In this automated age, the walk-up approach for IT support is a popular one. Users love being able to walk into a “tech lounge” any time and get help on the spot from a real live person. And your company benefits when users get back to work faster—and happier.
(By the way, at ServiceNow we call our walk-up the Tech Lounge. You should brand your walk-up to suit your company—the Genius Bar, IT Depot, whatever you like!)
The ServiceNow Walk-Up application supports the walk-up operation from every angle. It helps users sign in for service online or in person. It helps technicians manage the service queue and resolve issues on the spot. It gives the walk-up manager insight into throughput, resources, and customer satisfaction. And since it’s on the Now platform, it leverages the system information on users, IT assets, technicians, incident resolution, and reporting.
In this installment of our NOWSupport best practices series, we’ll take a look at the walk-up operation and the Walk-Up app, and show you where you can learn more about it.
For users: Welcome to the tech lounge!
According to recent studies, users overwhelmingly prefer the walk-up approach over online self-service or the remote service desk. For those users, the Walk-Up app offers a quick, easy path through the service encounter, from signing-in to walking out.
Users can sign in to the walk-up online from any location on a computer or mobile device, or at the walk-up on a sign-in station (typically a tablet). Either way, they can see their position in the queue at a glance. If the queue is short, users will often just go to the walk-up and sign in there. If the queue’s longer, they may sign in online and head for the walk-up when they’re near the front of the queue. While they’re waiting, the system can send an email or text to let them know when they reach a certain point in the queue.
When users are done with their visit, they can rate their experience—satisfied, neutral or dissatisfied—with a single tap at a station (again, typically a tablet) on their way out. The system can also send them a more detailed customer satisfaction (CSAT) survey via email.
For technicians: Can I help you?
The technicians at the walk-up assist users in sequence as they reach the front of the queue. The technicians may work together to take requests that match their individual specialties and strengths.
Their goal is to resolve users’ issues in a single visit, by fixing “something broken,” providing an item from stock, or ordering something from the service catalog. If the technician can’t resolve the issue on the spot, they can open an incident to bring in other people to help. It’s also a great opportunity to tell users about self-service options for their requests to save them the trip to the walk-up next time.
The technicians are also the ones who manage the Walk-Up app in daily operation, like logging in and out of the check-in and CSAT stations in the morning and evening, and managing outstanding transactions during away periods. To keep the app secure, you need to have the walkup_login role to log in to the check-in and CSAT stations and queue display.
For managers: How are we doing?
The walk-up manager needs continual updates to keep it operating effectively and efficiently—things like staffing levels, open hours, and stockroom inventories.
To help you, the Walk-Up app includes a dashboard with reports for visits, CSAT scores, resulting incidents, and stockroom inventories.
For more information
To learn more about the Walk-Up app, check out these resources:
London release keynote demo video
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Behind the scenes here at ServiceNow, the Knowledge Management and Multimedia teams work closely with subject matter experts to disseminate critical information to our customers. We’ve found that certain topics come up frequently, in the form of best practices that can help you keep your ServiceNow instances running smoothly. This series targets those topics so that you and your organization can benefit from our collective expertise. If you have a best practices topic you'd like us to cover in this series, please let us know in the comments below.
To access all the blog posts in this series, see our NOWSupport best practices series list.
