employee journey map - Innovative Service Management Consulting and Training: Tedder Consulting

When it comes to who is the “customer”, many ITSM implementations are simply confused. And this confusion is why ITSM is failing your customers.

Some IT organizations think the “customer” is someone that contacts a service desk. Others think the “customer” is someone who defines the requirements for a service. But that definition quickly fades once the implementation project is completed and the project sponsor resumes their normal duties. Still other ITSM implementations ignore identifying the “customer”, as these implementations feel that it isn’t necessary to define services in terms of business value and business results.

I recently completed a Humanising IT™ [i] masterclass led by Katrina MacDermid and Wesley Eugene. During that class, we discussed how so many ITSM implementations, despite the best of intentions, fall into the “who is the customer?” trap. The Humanising IT approach cuts through this confusion with a simple, but powerful, distinction between the roles of the customer and the user[ii]. The customer is the person deriving value from business services. The user is the person using technology to deliver value to the customer.

Taking this concept of user and customer one step further renders an interesting proposition. IT delivers products and services to a user, who then delivers business value and results to a customer. Is this the reason ITSM is failing your customers?

Why ITSM implementations often fail customers

I must admit that this is a different interpretation of the customer and user roles than I’ve typically followed. However, it could explain how many ITSM implementations have missed the mark when it comes to delivering business value and business results. As I’ve said before, many ITSM implementations are about managing IT, not about delivering or enabling business outcomes. What could be possible if ITSM implementations shifted focus externally to the humans that use the services provided by the business?

But many ITSM implementations – many IT organizations – haven’t focused on the humans that use the products and services provided by the business. In fact, the products and services that IT delivers are often not built or delivered with humans in mind. Procedures used by IT are often IT-focused, not business-focused. The performance targets and measures for these products and services are defined by IT, not by the people that use the products and services. IT designs products focused on technology “wow factors” (as defined by IT) and less on the people that will be using them.

And because the focus is on IT, and not on the customer, the associated ITSM implementation is basically used to set expectations for the user. Even in that situation, those expectations are defined by IT, usually with little to no input or agreement from users.

How human-centered design can help

The correlation between employee (or user) experience and customer experience has been long established: when organizations enable better experiences for employees (“users”), employees in turn provide better experiences for customers.

When employees feel valued, engaged, empowered, and supported, they are more likely to go the “extra mile” for customers. When employees have the right technologies and solutions, they can resolve customer issues quickly and creatively. Positive employee experiences foster empathy and collaboration, which employees pass on to customers.

What are some things that IT organizations can do to enable a better user experience?

For IT, this means providing users with intuitive and streamlined processes, systems, and products, built with the user in mind. This means listening – and acting on – user feedback. This means providing empathetic support of users.

In other words, make the experience with IT a humanized experience. And the best way for IT to deliver a humanized experience for the user is to include the user as part of the development of solution designs – a core principle of human-centered design.

But getting users involved in solution design is often not so easy. First, it requires a mindset shift within IT to focus first on solving problems, not implementing solutions and technology. Convincing non-IT managers to participate in solution design and decision making can be a challenge. Many non-IT managers are reluctant to allocate resources without a clear return on investment or to take ownership of solution designs. IT often struggles to communicate in non-technical terms, and users often lack the technical understanding needed to contribute to solution design discussions. This results in communication gaps, making it difficult to translate user needs into technology requirements. There are often differences in priorities between IT and users; what’s important to IT may not have the same weight with users. Finally, an organization’s culture may get in the way. If an organization values traditional, hierarchical structures and predictable outcomes, the organization may be hesitant to have users participate in solution designs as it can introduce expected feedback or challenging of existing assumptions.

Three things IT (and ITSM) can do to stop failing the customer

Here are three actions that IT – and ITSM – organizations can take to stop failing the customer.

Cultivate an “experience” culture – Promote a culture that values and celebrates collaboration, empathy, and continual learning[iii]. Culture change happens a step at a time, so persistence pays off. When users participate in a solution design, publicize it. Share what was learned. Talk about how the new solution enabled positive employee experiences.
Map the internal user journey – An internal user journey map is a visual representation of how employees interact within an organization, including the user’s actions, thoughts, and emotions. From an ITSM perspective, identify when users interact with IT systems, processes, and tools to achieve a specific result. Doing this will identify pain points and improvement opportunities with those systems, processes, and tools.
Map the customer journey – Like an internal user journey map, a customer journey map depicts how customers interact with an organization, from initial awareness to post-purchased. Like an internal user journey map, the customer journey map will help identify improvement opportunities for the organization. But the benefit doesn’t stop there for IT and ITSM. Not only does this help IT (and related ITSM practices) understand the customer journey, but also helps IT develop empathy regarding user and customer interactions.

As organizations continue to journey further into the digital economy, a humanized customer experience will become a competitive differentiator. IT organizations, and their associated ITSM implementations, must embrace the benefits of adopting human-centered design in developing solutions. Involving users in solution development results in more humanized outcomes that improve both the employee and customer experiences.

[i] Humanising IT is a trademark of HIT Global.

[ii] Katrina Macdermid, “Human-centred design for IT service management”, Norwich, TSO, 2022, p. 30.

