the professional service delivery that is directed by the enterprise;
Provides many advantages. A USD makes it easy to efficiently streamline processes in ways that meet the needs of internal customers. As a result, tasks in back offices can be organised more efficiently, rather than being 'fixed' over and over again;
Has a clear point of contact for the internal organisation for support so that employees can focus on their own tasks;
Prevents arbitrary decisions being made within the enterprise about the provision of service support; and
Ensures that all user enquiries are centrally collated within the enterprise and are forwarded to the right place in (or outside the enterprise) for resolution.
Many enterprises already have a USD or USDs, or something that looks quite like one: if it looks and smells like a USD, then it probably is one.
The role and function of the USD will evolve further and become more important as organisations and their employees learn to work in the new digital world. In other words, life is going to get more complicated in the office and someone will need to be on hand to help.
In the past, a business could focus provision of standard offerings with regard to how support was offered to internal (and external) customers. Today, businesses need to adapt to the individual needs of employees, workplace support and customers. However, despite this increase in scope, businesses cannot allow their total costs to increase. On the contrary, there is more need and demand to decrease costs. So, we have the usual paradox of getting higher service quality for the same or lower costs. The importance of the USD becomes higher as it has a central role in this strategy. This leads to the need for further improvement and development of the USD.
The USD needs to create generic solutions to customer enquiries and incidents in order to increase efficiency. The USD has the potential to act as a spider in the web of an enterprise, and to facilitate the resolution of most internal and external customer enquiries. Such a service requires a solid functional base to serve as a source of information for all, and to store and interpret data to promote innovation.
Example: A complete USD
The USD is the central point of contact for the business organisation where every employee (and/or customer) can submit their questions, problems and reports. From here, the call or report will be followed up and a decision taken regarding the follow-up. If necessary, the call will be escalated to other parts of the organisation. The USD should be founded on close cooperation with colleagues from other parts of the organisation e.g. IT, human resources, finance.
Enquiries or calls will be driven through the intranet where possible (through the service page), email and, of course, via phone - and in some cases at a counter where real people actually exist. On average, there will be around 300 enquiries a day through all channels.
In this example, the USD is needed to provide information about all available services and products. Products and services delivered by the USD, and included in the products and service catalogue, may encompass: mobility (taxi bookings, car hire, air and train tickets), enquiries relating to infrastructure (furniture, trolleys, mechanical and building problems, room reservations and receptions) and information about organisational services (IT, HR, Payroll). The USD also coordinates the delivery of all services to new personnel, including the creation of employee accounts and the provision of furniture, access passes, laptops and mobile phones etc.
1.3 The USD for service management
In this book, we focus on all aspects of the design, construction, improvement, innovation and further development of a USD. Other important aspects, such as the implementation of the USD, and the functioning...
