Support
Manage demand for IT services to control costs and satisfy clients

A critical driver of an IT department's ability to optimize services is the management of inbound requests. For most IT organizations, the main interface with the line-of-business client is over support requests. As a result, responsiveness to requests has a significant impact on client satisfaction and perception of IT. From an IT management perspective, the volume of reactive or support-based work is the most difficult to predict and can result in significant resource consumption. Additionally, what might seem like a support request in the eyes of the business could really be a software defect, change or issue that could require more than just an hour or two of work.

In order to maximize client satisfaction and IT resource manageability, organizations need to adopt holistic IT management solutions that include seamless and integrated management of any inbound request. Flexible IT management systems allow for requests of any type to be routed and queued appropriately, ensure that nothing falls through the cracks and that the effort is captured. Integrated workflow for managing all demand for services ensures that requests are dealt with by the appropriate staff in an appropriate and timely fashion and that formerly hidden or untracked costs are recognized. Managing support as an integrated part of IT makes it possible to proactively manage client satisfaction and determine the true cost of supporting critical business systems.

Client Self-service Portal

Provide an online, single point of contact for your internal customers. A simple browser-based portal allows your IT organization to collaborate with the business it supports, improving service levels, keeping teams informed and building closer relationships. The client portal enables:

• support request submission and status reporting
• submission of planning requests for IT funding and budgeting
• project status reporting
• threaded discussions
• knowledge-base access.

Call and Request Tracking

Track all client change, issue and support requests relating to projects, applications and infrastructure, to ensure that all requests are addressed quickly.

• Flexible workflow for routing all requests to resolution
• Call tracking and escalation process support
• Integrated time tracking
• Support for multiple time zones
• Generate new initiatives, projects or tasks directly from approved requests for streamlined, seamless workflow.

Workflow Management

Build flexible workflows that automate all of the processes in your organization.

• Personal portal-based notification of workflow steps
• Customizable e-mail notification settings by user
• Workflow dependent on escalation setting and criteria
• Workflow performance management through threshold setting and feedback to users.

Time and Cost Tracking

Streamline time-tracking workflow to ensure that all support- and request-driven work effort is captured. Make it easy for support and IT staff to capture their efforts for an accurate view of IT capacity.

• Ensure time is captured accurately on support requests with "pop-up" reminders and time entry boxes when closing tickets
• Compliance measurement and reporting with automated reminders to users
• Multi-level configurable approval workflow
• Offline time and expense reporting from a laptop or PDA.

Client Satisfaction Monitoring

Leverage integrated survey capabilities to continually track and monitor client satisfaction with service levels at the team or individual resource level.

• Survey builder allows the creation of flexible online questionnaires
• Surveys can be delivered based on event triggers of any type, such as a support-request closure
• Track client satisfaction with key systems and services
• Provide continuous feedback to employees on their performance via personal portals.

Support Staff Performance Management

Proactively manage the performance of support staff through continuous feedback of important metrics to employees and managers. Individual employee portals show staff how they are performing against target metrics.

• Individual and team-based scorecards show performance ratings based on configurable metrics
• Use out-of-the-box metrics or create custom metrics that suit organizational goals
• Example metrics include client satisfaction with support representatives, support ticket close times, knowledge base contribution, etc.

Knowledge Base

Improve corporate learning and communication by capturing valuable knowledge in a central location. Reduce duplicate effort by capturing problem solutions and sharing them with other support staff.

• Support for rich data types and full text searches
• Topic subscription and notifications via personal portals
• Team functionality such as threaded discussions.