As businesses evolve in today’s fast-paced, technology-driven world, it’s crucial to respond quickly to market demands. ESM with Jira Service Management (JSM) offers a highly flexible solution that adapts to various business scenarios. By using Jira as an Enterprise Service Management (ESM) tool, organizations can extend IT Service Management (ITSM) practices beyond IT, benefiting departments like HR, finance, legal, and operations. This service-oriented approach allows teams to efficiently manage and streamline their requests across the entire organization.
In this article, we will explore how applying ESM with Jira Service Management can be a strong ally for your business and how it can boost the organization’s efficiency, collaboration, and overall success.
1. Single platform: centralization and standardization of processes
By implementing an ESM approach with Jira, companies can create a single repository for all processes and procedures, regardless of the department or function. This not only simplifies the management and monitoring of processes but also ensures consistency and compliance throughout the organization. One of Jira’s key advantages is its ability to centralize and standardize processes across the organization. With this, businesses can reduce the time spent on administrative and bureaucratic tasks, allowing employees to focus on more strategic and value-added activities.
2. Enhanced collaboration and communication with Jira
Another significant benefit of Jira Service Management as a ESM tool is the improved collaboration and communication between different departments and teams within the organization. By adopting a service-based approach, companies can break down traditional organizational silos and foster a culture of teamwork and collaboration. Jira includes communication and collaboration features such as integration with chat tools like Slack or Teams, a personalized service portal, and integration with Confluence as a knowledge base for addressing recurring questions. These tools facilitate information exchange and knowledge sharing among employees, which not only increases operational efficiency but also promotes transparency and an open culture of information sharing.
3. Greater visibility and control in one solution
Jira Service Management also offers companies greater visibility and control over their services and operations. By centralizing all service-related data and information on a single platform, managers can easily access real-time metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor performance and identify areas for improvement. Additionally, when paired with reporting and data analysis tools, Jira enables businesses to gain valuable insights into service performance, allowing them to make more strategic, data-driven decisions.
4. ESM excellence: improved customer experience
Finally, applying ESM with Jira can help businesses enhance customer service by providing a faster, more efficient, and personalized experience. By implementing automated processes and intelligent workflows, companies can respond to customer requests more swiftly and effectively, ensuring high-quality service and customer satisfaction. Moreover, Jira offers customers the option to easily submit service requests through a portal, where they can also access knowledge base documentation to find answers to their questions and solve issues independently, reducing the need for human interaction and improving the overall customer experience.
Now that we’ve explored some of the benefits, let’s look at a practical scenario where ESM could benefit customer service and how it can scale as your business grows:
Application scenario: how ESM with Jira would work in a travel agency
Alex runs a travel agency with 100 employees across customer service, finance, and human resources. By applying ESM with Jira, she can create a service portal for her clients to fill out a form requesting a quote. The form could categorize whether the trip is domestic, international, or a cruise, which are the agency’s specialties. For customers who have already purchased a package, there could be a separate category for inquiries.
Each form has specific fields, and when a customer submits it, it enters the service request queue, where the type of service is identified and directed to the appropriate team.
Quotes are responded to through comments in Jira, and the customer is notified by email, with the option to use Service Level Agreement (SLA) features to ensure a timely and high-quality response. By using a simplified workflow that shows the stage of the negotiation, it ensures organization and teamwork integration.
The entire transaction up to the contract signing can be conducted through comments between the customer and consultant, maintaining traceability and transparency. Once the contract is signed, sub-tasks can be created for the finance team to validate documentation, and once the service is completed, a satisfaction survey can be sent to measure the customer’s experience.
Over time, Alex’s business thrives and expands, becoming a tour operator and opening franchise agencies. As a result, other departments begin using Jira Service Management, as shown in the following examples:
- The HR department starts using ESM with Jira for tasks like answering employee questions, onboarding and offboarding processes, internal transfers, and other HR functions.
- HR, when handling onboarding through Jira, can also interact directly with other departments within the ESM tool, transferring documentation to the personnel department, requesting equipment from the facilities team, and requesting system access from IT.
- If the facilities team doesn’t have the required equipment in stock, they would need to submit a purchase request to the procurement team.
- Within Jira, the facilities team can manage assets, maintaining a global view of the hardware and software each employee requires according to their role.
By combining best practices with the tool’s adaptability to your business needs, Jira Service Management becomes a powerful ally, offering a range of benefits such as centralized and standardized processes, improved collaboration and communication, greater visibility and control, and enhanced customer service. By adopting a service-based approach, as seen in ESM, companies can drive efficiency, innovation, and overall organizational success, becoming more agile, adaptable, and customer-focused in an increasingly competitive and dynamic market.
