1. Onboard activities

Onboarding:

• All the activities necessary for a service consumer to start using the service and a service provider to be ready to deliver the service
• Occurs after an agreement but before consumption

Typical activities:

• Building awareness among stakeholders
• Ensure resources are ready for service provision
• Ensure customers and users are ready to use

Not only a set of activities for the service provider, the consumer should have an active role

	For the service consumer	For the service provider
Facilitate outcome and experience	To ensure a better return on investments through effective use of services To improve user experience To increase the effectiveness and efficiency of business operations through the effective use of services To maximize value from cooperation with new service providers	To maximize value from cooperation with new service consumers/customers/users To improve perception of the new services and the service provider in general To increase customer and user loyalty and engagement
Optimize risk and compliance	To decrease the probability of user incidents and questions related to new services and users To decrease the duration of transition times to new services/providers	To decrease the probability of incidents and associated breaches in service quality To prevent/decrease user resistance to new services and/or service providers
Optimize resources and minimize costs	To reduce the costs and losses associated with the transition to new services/providers To optimize the cost of user training To optimize the costs of user support	To reduce transition costs To reduce user support costs To optimize onboarding costs and overall resource utilization

 

2. Planning onboarding

2.1 Onboarding goals

Service provider and stakeholders should define, agree, and build awareness around onboarding goals and measure outcomes. Example: migration of consumer to service, migration of in‐house service to 3rd party cloud platform, increase in user numbers, switch of suppliers…

Once goals are agreed, actual onboard planning begins: an activity of the service provider but service consumer is informed, consulted and responsible (perhaps) for specific activities (RACI)

2.2 Onboarding scope

Onboarding scope for customers	Onboarding scope for users
New service consumer organization	New user to start using services
New customer, existing organization	Existing user to use new services
New services for existing customer	User switching to new service version
Migration of service consumer from another service provider	Migration of user between services (e.g. when changing job role)
Migration of service or product from another service provider	Could involve very large number of users in some circumstances

 

2.3 Onboarding actions

Service consumer resources	Service provider	Service consumer	Partner/supplier
Organization & people	Training; contact / support interface; access to service; required warnings; governance established	Study training; agree to new responsibilities; roles/teams defined to optimize consumption; organizational change mgt	Provide training materials, access to service review/updated as needed
Information & technology	Information systems updated; data migrated; perform configuration; deploy monitoring…	Grant access to service provider; integrate with service provider; remove duplicate systems; set up data exchanges	Changes to services affected; similar actions of the service consumer
Value streams & processes	Actions defined/agreed; process improvement	Org processes updated for service consumption; optimize value streams; remove redundancies	Roles assigned/agreed; process consulting
Partners & suppliers	Grant access; decommission	Contracts updated; redundant contracts cancelled; new requirements communicated	Contracts renewed

 

User onboarding is part of the user experience:

• Remember DIVERSITY implications
• Remember users may require a great deal of attention (use four dimensions to ensure elements are covered)

Consider:

• Online tutorials, formal training, videos; superusers
• Communication: posters, manuals, mentoring
• Team building, organizational change management
• Contact lists for support

2.4 Onboarding control

Approach Controls Practices supporting the approach Applicability Programme Programme/project plans, work packages, reviews, KPIS Project, organizational change Large complex customer or user onboarding Project Project plans, work packages, reviews, KPIS Project, organizational change Most onboarding of corporate services Normal change Custom checklists Organizational change, change enablement, deployment, release, validation and testing Smaller customer onboarding, new services/existing customers Standard change Pre-defined checklists Organizational change, change enablement, deployment, release, validation and testing, service request Most user onboarding of corporate services Automated deployment Automated tests and controls Change enablement, deployment, release, validation and testing Digital services to individuals, some corporate user onboarding Audits/assurance 3rd Party audits, audit opinions, on-site inspections Information security management, measurement and reporting, risk management, and supplier management Formal service relationships or relationships in highly regulated environments

 

3. Relating with users and fostering relationships

Some services have very little user interaction – e.g. data storage Many services have active, frequent, important user interactions (user experience is a critical factor for service success) Poor user experience (UX) can lead to: Loss of users and customers Poor user productivity, affecting employee motivation Consider UX at every stage of the customer journey even if customers do not ask for this and users don’t influence procurement

 

3.1 Corporate users

Be aware of resistance, users are typically the last to know a change is coming in the service delivery

Prevent resistance:

• User experience
• Including the user in the plan, design, develop, test phases
• May need to include other departments (HR, legal, financial…)

Communication is key: use corporate social networks, empower the service desk to relay information/answer questions, provide status…

