By Dick Stark

Nancy Donnelly and I will be joint speakers for a session at BMC Engage, BMC’s annual user conference to be held this year in Las Vegas, September 7-11. Our topic: Remedyforce, FootPrints and Remedy: Moving from Survivors to Thrivers, although most of the 500+ show attendees will be Remedy customers. A preview follows.

During RightStar’s 12 years in business we have worked with over 500 different Remedy, Remedyforce and FootPrints customers in a wide range of ITSM applications. Most customers have an ITSM maturity level of less than level three, and almost all customers fail to take full advantage of the their respective ITSM tool set.

When we talk with our customers about a service desk implementation and the value received, they often state that improvements in reporting is the biggest value-add. Good reporting allows customer to better measure their results. But what about improvements in customer satisfaction, reductions in the total cost of service management, and improved efficiencies? Is the service desk a necessary evil, or a necessary requirement for a company to move from a Survivor to a Thriver?

In early 2015 Nancy and I surveyed approximately 20 customers to determine why customers buy ITSM products and their perceived and real value. The four key takeaways of the study are:

1. Customer Satisfaction continues to be the #1 goal for the service desk
2. Lowering the overall cost of service management should be the #2 goal, but this isn’t the case
3. Improvements in reporting is the most cited ITSM tool set benefit
4. Contrary to IT provider beliefs, customers are excited about self service

Specific findings from the survey:

• 60% of our respondents stated that implementing these solutions has resulted in:
• An increase in the quality of data and reporting
• Meaningful data is being captured for strategic decision making
• 25% stated that implementing these solutions has resulted in:
• Improvement in the amount of self-service interaction by their end-users
• 100% of our respondents:
• Do not track the cost of supporting their customers

Overall, there were very few surprises, other than no customer surveyed tracked cost data. In conclusion, our customers agreed that, the return on the ITSM investment is worth it, the risk is acceptable, and the ITSM toolset and a solid IT infrastructure play a critical role in revenue generation, employee productivity, and cost efficiency.