Over time, our global IT organization has transitioned from providing traditional technician-based support, with local Service Desks in most locations, to a global support model framed around proactive support, self-service and automated resolution of issues. Where there is a need for an employee to contact a Service Desk technician, a flexible choice of contact channels is provided. A highly skilled Level 2 team works using remote tools to resolve all traditionally “deskside” support issues, with only those issues needing a physical touch to the PC, going to deskside support teams.
A self-service culture is firmly embedded at Accenture, and together with a “shift left” strategy throughout the support model, issues are resolved early in the support chain with fewer than five percent of issues needing deskside support. Customer satisfaction is consistently high across all channels reflecting the importance of focusing on the employee experience, throughout the journey.
On a regular basis, our global IT organization collaborates with Accenture business stakeholders to set a cohesive employee technology support vision and strategy that underpins all initiatives. The focus is on providing one place to go for accessible, cost-effective and innovative end-to-end support services that minimize the impact of incidents on employee productivity.
To enable all this, our global IT Technology Support organization focuses on five strategic areas:
Proactive support
Wherever possible, we prevent employees’ technology challenges, either by proactively managing and resolving issues or encouraging employees to learn more about their day-to-day tools. A major capability in this area is ProtectMyTech, a tool that performs automated scans on employee laptops and provides guided issue resolution. For employees, it takes away the pain of staying security compliant by running in the background and generating notifications of anything that needs action. The tool automatically logs a ticket in ServiceNow if an employee needs help. ProtectMyTech is supported by a dedicated service desk dealing with both proactive and reactive incidents.
To encourage learning, we launched “Know How with CIO” virtual IT learning several years ago. Supported by a small team of dedicated technicians, Know How offers a range of ways to learn about the tools and technology Accenture people use every day. It is accessible through Accenture’s Technology Support portal, and offers self-service learning via workshops, learning boards, videos as well as one-on-one coaching sessions.
Digital self-enablement
A global Technology Support self-service portal also heavily emphasizes proactive support. Technology Support is a single entry point for solutions, training and support for Accenture technology, applications and collaboration tools. It also provides a self-service password reset capability as well as personalized features including security compliance status and technology-related notifications.
Built on ServiceNow, Technology Support is integrated with the back-end ticketing and request module, enabling employees to request IT services and submit, update and check the status of tickets. The portal is well established among Accenture people with most support contacts made through this consumer-style, self-enablement channel. We extend that support experience to a mobile Accenture Support app, also built on ServiceNow, for the times when employees are not connected to their laptops. In addition, the Technology Support portal is integrated with Accenture’s primary Accenture Support portal, providing employees only one website to access all support services, regardless of business area.
The self-service area across Accenture is one of continuous improvement and investment with new capabilities being added to drive more incident volume, and resolve more incidents, via self-service channels. Accenture is moving toward having all support and services that can be self-enabled delivered that way.
