Service Management Skills and Culture in today’s Businesses

What characteristics, talents, and organizational culture contribute to today’s successful service management team?

This is significant because the Covid-19 pandemic has driven enterprises to shift more quickly: increasing efficiencies and decreasing expenses that will help them avoid extinction next year or even next quarter.

As a result, the skills and cultural behaviors necessary have broadened – not only generalist or specialized – and employees must be willing to learn and adapt on a regular basis.

Three competency models are defined in ITIL 4:

• T-shaped – professionals with extensive knowledge who specialize in one subject
• Pi-shaped – broad knowledge combined with in-depth competence in two or more areas
• Comb-shaped – having different locations of skill and deep knowledge

To ensure quality service management and improved maturity, organizations must have a strong balance of individuals with the skill sets and capabilities across all three competencies.

What is Service Empathy?

Service empathy is another critical component for the service management professional and team: it is about considering the interests of others by putting yourself in their shoes.

This requires a certain amount of flexibility and emotional intelligence to empathize with people working on different company tasks based on a thorough grasp of their requirements. Therefore, it comes down to how a service manager may assist a customer in having a better result in their day or difficult situation.

Getting this property is referred to as a “moment of truth” — a critical contact point that can make or break your service management success.

This approach requires a different attitude for typical service managers who come from the IT function: it’s less about repairing a server or application problem, closing the ticket, and moving on and more about the customer, their experience of service, and the goals they need to achieve.

Overall, We feel that the pandemic is causing business leadership teams to reconsider strategy, direction, and company culture, which means that people’s mindsets in service management are evolving to greater empathy.

Building a Service Management Culture

The digital mindset required in today’s service management requires a culture that is collaborative, creative, and always learning.

Taking an innovative approach to creating tomorrow’s ideas and capabilities must begin with a solid foundation of leadership that empowers a culture transformation.

To do this includes a clear understanding of why and what’s in it for the people engaged, as well as the organization. The rationale for change must be presented strategically, not like a hammer to the head, but like a distracting butterfly that people want to follow – engaging people on their level and demonstrating the worth of change.

However, it is also important to recognize that the process to change culture is not without problems. You must encourage people to participate in the solution by providing practical means to attract them into the discussion and soliciting their thoughts.

Have we got there? Effective strategies for measuring progress

How can you tell if your organization’s service management abilities and culture have changed and improved?

It’s less about numbers, in my opinion. For example, are individuals more interested if you poll their opinions and attitudes near the end of a cultural change journey? Do they believe the environment is a safe haven for failure? How do they rate the customer focus? How much continuous learning occurs?

These are the outcomes that may be expected if leadership empowers and accepts this form of core change – effectively changing the organization’s culture, approach to service management, and employee experience.

Leaders who embrace this – and inspire empathy – will see why these factors of advancement are important.

Here at CourseMonster, we know how hard it may be to find the right time and funds for training. We provide effective training programs that enable you to select the training option that best meets the demands of your company.

For more information, please get in touch with one of our course advisers today or contact us at training@coursemonster.com