Prioritizing End User Experience (EUX)

|
Many IT organizations fall into routines and begin to overlook or deprioritize the end user experience when supporting or developing business critical technology. Unfortunately, this can lead to end users believing IT departments are ineffective or simply a necessary evil. The good news is that this perception can be reversed, and it starts with a change in the IT culture – where everyone understands that IT is there to support the business, not the other way around.
IT teams must be committed to understanding, supporting and enabling the business. Some of the best ways IT teams can be a force multiplier for the business are by enacting some of the strategies below:
Offer Continual Service Improvement (CSI): CSI is the cornerstone of end user experience prioritization. An enabled IT service manager drives CSI within IT organizations, but all IT team members have a shared responsibility in driving a positive EUX. A variety of tools are also necessary to measure current state, adoption, ideation, and incremental improvements for an end user experience. This can include Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) tools like Nexthink, ITSM platforms such as ServiceNow, or survey tools like Qualtrics; just to name a few.
Focus on Metrics that Matter: Ensure regular reporting to IT management and business stakeholders includes valuable and actionable metrics. Metric overload can devalue the true meaning of operational reviews. Customer satisfaction surveys (CSAT) and IT Service Management (ITSM) tool reporting have traditionally been, and still are, significant metrics to review. However, many conventional measures can be entirely reactive, limiting IT organizations from reaching the next level in positive EUX. Increased adoption of digital employee experience (DEX) tools by IT organizations are bringing game changing proactive means of not only measuring but overlaying intelligent AI self-healing capabilities to greatly enhance EUX.
Assign an IT – Business Liaison: For IT organizations that prioritize end user experience, the idea of a dedicated IT Business Liaison is not new. An IT – Business Liaison has many functions, relies on a multitude of tools, but most importantly shows business stakeholders that IT cares and is focused on enabling end users to perform at their best. This role acts as a feedback loop advocating for both the business and IT.
Perform Tool Review: While there are many tools to enable IT organizations to continually improve end user experience – it is more common to find too many tools or tool sprawl. Performing a tools review is recommended to ensure the right and fewest possible tools are in place to achieve the desired EUX results for the organization.
Services designed to improve EUX:
- IT Service Management: ServiceNow (Incident, Request, Problem, Change, Knowledge, CMDB)
- Digital Employee Experience: Nexthink (measurement, proactive remediation, end user enablement)
- CSAT: ServiceNow (ticket fulfillment CSAT), Nexthink (custom surveys, delivered via toast notification), IT-Business Liaison (feedback)
- Assessments: Performed by experienced IT service management consultants; assessments are objective and great for new leadership.