3.2 Individual users

Journey steps	Challenges	Possible solutions
Explore	Don’t know/don’t express needs and expectations	Marketing and sociological surveys, safe to fail experiments, marketing campaigns
Engage	Too many users to engage with, regulatory constraints	Advertising, social media influencers, user groups, direct marketing, context marketing based on data
Offer	Too many consumers, need simple/fast interfaces, regulatory constraints, need simple language	Service catalogues, contracts and agreements with user friendly plain language. Mobile apps
Agree	Too many consumers, need simple/fast interfaces, regulatory constraints, need simple language	Automated contracting, digital contracts, integration with electronic payments, automated due diligence
Onboard	Varying skills/backgrounds, need simple fast onboarding	Automated introduction and training. Well-tested instructions and procedures, user support resources
Co-create	Varying skills/backgrounds/languages, social media exposure	Online presence, interfaces optimized for user skills, multi‐channel support
Realise value	Many consumers, low impact of each individual, impossible to fully interact with all, varying expectations	Automated quality monitoring, social media monitoring, loyalty metrics (such as Net Promoter Score (NPS)), automated experience metrics, support channels for service assessmen

 

4. User engagement and delivery channels

Users use many channels to interact with the service provider (Social media, chatbot, chat, telephone, email, self‐service portal, walk‐in…)

May report an incident on one channel, then move through others:

• This is called omnichannel management
• Service provider must make this a seamless experience

4.1 Types of channels Shift-left moves activities left (earlier in the lifecycle); support could move from the provider to the consumer (self-service, self help, social media…) Expectations of corporate support based on personal technology uses (phone, PC, and social applications): can use video capabilities of personal devices for remote support Machine learning (ML) for automated user support: Chatbots, which may also predict user behaviour User profiling and consumption patterns Advanced routing, based on language, country, product, customer, technology… Many users would prefer to deal with a human (must keep that functionality) Monitoring and event management promote automated self‐healing

Approach	Example challenges	Example solutions
Shift-left, self-service	User skills, knowledge base navigation	Assess user skills, test all self-help, improve information and tool quality
Social media support	Emotional, viral effect, unstructured, many channels, personal data issues, no formal records or integrated diagnostic tools	Train support agents, automate monitoring, integrate with support systems
Chatbots	Limited applicability, insufficient data, multilanguage support	Provide human backup, progress iteratively with feedback, continually increase data quality, monitor technology trends
Human support	Scalability, mistakes, cost	Invest in people, limit human support to where it is needed, consider peer-to-peer support
Video diagnostic	User device technical and regulatory constraints	Discuss benefits/risks/costs, ensure regulations are met, implement controls to prevent abuse

 

5. Enabling users for service

Some services require specific user skills and rights:

• Driving license needed before a car can be hired
• Privacy training may be required before access to personal data
• Safety training may be required before access to specific services

To enable users:

• Get requirements from relevant stakeholders
• Apply actions caused by requirements
• Control execution

Continually check relevance of requirements

Checks that might be required before some services are utilized:

• Due diligence: criminal convictions, access levels etc.
• Use or safety training and certification
• Age control…

Enabling users is supported by:

• Management of access to services
• Presentation of the service catalogue and service request catalogue
• Onboarding and regular confirmation checks
• Agreements made with customers during offer and agree steps of the journey

6. Elevating mutual capabilities

Users should understand the purpose and context of their work and of service usage. They should be encouraged to offer improvements that may contribute to value cocreation	Improvement of experience should be based on current practices, habits and expectations. Radical changes in experiences are rarely seen as improvements and often resisted by users	Changes in services, procedures or experience should be tested and reviewed by users. Users should be encouraged to provide feedback; follow up should be transparent

Users should understand need for collaboration and help each other, the service provider, and other parties. Calling for help or reporting an incident, should be safe, easy and encouraged	Services and their role in value co-creation should be visible and transparent to all involved parties. Users should understand the context of their work and dependencies	User interfaces and interactions should be as simple and friendly as possible. Users should be able to propose improvements to the interface, and these proposals should be treated seriously and transparently	Continual optimization and automation of user experience should be a theme of all interactions between users and service providers

 

Service consumers can also help the service provider to improve:

• Invite service provider teams to observe service consumer business:
• All teams, not just business analysts and service designers
• Demonstrate how services are used and impact on consumers business
• Involve service provider in change discussions
• Provide feedback at all levels of service relationship
• Contribute to user communities
• Where appropriate, form joint specialist teams to work together

7. Offboarding

Offboarding is very similar to onboarding

Approach should be planned as part of service design and adapted for specific initiative

Consider security in both user and customer offboarding

Offboarding and onboarding can happen at the same time:

• User changes job roles
• New service provider manages offboarding from old service provider (this is very common in banking, mobile operators, internet providers, etc.)

7.1 Customer offboarding actions

Customer off‐boarding at service agreement expiration or termination

Communication with all relevant stakeholders (users, suppliers, regulators...)

Handover any service provider resources for disposal or reuse

Revoke access rights (of both parties to each other’s resources)

Archive and retain records

Calculate and process exit payments

Closing relationship management actions (meetings, letters, etc.)

7.2 User offboarding actions

Communication about planned off-boarding and user responsibilities

Interaction with users requesting further information or support

Equipment hand-off to the service provider, or a representative

User access revocation or change

Records archiving and retention, if applicable

Maintaining formal off-boarding records

Relationship management actions relevant to the situation

Go back to ITIL 4 Managing Professional Certification Course: Drive Stakeholder Value (DSV) to finish this chapter or to the main page ITIL 4 Managing Professional Certification Course.