Despite the steadily increasing service quality of internal Siemens IT, the numbers from the user satisfaction survey painted a different picture. Which measures and which way of addressing our costumers work best when it comes to communicating IT updates and improvements?
Internal IT has been taking a different approach since June
2018 and, just three months later, is registering a significant increase in the levels of user satisfaction with the tools and services.
Turn Digital Reputation Threats into Offense Tactics - Daniel Lemin
User satisfaction trough professional communication
1. IT creates business value
Case Study
User satisfaction
trough professional
communication
30 30PERCENT
MORE
SATIS-
FACTION
PERCENT
MORE
SMILE
2. The Challenge
The IT infrastructure has to work because it is the basis of all digital work. If it does not work
as expected, the company is blocked and those affected are hugely frustrated. This is not the
only reason why internal IT has a hard life. It is also bound by company policy and the informa-
tion security guidelines. IT can often only suggest – not decide – which IT tools Siemens em-
ployees should have at their disposal. What is, however, often mostly in its hands is the satis-
faction levels of the colleagues when working with both hardware and software. Our abilities
to provide assistance and explanations when introducing new tools are enhanced
and improved on the basis of feedback services so as to guarantee the smoothest possible
support given the cost constraints. Earlier in the summer there was definitely room for im-
provement with regard to the user satisfaction because despite the demonstrably measured
optimization of the service quality (around the issues: system crashes, service desk tickets,
user numbers, etc.) it had little impact on the monthly surveyed user perception figures.
Case Study | Quality Improvement Initiative
Despite the steadily increasing service quality of internal Siemens IT,
the numbers from the user satisfaction survey painted a different
picture. Which measures and which way of addressing our costumers
work best when it comes to communicating IT updates and improve-
ments? Internal IT has been taking a different approach since June
2018 and, just three months later, is registering a significant increase
in the levels of user satisfaction with the tools and services.
30 percent: That was easier said than done. The Internal IT team at Siemens is all the more
proud of this result, which has been put in black and white by regular feedback responses. It is
an acknowledgement of IT’s work these past few months. The appreciation of the customers is
giving each and every service owner the boost and the motivation needed to continue giving
their best. How the increase was achieved is certainly not rocket science because IT goes about
its business systematically.
Increased satisfaction
Very
satisfied
Satisfied Neutral Dissatisfied Very
dissatisfied
30PERCENT
+
2
“We from inter-
nal IT try to
make necessary
changes as easy
as possible for
the users.”
Harald Janocha
GS IT SFS FS CR 2
“You can get in
touch with the
support team for
every little issue
and receive quick
and comprehensi-
ble feedback.”
Patrick Pernegger
Global Head of User Engagement
GS IT TRA UC30 % increased satisfaction 60 % lower survey dropouts
JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP
2017 2018
USERPERCEPTION
BASELINE COMPANY PRIORITY
3.3 3.3 3.3 3.3 3.3
3.6
3.4
3.5 3.5
3.6
3.8
SATIS-
FACTION
OUTAGES
9
22
3,2
-60% 25
20
15
10
5
0
4,0
3,8
3,6
3,4
3,2
3,0
3.8
OUTAGES
11.5 % 22.9 %
8.9 % 2.1%
JUL 2017 SEP 2018
Overall evaluation of satisfaction “very satisfied”
Overall evaluation of satisfaction “very dissatisfied”
3.3
3.9
3. In order to achieve the target value of 3.9 at the end of the fiscal year it required the drawing
up of a sophisticated marketing concept and firm communication measures for the respective
service improvements had to be transferred to the end users in transparent fashion. The goal
was to build up emotional communication and increase awareness among the employees that
IT does not just consist of services, rather of colleagues that try every day to design new user-
friendly services, features, and tools to maintain ongoing operations.
The Approach
The marketing experts of Internal IT developed a new concept for communicating the improve-
ments of the tools and services. The key to the positive perception from the perspective of the
recipients was the creative execution of the concept: emails with short, snappy texts and an
eye-catching, often in the claim exaggerated image caption. These presented the advantages of
the new tools and explained how to install and use in simple terms. Careful target-group seg-
mentation ensured that only those who would benefit from the new aspect received the email.
Case Study | Quality Improvement Initiative 3
Attention-grabbing emails
“The fact that the
internal IT service
has made such an
obvious effort to
tackle the prob-
lems of the staff
members has
made everyday
working life in my
field noticeably
more relaxed.”
Diana Srebrzynski
GS IT CCS A ACM
4. Case Study | Quality Improvement Initiative 4
Rating of the individual services
With the aid of BI analyses IT was able to comprehend who reacted to the first impulse and
who initially did not want to check out the new feature. Users who left everything as it was
received a memo at a later stage with further offers of assistance. And all those who were
working with the state-of-the-art technology were asked for their satisfaction level or potential
for frustration by means of a digital survey tool following a specific test phase.
The suitable way of addressing the respective target group, the optimized timing of the com-
munication impulses via various channels as well as the tracking of the acceptance levels (or
pinpoint follow-up actions) took the communication with the users to an extremely profession-
al level.
So that the calls for modernization did not fade away and the colleagues did not feel deserted, IT
turned a wide variety of internal screws to make their service even more user-friendly, personal,
and efficient. They won a lot of friends in this context with the aid of:
• short, emotional explanatory films
• practice-oriented installation seminars via virtual conference
• the “Installation Breakfast”, in which interested persons got in touch with a new technology
over croissants and coffee.
The final few measures were particularly helpful in getting the IT experts in direct contact with
the participants and enabling them to go into individual issues.
To put it in figures: in the space of three months, IT tested communication measures for up to
fourteen services. The measures were aimed at one focus group per service, each with one
thousand users and in six languages. Satisfaction surveys were subsequently sent out monthly
to the respective thousand participants, with the same number of employees also being sur-
veyed in a control group consisting of people who had not received the communication mea-
sures previously.
“The explanations
given by the ser-
vice colleagues at
an Installation
Breakfast for
Office 365 helped
convince me of
the advantages
of the new tool.”
Lisa Schoeberl
GS IT EU2
RC-AT TP WCW
Circuit
Service Desk
Syncplicity
Printing (OMS)
Virtual Client
Voice
myIT Portal
SmartMobile
SmartAppAccess
Wireless Lan
WIN Client
File Shares
Entitlement
URA
3.8
USER PERCEPTION 1 2 3 4 5
TARGET
4.0
3.9
3.8
3.2
3.8
3.6
4.0
3.7
4.0
3.6
3.9
3.8
4.2
FIRST RATING
SEPTEMBER 2018