14 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNE 2016

THINK XLAs,
NOT SLAs

According to Marco Gianotten, shared service management is a step in the right

direction for organizations that want to improve their services. But he believes IT,
Facilities and HR departments can be a lot more ambitious. Its time to stop thinking in
terms of processes and agreements about those processes: think about user satisfaction
instead. This means shifting from SLAs to XLAs, eXperience Level Agreements rather than
Service Level Agreements.
TEXT: LUKE VAN VELTHOVEN

Marco Gianotten is managing director and co-founder of Giarte:

Supporting monopolists

an IT services and outsourcing advisory and research company. As

Whether youre in IT, Facilities HR, supporting departments are

the creative mind behind Giarte, Gianotten has spent the last years

monopolists. You cant send your customer to a different department

specializing in so-called XLAs: eXperience Level Agreements. Gianotten

for HR matters, and the same goes for an IT-related problem.

believes XLAs are an addition to SLAs: Service Level Agreements. No

According to Gianotten, its exactly these departments that hold on

more agreements about processes, but rather about experiences.

to strict SLAs. Has something gone wrong? Theyll adjust the process

Giarte wants to unite the world of user experience and IT service

instead of looking at the results. The business side of the organization

management. On the one hand theres lots of numbers, tools and

is only focused on the end result, says Gianotten. They couldnt care

processes. On the other hand its all about experience and vision, and

less about the process. They just want everything to run smoothly.

using this vision to make IT service management more social. How do

Gianotten takes a blood bank as a good example of SLAs interfering

you make a service desk as customer-focused as possible?

with the experience: even though the IT department promises an

TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNE 2016 15

uptime of at least 99.5%, if the 0.5% downtime is during peak hour

your suppliers are concerned. You simply shouldnt use them to defend

your customers will be unhappy nevertheless. You could think of

yourself or to explain how well youre doing. Then youre using them

other things. Why isnt the Wi-Fi fast enough? Why are bills paid

as a disclaimer instead of a starting point for good services. If theyre

after three months? Why arent you hiring people more quickly?

your first line of defence and you focus your processes on them, things

A lot of departments respond to these questions by creating even

become even more slow-moving and laborious.

more processes, setting up more SLAs. People seem to think: well

According to Gianotten, you can prevent this sluggishness if you

purchase a tool with a service catalogue. Now weve got IT under

continue to look around you. Dont measure customer satisfaction

control. According to Gianotten, this wont help you achieve your goal:

once a year, but do this frequently. If a service or knowledge item

a better service experience.

doesnt meet requirements or is unclear, adjust it immediately. Its all

Many organizations consider shared service management a miracle

about improving, improving and improving. You need user feedback

cure for improving their services. Gianotten believes it is a good

for this. Let them determine whether something is good enough, and

step forward, but only if you look further than the processes alone.

adjust your SLAs accordingly. You have to find out why the customer

You have to be careful that people who were individually unhappy

satisfaction is dropping and what you can do about it. This continuous

dont form a group and become unhappy together. Be the best you

feedback loop is often missing at organizations.

can be and develop together: that is the promise of shared service

management. The focus here should be on service and not shared.
Shared service management often focuses on efficiency. Services focus
on people. If your employees cant get to work, it costs money. Theyre
digitally unemployed.

SHARED SERVICE MANAGEMENT OFTEN

FOCUSES ON EFFICIENCY. SERVICES FOCUS
ON PEOPLE.
Marco Gianotten
Managing Director, Giarte

Continuous feedback loop

A reality check

Gianotten believes that organizations often take the wrong approach

Gianotten stresses that its important for supporting departments to

when trying to make their processes more customer-friendly. When

keep in mind who they are working for. Creating a persona can help.

hes at a customer, he puts these types of ideas on a not-to-do list.

People in IT normally only look at users in a functional way: What

Customers often have a list with action points that lead to perverse

does a user do?. Instead you have to wonder what that user is thinking

incentives. For instance: implementing a fine if calls take too long

and experiencing. Include the emotional context: What does the user

to resolve. This doesnt improve your services. Instead, the difficult

experience? Its important to have empathy, only then will you get a

work gets done by parties other than your help desk. And although

reality check regarding your SLAs. For B2C companies this makes sense,

the number of calls is reduced, nobody is held accountable for the

but not for supporting departments. Like I said, your user basically

resolution times.

doesnt have anywhere else to turn.

KPIs that dont work? Get rid of them. But it doesnt get more difficult

When Im at a customer, I always start with an empathy map: What

than to stop doing something a certain way. People are used to

does a process employee do? What is the difference between him and

something and dont know how to manage their processes. Im not

another employee? Get to know the people youre working for and

saying you should completely abolish SLAs and KPIs, particularly where

create an overview of your service experience and usability. Lets take

16 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNE 2016

THE SLA IS A CHECK: IS WHAT

WERE DOING HELPFUL? DO WE
MAKE PEOPLE HAPPY?
Marco Gianotten
Managing Director, Giarte

the blood bank example. An uptime of 99.5% helps maintain a low

Empowered future

problem frequency, but the impact of downtime remains huge.

Even if you dont see the benefits of XLAs now, Gianotten believes you

How does that affect your users experience? And what would you

wont stay behind for long. New generations are more critical and

like that experience to be? A better world always begins by looking

not afraid of speaking their mind. People have higher expectations

at the cold hard facts.

for IT, FM and HR departments. These users wont help you. They
communicate their feedback directly, whether thats via your own

Mutual discussions

channels or social media. The biggest mistake you can make is solely
using social media as leverage. If you dont offer your users a place

Once the customer satisfaction has improved, Gianotten often sees

to give feedback, theyll find a way, even if its not through the most

that the experience of an XLA no longer matches the SLA. Thats when

straightforward channels.

it really starts to get interesting. Imagine: your users are satisfied, but

Gianotten also spots changes in the market that make it easier

SLAs arent met. You start talking to each other, because SLAs have to

to introduce XLAs, like the current movement towards the cloud.

make sense. The SLA should act as a check: Is what were doing helpful?

Instead of spending 80% of your time trying to keep your systems

Do we make people happy? These questions sometimes lead to more

up and running, you now have more time for your customers. This

lenient SLAs. An SLA should always service the experience. For instance,

gives you more time to draft the ultimate XLA. A suitable SLA will

if something is solved within the agreed upon four hours, but everyone

follow eventually.

is unhappy, its useless.

During XLA implementations, Gianotten often notices that 10% of
the employees immediately see the benefits, 10% doesnt understand
at all and the other 80% has a wait-and-see attitude. Its also apparent
that IT departments are often further advanced in the area of XLAs
than FM and HR departments. They usually follow in their big IT
brothers footsteps. I use the optimistic ten percent to try and
convince the other eighty percent. Once they understand that you
dont have to abolish SLAs but rather add an XLA, youll notice that the
change in mindset flows through the entire organization.