[iii] “Engaged employees Transform Customer Experience. Here’s Why”, https://www.reworked.co/employee-experience/engaged-employees-transform-customer-experience-heres-why/ Retrieved June, 2025.

What is employee experience (EX)?

A recent Forbes magazine article described EX as “the sum of all interactions that an employee has with her employer during the duration of her employment relationship. It includes any way the employee “touches” or interacts with the company and vice versa in the course of doing her job. And, importantly, it includes her feelings, emotions and perceptions of those interactions.”

What companies are learning is that EX is a really big deal and is becoming a critical factor in the success of the modern organization.

Why all the fuss?

There are a number of reasons why EX is getting so much attention across businesses today. First, happy employees make for happy customers. This Harvard Business Review article discussed the strong statistical link between employee well-being and customer satisfaction. A study conducted by Glassdoor showed that a happier workforce is clearly associated with an organization’s ability to deliver better customer satisfaction.

It is easier and less expensive to recruit, retain, and grow employees when there is consistently positive EX. When companies create outstanding experiences for their employees, people want to work for and stay with these companies.[1]

Another Forbes article discussed the correlation between good EX and profitability and value. For example, the stock prices of companies appearing on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies rose 14% per year from 1998-2005; stock prices only rose 6% for companies not on this list. A Globoforce-IBM study found that organizations that scored in the 25% on EX saw 3x return on assets and 2x return on sales.

Indicators of good EX

But here’s the thing. EX cannot be directly measured. Think about it – how can you measure how someone feels? Sure, you can conduct surveys or interviews and get a general impression of how employees feel about their employers and work environment, but this approach has some level of subjectivity.

Secondly, many organizations are under a mistaken perception that EX is just something to check off a list. But EX is not just about employee appreciation lunches or passing out gift cards, nor is it something that is just the responsibility of an HR organization. Rather, it’s the entire organization that influences and promotes EX.

Good EX is largely the result of an organizational culture that values employee contribution, collaboration, well-being, purpose, and other factors within the workplace. It truly does come down to how employees feel about their organization, their management, and their job.

Good EX might be indicated by high net promoter scores, high employee retention rates, or smaller time-to-hire measures. As mentioned above, good EX may even show up on the bottom line in the form of increased profits or market value. But none of these indicators are scientific measures good EX.

One thing for sure however – just as with a positive organizational culture, people know good EX when they experience it. Can good enterprise service management help enable that positive employee experience?

What is enterprise service management?

During his recent Cherwell Software CLEAR 2020 keynote address, Sam Gilliland, CEO of Cherwell, discussed how taking an enterprise service management (ESM) approach has helped many organizations weather the service support and delivery challenges caused by the pandemic. By having an organization’s service providers, such as IT, Facilities, HR, and others utilizing a common platform, those organizations were not only to respond to the operational challenges presented by the pandemic, but they are also able to thrive despite those challenges.

But what is ‘ESM’? Is it just dropping the “IT” from ITSM and replacing it with an “E”?

ESM is about taking an enterprise, not departmental, approach to managing, enabling, supporting, and delivering an organization’s products and services in a way that co-creates value and delivers measurable business outcomes.

In a nutshell, I believe that good service management can enable a better EX. Good service management brings transparency and measurability into organizational operations. Employee can see for themselves how the organization is performing, and how their contributions result in organizational success.

ESM encourages collaboration and teamwork by enabling and supporting holistic workflows. Each part of any organization must work well for all other parts of the organization in order to achieve success. Conversely, organizations whose departments work in isolation from others cannot react to or respond as quickly to changes in marketspaces and business as organizations that think and work holistically.

By having these holistic workflows in place, employees can be confident that they are doing the right things right. Holistic workflows also help employees avoid having to make multiple individual requests with individual departments within the organization just to achieve needed outcomes.

3 things to do to help service management enable better EX

Is your organization’s approach to enterprise service management enabling a better EX? If not, here are three things you can do:

Automate the obvious – not just within IT, but across the organization. Those simple, but repetitive and tedious tasks currently requiring human intervention can be better served by automation. Automation in turn enables employees to work at their own pace on their own schedule, which is a satisfier when it comes to EX.
Identify and map enterprise value streams. Most value streams within an organization cross departmental boundaries. For example, take onboarding a new employee. Not only is HR involved, but also IT and Facilities. Where are the handoffs? What work can be done in parallel? Mapping and understanding how work and value flows through the organization is critical for enabling positive EX. Are there any gaps or delays in how work and value flows through the organization? How does technology and process enable those value streams – and are there opportunities to optimize those value streams?
Develop employee journey maps. Employee Journey Maps (EJM) are similar to customer journey maps but are focused on the employee’s journey with an organization. Where does an employee encounter friction? Can the use of technology or automating processes eliminate that friction?

While good EX is largely the result of nurturing the desired culture within an organization, ESM can augment that experience through proactive management of work streams, well defined and streamlined processes, and delivering valuable products and services. Yes, good ESM can make for better EX!

[1] https://www.socialchorus.com/blog/future-of-work/the-employee-experience-in-2019/

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ITSM is failing your customers – here’s why