As noted here before (and here and here), enterprise request management (ERM) is a business-efficiency strategy that reduces service delivery costs while increasing user satisfaction. Combining a single intuitive portal for requesting any type of enterprise service with back-end process automation, the ERM approach simplifies request management for employees, accelerates service delivery, and ensures first-time fulfillment.
What does that look like in the real world? As reported here a few months ago, one healthcare-focused IT service provider saved $4.7 million with ERM. Below is a new story, detailing how Advanced Technology Services (ATS), a global services provider focused on manufacturers, dramatically increased customer satisfaction while reducing costs and manual effort using ERM.
To compete successfully in global markets, manufacturers are undertaking initiatives like maximizing factory uptime, focusing on their core competencies and driving out unnecessary costs through outsourcing to companies like ATS.
A few years ago, the service provider implemented online service request forms as an alternative to phone calls and emails to get users’ IT issues resolved more quickly. But while helpful, the silos of non-integrated SharePoint forms didn’t provide the rich, interactive experience customers now demand.
This led to incomplete and inconsistent data collection, as well as delays in approvals and manual completion of service requests.
Recognizing the need to further improve its service request processes, ATS set two specific objectives for the replacement project:
1) to drive out costly processes by automating the workflow of service requests, and
2) to improve the customer experience and drive a self-service model.
To meet these objectives, ATS implemented ERM using Kinetic Request and Kinetic Task from Kinetic Data.
The request portal now automatically grabs required user information based on login, eliminating manual data entry steps. These simplified forms make it easier for users to request services, reducing the time to submit requests by more than 80%.
Automated approval processes and request routing have eliminated 95% of the manual effort for IT, saving time, getting rid of bottlenecks, and ensuring all required approvals are obtained.
Rework and manual intervention for service request processes is at an all-time low. Misrouted tickets are largely a thing of the past, as 98.9% of requests and incidents now immediately reach the right service group.
Thanks to Kinetic Data’s ERM product suite, customer satisfaction zoomed to 93%–and is still rising.
What’s more, the new system automatically tracks service time and measures results, so ATS can continue to refine and improve its service delivery processes.
What to do next?
- Read the full news release about how ATS reinvented its service request and delivery processes.
- Download the white paper Enterprise Request Management: An Overview.
- Contact us to discuss how we can help you automate and accelerate business processes.
Cassy Lueneburg