Business services

Structuring a support and service management set-up

Professionalise how user requests are handled, moving from ad-hoc treatment to a genuine service management framework.

ITSM
Application support
Service Management
Request management

Platforms and converging tracks under a railway hall

Context

An organisation running a broad application landscape, where user requests arrived through multiple channels and by inherited habit: direct messages to the people known to help, requests raised in meetings, tickets opened without qualification. Responsibilities between support, project teams and technical teams were not explicitly shared, and nothing clearly distinguished an incident from a request, an enhancement, or a matter belonging to a project.

The challenge

To move from handling things as they come to a set-up that can be read and steered. The stake was not only closing tickets faster: it called for a service management framework able to coordinate users, support teams, project teams, technical teams, application owners and suppliers — each knowing what they take on, within what time, and to whom they hand over.

What AXENEO did

The work we carried out

01
Diagnosis and scoping
- Analysis of the existing support practices, channel by channel and team by team
- Explicit distinction between incidents, requests, enhancements and project matters
- Structuring of the request categories and of how they are qualified on entry
- Organisation of roles and responsibilities between support, projects and technical teams
02
Handling process and escalations
- Requests centralised on a single point of entry, with ownership made clear
- Assignment rules by category, by application perimeter and by support level
- Defined escalation levels, with the trigger conditions and the people involved
- Traceability of handling: statuses, history of actions, reasons for closure
03
Steering and continuous improvement
- Service quality indicators defined with the teams, then instrumented
- Regular reporting on volumes, lead times, statuses and blocking points
- Tracking of recurring incidents and investigation of their causes
- Periodic review of the support processes, adjusted in the light of the measurements

Results

What the set-up changed

Results are described qualitatively. We do not publish figures we would not be able to document.

A structured support set-up, where every request enters through a known point and follows a defined circuit.
A clear distinction between incidents, requests, enhancements and project matters, each with its own circuit.
Explicit assignment rules and escalation levels, known to the teams concerned.
Traceability of handling that makes the path of a request reconstructable.
Shared visibility on lead times and statuses, and steering of service quality.
Stronger coordination between support, projects and technical teams.