itSMF Bulletin November 2017 Bulletin - November 2017 | Page 18

3. Good service costs less
Finally, if you really need more motivation to act now: good
service costs less.
A customer-centric IT support team requires a smaller
budget than a team that provides poor service. A customer-
centric team costs less in many ways:
▪ Less complaints to manage.
▪ Less inbound enquires on ticket statuses to respond to.
▪ Less recurring incidents to resolve.
▪ Higher first level resolution rates.
▪ Higher first contact resolution rates.
▪ More self-service.
▪ More productive staff, taking less sick days and staying
longer.
COST-DOWN, SERVICE-UP SUCCESS STORIES
Sprint went from the bottom of the customer satisfaction
league table for US telcos to the top while reducing
customer care costs by 30%.
Symantec reduced their support costs by 30% while
doubling their Net Promoter Score.
Ulster Bank reduced their customer service costs by 15-
20% and improved satisfaction levels by 10-15%.
One of our cio-pulse.com clients is a multinational
defence, security, and aerospace company. Their IT budget
was cut by more than 50% due to external market forces.
As a result, their average resolution time more than
trebled. But in that same time period they were able to
increase their Net Promoter Score from +64 to +84!
A customer-centric organizational
culture is more than merely a good
thing - it’s becoming a matter of
survival
‘Culture for a digital age’, McKinsey & Company,
McKinsey Quarterly July 2017
About the Author
Dave O’Reardon is the CEO of Silversix and the founder of cio-pulse.com.
Dave has worked in IT for 25 years and in ITSM for half that time, as both a consultant and international speaker. Over
recent years, he’s been awarded Best Speaker, Best Whitepaper and Innovator of the Year by the itSMF, mostly for his
work on measuring and improving IT customer satisfaction.
CIOPulse is an IT customer feedback system that makes it easy to implement the advice in this article, foster a
customer-centric culture and drive Continual Service Improvement.
You can connect with Dave on LinkedIn at /in/daveoreardon or Twitter at @Silversix_Dave. You can learn more about
CIOPulse at cio-pulse.com.
18 itSMF Bulletin—November 2017