Despite significant technological advancements that allow seamless customer-facing experiences like those from Grab, Uber and WhatsApp, most companies are not integrating those capabilities into employee facing services, according to the findings of ServiceNow’s “Today’s State of Work: The Service Experience Gap” report.
The report surveyed 100 Singaporean managers comparing their experience with consumer services and their workplace enterprise services. It determines factors causing the widening gap and identifies what organizations can do to reverse the trend.
In analyzing the results of the survey, ServiceNow developed “The Service Experience Index” to quantify how beneficial and intuitive services are (or aren’t) at work and beyond. The results validate the frustrations most employees feel when they go to work each day and point to a number of causes for the gap that exists.
Singapore ranked highest on “The Service Experience Index” for work services (ranked against Australia, France, Germany, US, UK)
On a scale of 0-100, work services scored an average of 35 on the Service Experience Index, higher than most of the other countries surveyed. However, this number is still a lot lower compared to consumer services, which scored an average of 61.
Work services fell behind consumer services on all eight criteria used for the index (such as how easy services are to request, how fast they are delivered etc.).
The Service Experience gap in the Singaporean workplace is driven by outdated technologies that reduce productivity.
At work, managers are almost 6 times more likely to use email and 8 times less likely to use a mobile app than for consumer services. Basically there are two worlds we live in – an online one for our personal lives and one tethered to email at work.
The report shows that 94% of managers use email to request services, and only 27% of managers use the web or mobile app to request work services, versus 85% for consumer services. Only 7% of managers tap mobile apps for workplace services, and 84% of managers agree that the need to constantly monitor their email makes it difficult to drive tasks to completion.
Sixty percent of managers spend more than 3 hours at work processing work emails; and 86% of managers feel pressure to answer work emails outside of standard work hours.
Singaporean managers are the least reliant on manual tools (compared to Australia, France, Germany, US, UK) but those reliant on manual tools tend to lag even further behind.
The report shows that 29% of Singaporean companies surveyed said they use mostly manual processes with email, phone and meetings to get work done.
Only 24% of those using manual processes, said that the process of requesting a service at work to receiving it is fast, compared to 60% for consumer services. And only 31% of managers said that these manual services are easy to order or request, compared to 74% for consumer services.
Automate to improve workplace
The report also shows that 33% of Singaporean companies use mostly automated processes for workplace services. Injecting automation in the workplace services starts to diminish the consumer services gap.
Interdepartmental service providers want the ability to collaborate instantly and automatically document their work as 95% agree that it would be valuable.
When a business service is mostly automated, 58% of managers say it is easy to request, and 36% say the entire process from requesting to receiving is fast.
However, even the most automated of those workplace services still contain a high level of analogue processes. Only 33% of managers can use their mobile device to make a request in the workplace compared to 72% for consumer services. And only 27% of managers say that they receive notifications of estimated delivery times, compared to 59% for consumer services
“Consumers are accustomed to using mobile and cloud technology in their daily lives, but this doesn’t translate to the way they approach their work,” said Jimmy Fitzgerald, Vice-President, Asia Pacific and Japan, ServiceNow. “Companies need to stop living in the past and streamline their workplaces processes through the extraordinary solutions available to them.”
How to close the gap
Companies can close the gap between consumer service experiences and the workplace by focusing on streamlining the process and injecting automation.
Here is an outline of the steps they can take:
- Identify work tasks that require coordination among employees or across departments
- Outline the coordination process and then define what it should be
- Design an intuitive, frictionless interface for employees
- Tap into consumer-like techniques such as portals, workflows and catalogs
- Track and analyze the services.
By adopting service management software and practices, organizations can transform the employee experience, making it as easy and enjoyable to get work done at the office as it is at home.