By on April 20, 2017

Much of what IT departments do is invisible. Your colleagues come to work in the morning and use many of your services within the first half hour without even thinking of you. It’s a small step in the wrong direction – being seen as a cost center instead of a benefit. Use these five tips to improve the image of your IT department.

1. Be transparent

Transparency leads to trust and a better image. Give customers insight in the things that directly influence their daily work, like planned maintenance. Introduce a digital service desk to provide customers with a way to track their own calls. A digital service desk can also be used to share the performance of your department with your customers. You can also use monthly newsletters to communicate what you are working on.

Discover 4 steps to a more user-friendly Self-Service portal

2. Be recognizable

Want to leave a professional impression? Communicate a consistent, uniform image to the organization. A good image shows the organization what you stand for. Think about a standard logo in email templates, or standardized ways of addressing end users. You can also consider recognizable outfits or an accent like a key cord or name tag to improve visibility within the organization.

Communication is key. Read more about the importance of continuous communication with your Service Desk users

3. Use problems to your advantage

Research shows that customers become increasingly loyal when you treat them to their satisfaction when they experience a problem. Focus on solving easy to fix problems as soon as possible. Communicate immediately if problems affect multiple users. Be clear that problems are being worked on and when you expect them to be resolved. Is a problem fixed? Check if the affected customers are satisfied with your solution.

4. Explain procedures

Many customers are unaware of what it entails to request a new phone. The only thing they know is what they have to do and how long they have to wait. However, procedures often have good reasons. Communicate these so end users understand why things go a certain way.

Customers should be able to find the procedures in a Self-Service Portal. Discover how to successfully promote your portal here

5. Deliver

Last but not least, deliver quality services to your end users. To get more insight in this, consider doing customer satisfaction reviews, and encourage collaboration and learning in your department.

Find out which 4 KPIs you can use to measure your customer satistaction

Become more Customer Centric

Download our Customer Centricity E-book to see how a shift to a more Customer Centric approach to Service Management will result in better performance.