How do you balance the demands and expectations of your IT customers and users?

From my perspective and experience, It is important to have a closed loop system (Input-Process-Output-Feedback-Input) which will help know what the customer wants, I remember in Airtel there is a system called VOC (Voice of Customer) which allows us analyse top 10 or 20 customer complains, improve on those services or product having such complains and properly communicate using all the channels to inform the customers. With the advent of social media, it is even easier to access customers and properly manage their expectations and also give them timelines or progress update on new development.

In my opinion, its very important to be open and honest with the customer. Keep them posted of the latest happenings and make them understand how the timeline is moving. Tell them we can cater to all of your requirements but then its to be done in a systematic manner by prioritising the demands, park a few for a later date and it’s perfectly fine. Customer demands are that way never ending and we should never decline them. Need to pursue then in a way that they get convinced that we want to hit the defined object n target first and will for sure meet all these other demands as well. More the demands higher the profits if these are tackled correctly. Give them some freebie’s as well, in order to build the trust and gain their confidence.

Additionally upon collation of the information, playing back to the IT customers & users reaffirms a joint understanding of expectations.

COMMUNICATION is key to customer service. I feel it is important to ensure the the customer is always aware of where you are with their request or incident. Make sure the customer is aware of the delivery date and keep them posted incase there are delays. HONESTY - Do not set expectations that may not be met. Make the customer aware of the turnaround time, dependencies (if there are any). Do not promise what you cannot delivery. CALL CLOSURE - Always provide RESOLUTIONS and not WORKAROUNDS. Resolutions though they do not guarantee the issue will not come back but if the integrity of your work is good then you will know the customer will be satisfied. Workarounds will make the customer think you want to comeback now and again.

Brainstorming and discussion with customer is the essential part in IT business to ensure the satisfaction of customer and align with business requirements

Effective communication for customers and end users within IT is a fine art. You don’t want to over communicate and lose the attention and/or urgency of your communications medium. You also don’t want to under communicate or not communicate with the appropriate timing. Finding your ideal communication strategy is an experience that is unique to each organization and highly influenced by internal culture. Embrace collaboration with your corporate communications teams to establish the most advantageous communications plan for your specific context.

A meeting with the customer is frequently the most efficient communication mechanism due to its interactivity, but customer´s availability can be limited and challenging getting a time-slot. Regardless if you are presenting a service catalog or service proposal, this is a unique opportunity not only to deliver a good image of your company and gain customer trust on the solution but also to capture, re-fine, validate and understand customer needs. These interactions must be thoroughly prepared and getting as much information as possible in advance is key for your success. Not only formal, but also informal interactions with the customer - and also with the different teams in your organization - can be valuable sources of information.

Effective communication is a two way street. I have found providing the information via various means is important. However, listening to the communications channels from a perspective of service that is empathic, (see Simon Sinek), facilitates openness in the communication. Coupling the transparent outward communication with empathic openness to both praise and criticism of the domain strengthens the bonds between customer, user and the IT organization. Communicating also in the context of helping them achieve their goals further enhances the bond between the business and IT domains providing opportunity for collaborative direction setting and collective goal achievement.

Have an understanding that end users do not need to understand the technical difficulties at a granular level, nor do they care. Communication should be transparent, clear, concise and where appropriate with visual aids or relatable examples. For most End User the “What” and “How” are more important than the “Why”. This will allow them to best decide how to complete their daily work, with the tools provided by IT.

Effective communication starts with understanding your target audience. What do they need to know, and how best is that information received? I’ve found that the most expertly crafted email can be left unread, phone calls missed, social media posts scrolled by. It’s usually a mix of multiple approaches to ensure important information gets in the right hands. Tailored messages to key stakeholders or POCs can help you amplify your message to larger groups by asking them to share that information with their teams directly instead of simply sending a mass email blast. Following up directly with key stakeholders after the information is shared can shed light on how effectively your message was received. There’s no one right approach!

Facilitate partnerships between your Service Desk and operations teams. Establishing recurring knowledge shared between teams of each support tier will ensure not only expeditious resolutions for end users’ or infrastructure related issues, it will also drive toward a more KPI performant IT operations machine. The ground work you lay with these collaborative partnerships will enable effective opportunities for automation and self-help issue resolution, service delivery/execution and baselines for ITSM-related scorecards.

Balancing the demands and expectations of IT customers and users is akin to navigating a dynamic ecosystem. It begins with active communication and empathetic listening to understand their unique needs and concerns. Prioritization plays a crucial role, as not all demands can be met simultaneously; strategic decisions ensure critical issues are addressed promptly. A user-centric mindset guides our actions, with the user experience as our compass. Continuous improvement and collaboration drive innovation, allowing us to adapt to evolving expectations. Ultimately, it's a delicate equilibrium that, when maintained, fosters a harmonious IT environment where both customers and users thrive.

The best approach is proactively identifying issues and being resilient during outages. A chaos engineering setup is the most advanced testing of resilience and it takes a robust IT infrastructure setup.

Identifying lessons and learnings are different, ensuring those lessons and mitigations are documented, communicated and implemented in future implementations is often overlooked!

A thing I find helpful when implementing is to remember that the people you are working with on implementation and demands, are not necessarily the ones who will work with the solution on a day to day basis. I find that getting early adopter Super Users, from the people who will be working there, is very helpful. Not only do you get important input on how they actually work, but you find pressure points and bottlenecks that the "higher ups" that owns the system does not always see. A thing that is perfectly fine to do 3 times a day is not necessarily ok to do 30 times an hour. You also get ambassadors who feels ownership for the system, leading to much happier users.

The ITIL process of Continual Service Improvement is a good starting point for building standardized, repeatable processes for measuring and improving Service Delivery within your enterprise. As applied to the question of how we might evaluate and improve specific aspects of IT Operations such as Customer Service or SLA Performance, the concept of Continual Service Improvement is simple and elegant: 1. Measure 2. Make data-driven decisions. 3. Measure Again Socializing, incentivizing, and championing this as a foundational mindset will quickly and organically build an innately data-driven culture, which can effect consistent and dramatic improvements to all parts of your organization.

Be curious, challenge the status quo and raise your hands for any challenging assignments! This is the key to a well rounded technologist who can and will succeed!

Establish a responsive support system to address IT issues and incidents promptly. Maintain a reliable IT helpdesk or ticketing system to track user requests and ensure timely resolution. Communicate progress, expected resolution times, and any workarounds to affected users to manage their expectations.

Expectations need to be balanced only when there is a miscommunication in the expectation of the level of service. Communication is the key to both stakeholders on the delivered level of service between IT customers who pay the bills and the users who consume the service. As IT professionals, one has to work diligently to optimize operations and produce the highest value of service for the lowest dollar spent; however, a dollar can only be stretched so far. IT professionals need to learn how to communicate and tell a story with data and facts. It’s hard when they have to listen to the loudest voices of the users, and that’s where educating the users and getting them to direct their voices to decision-makers are essential.