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Service Governance	Service Level	Processes and Practices
Mode of Operation	Vendor Relations	Availability

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Matti Grönroos CV

Matti Grönroos

Support Model

In addition to management-oriented Governance Model, each IT service delivery organization needs to have a Support Model. It is about a set of processes, interfaces, functions and documentation to implement the interaction between the IS/IT and the end-users.

How extensive the Support Model shall be, depends fully on the case. For example, a consumer-facing online store need rather different Support Model from an engineering office.

The support model is not only about reactively responding to user interaction, but also about handling feedback and proactive problem management.

Designing the support model is a most strategic task, because it has a direct relation to both costs and the company's image. Since the support model is quite a multidimensional issue, planning should start with strategic thinking about where we want to be on the scale of several dimensions. The result from thinking may be a simple summary table:

The red circles represent the choice made. The rows are not fully independent of each other. That is why they shall be planned carefully to avoid inconsistencies.

The strategic choices have a direct connection to skills needed. Often the Support Model is divided into five Tiers, and they are resourced as needed:

Tier 4 - Experts outside the own organization, for example at the software vendors
Tier 3 - Senior Experts
Tier 2 - Generalist Experts
Tier 1 - Service Desk
Tier 0 - Self Service

This basic model has variants as needed. There may be teams shared by multiple functions. Especially at the upper tiers, there may be dedicated teams by technology, by function, etc.

In the dimension of service level, each tier shall be assigned service hours, the access channels, and quality targets. Of course, those must match the service agreements.

The end-user facing channel strategy shall be created: How the users can reach the support services, and how the input is handled for each channel. Typical solutions are online form, email, phone, chat, screen sharing, etc. Each of them has pros and cons. For asynchronous channels (e.g. email), a target time-to-respond must be set for. Giving the user an acknowledgment of the arrival of the request is not a bad idea either.

In addition to user-facing channels, it is necessary to plan how the support model is linked to the governance model and the Service Level Management: What to report, how to report, whom to report to, how to manage feedback and escalations, how to monitor the cost to support, how to develop the support model, etc.