In the face of ongoing market uncertainty and changing customer demands, financial firms are being forced to accelerate their digital transformation plans. The idea is that IT and data can be used to enhance and improve every aspect of operations.
But there’s a problem. 43% of financial services businesses still regard IT as being “separate” to the rest of the organisation. This divide is exactly what digital transformation is intended to stop – which means that nearly half of all firms have a significant risk of failure built into their strategy from the start.
Ironically, IT can lead the way in dismantling the silos and helping the rest of the business by sharing their experience in customer-facing operations.
Your IT department as a learning resource
The IT business unit is bound by various service level agreements that are designed to ensure internal stakeholders have an efficient, reliable infrastructure on which to work. To help improve their response to these demands, many departments have adopted IT Service Management (ITSM) principles and systems.
Ideally, ITSM aligns with wider strategic goals to ensure current services and future projects deliver tangible benefits to the business. This will involve formalising some activities like deploying software, commissioning hardware, problem management etc.
ITSM also requires the IT department to improve their incident management processes - how they respond to requests for assistance from you, their users. Indeed, an ITSM-driven team will have a well structured mechanism for recording, actioning and solving customer issues. This will involve automated responses, issue
This experience can be leveraged by other departments to improve external customers interactions in a digitally transformed organisation.
ITSM and CSM
Extending this customer-focused philosophy beyond ITSM leads us to CSM - Customer Service Management. Very similar in principle, CSM not only provides a way to capture every customer interaction (like CRM that went before it), but also mechanisms to improve the quality of service you offer. And like your IT counterparts, you can develop playbooks that automate customer interactions, escalating queries and issues to the correct team for action.
And just like ITSM, CSM is a process of continuous improvement, constantly looking for ways to deliver a more effective, efficient. service to customers. The data stored in your CSM platform can be analysed to identify bottlenecks or opportunities for improvement, to enhance the customer experience and to see where you can offer customers additional value.
The end of us and them
Successful digital transformation is wholly reliant on dismantling silos, traversing the boundaries between teams and using data to make smarter decisions more quickly. Allowing the IT department to remain separate from the rest of the business will reduce the overall effect of your efforts – and limit potential gains too.
ITSM and CSM are different – but by sharing their knowledge of the principles, the IT department can begin breaking the barriers between us and them. And in doing so, your firm is better placed to meet the needs and demands of your banking customers.
To learn more about ServiceNow CSM and how it will help your firm deliver a constantly improving customer experience, please get in touch.