Service Request Management

The purpose of Service Request Management is to handle frequent low cost, low risk service requests which ensures that incident and change management processes are not swarmed with these issues and can focus on high impact, high cost issues. Examples of Service Requests are password reset, request for additional telephony  or request for information "How Do I..." type of calls.

Exclusions in Service Request

• Incidents (break/fix) are not handled in this process. Incidents are service interruption therefore require high priority to restore the service within designated Service Level Targets. Incidents are attended to in accordance with the Incident Management process.
• Changes to system resulting from Problem Management effort are not handled in this process. Problem Management requires resolution to on-going problems which is part of Business As Usual (BAU) and does not require service request to be initiated.

A Service Request Management Process activity should atleast cover the following :

1. Service Request Management
1.1 High level Overview

• Purpose and Objective
• Scope
• Value to business / Benefits of Request Management ( cost effectiveness , customer satisfaction, Corporate governance)
• Service Request Policies such as Service Request that occurs frequently shall require predefined request model with complete workflow or work instructions in  order to give consistent level of service.

2. Detail the Process activity or Service Request Management Life cycle contains the following :

• SR Logging
• SR Validation
• SR Authorization
• SR Execution
• SR Review
• SR Closure

* The process activity may defer based on the organisation input and policy.

3.The following information needs to be streamlined before drafting the process.

• Who will handle the request first – Service Desk Analyst ?
• Who are the specialist team ( refer to Organisation Chart)
• How the customer will be notified once the request is fulfilled (  Email or Phone) ?
• What are the SLAs for each type of request (Generic, Deployment , Purchasing etc)
• What are the service being offered to end user ? This information is populated in Service Catalogue.
• Request Models based on Systems ( E.g Generic Request , Access to Systems, Request for procurement such as additional telephony system.
• Who can authorized the service ( The requester can be anyone who require the services. Certain Request such as Purchase of new laptops will incur financial  obligations thus require approval 2 level approvals. It could be the reporting manager and next is commercial or financial manager. The level of  authorization depends on the governance model the organisation is adopting.
• How the SR will flow from one group to another group that require specialist activity.The request can be worked upon by Service Desk or assigned to specialist group e.g Network Engineer.
• Requests for Change: In some cases the Service Request process will be initiated with RFC. This is typical where the Service Request relates to a CI that require changes such as new software installation.
• Refer to any security policies which will prescribe any controls to be executed or adhered to when providing the service, e.g. ensuring that the requester is authorized to receive the service. As an example, not every user can request or entitled for a Blackberry phone.
• What are the status used throughout the life cycle of each service request record ? E.g. from from New till Closed, the record could go through phase as "Work In Progress" or "Suspended".
• Work out the SLA and ways to stop the SLA clock from ticking if the circumstances or situation is outside from Service Desk control such as Waiting for user to revert back with further information, lack of information, delay in receiving approval since the line Manager is away on vacation leave or waiting quote from supplier. 

4. Service Request Triggering point , Inputs to the process and Outputs

5. RACI Chart (Service Desk, Service Request Analyst or Service Request Administrator, Service      
    Request Manager and Requester ). Who is accountable for process (Populate this in table format with    
    example).

6. Reporting Metrics :

• Metrics
• CSFs – Critical Success Factors and KPIs
• Future of Service Request Management (overcoming challenges). This can be identified by performing trending or analysis on CSFs. E.g users are often raise service request for break fix issues. This could boil down to lack of knowledge and ability to differentiate between Incident and Service Request.