Process Mining for Service Management

Service Management involves providing accessible information technology to customers, and its high volume of daily requests makes it ideal for process mining. This article outlines the benefits and three practical ways to optimise Service Management processes using process mining.
Assessing your Service Management process

Maintaining a positive company image and ensuring customer loyalty depends on well-executed Service Management. It serves as a critical factor for customers when deciding to continue using a company’s services. The Service Manager may proudly declare, “We provide excellent service value to our customers!” However, tracking ongoing service requests becomes challenging due to the sheer volume.

Key questions arise:
– Which service requests should have been resolved by now?
– What are the common reasons for SLA breaches?
– How can the overall Service Management process be improved?
– What is the variation in service quality across different sub-units of the organization?

These challenges make Service Management an ideal candidate for process mining. Process mining provides visibility into the entire end-to-end process, helping identify root causes for problems in process execution.

Steps included in a Service Management process

In a Service Ticket, process steps can generally be categorised as follows:

SLA starts:

A service provider receives a request to look into an issue with the product/service by a customer or another stakeholder who needs the issue to be looked at.

A task is opened/created:

A ticket is created internally, which is then assigned to a member of the customer service team or a technical expert.

 

An expert works on the ticket:

This may either be a straightforward and quick answer to satisfy the original inquiry. However, sometimes you might need to get more information from other stakeholders – such as the customer themselves, vendors, specialists, etc.

The ticket is resolved:

The expert has solved the reported issue! Hooray!

SLA ends:

The service has been fulfilled (hopefully before the agreed resolution deadline within the SLA).

The ticket is closed:

The service request is closed with no expectations to be further investigated unless the service request is reopened.

In an ideal scenario, all service requests would be straightforward. However, in reality, most are not. There may be repeated back-and-forth conversations, tickets not handled by the right people, and records not recorded correctly. These factors can lead to longer resolution times and breached SLAs.

How it all works: Process Mining for Service Management

Various event types, like “SLA Start” or “State [Awaiting],” are recorded in the service management system database with timestamps. From the process start to “State [Resolved]” and beyond “SLA End,” each event is documented. Using this data, a process mining model is created to visualise your service management process.

QPR ProcessAnalyzer, QPR’s Process Mining software, extracts data directly from your information systems, such as ServiceNow, using built-in connectors. It then visualises and identifies symptoms of inefficient processes, like bottlenecks, reassignments, and SLA or conformance violations.

3 practical ways for optimizing your Service Management process

Optimise your Service Management process with QPR ProcessAnalyzer in three steps:

1. Explore your current processes: Evaluate end-to-end process duration and internal benchmarks.
2. Utilise Root Cause Analysis: Identify and understand issues like extended lead times.
3. Continuous improvement: Monitor and enhance using built-in KPIs for Process Compliance and service request resolution times.

1. Discover and benchmark as-is process steps in different parts of your organization

Process Mining generates computer-generated process flowcharts from traces in your data management systems (e.g., ServiceNow). These flowcharts reveal undesirable behavior, skipped steps, and delays in your Service Management process. Utilising Process Discovery tools, like duration analysis and case attribute profiling, helps identify issues (e.g., prolonged resolution times), pinpoint their occurrence, and initiate compliance checks and process enhancements.

2. Understand where and why issues are happening in your Service Management processes

Root Cause Analysis reveals cases prone to reassignments or rework, identifies event chains leading to later issues, and pinpoints sources of SLA violations. Ranking root causes by their impact on business outcomes guides focus on areas for enhancing customer satisfaction and reducing resolution times. Beyond this, it helps identify “role models” with fewer issues, enabling internal benchmarking across the organisation. Following root cause analysis, you can develop a plan of action for further investigations and process improvement initiatives. Leverage various visualisation methods, including ad-hoc analysis and long-term process monitoring via Dashboards.

3. Improve continuously with ready-made applications for a variety of Service Management use cases

Process mining stands out from traditional BI reports due to its user-friendly nature. Unlike traditional approaches, you don’t require a data scientist to interpret or analyse findings, thanks to the inclusion of AI-based advanced analyses and customisable dashboards.

QPR takes this convenience to the next level with its pre-built Service Management dashboards, streamlining the process significantly. This means that everything is already set up, making process mining with QPR faster and more straightforward than ever before.

Upon opening a dashboard, you instantly gain insights into critical aspects, such as identifying the occurrence and impact of SLA breaches, along with their root causes. The QPR Service Management Application currently offers dashboards for various analysis and overview angles, including Operations Overview, SLA Breach, Service Request Reassignment Analysis, Leadtime (SLA Start to SLA End), and Process Conformance/Compliance.

These dashboards are not just randomly created; they result from collaboration with both internal and external process experts. The goal is to provide the most insightful information to address the crucial questions for Service Management professionals. These dashboards are versatile, allowing continuous monitoring of operations, deep dives into KPIs (such as SLA compliance percentage, service request resolution times, and reassignment counts), and the identification of sources of delays or opportunities for process improvement.

To sum it up: What are the benefits of using Process Mining for Service Management?

Process mining provides precise insights into the operations of your Service Management processes. It allows you to understand specific details, such as the time taken from a new incoming service request to issue resolution, the frequency and locations of SLA breaches, and the level of compliance with the designed Service Management process model.

Identifying development areas within your processes enables targeted improvement efforts for maximum value. Armed with objective insights, you can confidently make changes, such as streamlining service request escalation procedures, learning from challenging service requests to document best practices for training, and refining Service Management processes to enhance service value delivery to customers and stakeholders.

With process mining, you gain a comprehensive understanding of how, why, and where your Service Management performs well and where improvements are needed. Importantly, these improvement ideas are grounded in facts and data rather than opinions or gut feelings. This ensures that decisions and improvement initiatives are confidently based on a solid foundation, guiding your path towards optimizing Service Management.

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Get a quick overview so you can spend your time improving your processes.

You can easily define and set up processes according to your own needs using a convenient layout tool. In addition, since all types of workflow processes can be managed, you get all case management in one single system. 

Analyses, statistics and reports give you an unbeatable overview with real-time status and division of responsibility. Nothing has to fall through the cracks anymore and you always have an accurate and up-to-date base for decision-making.

CANEA Process is a tool that allows you to model and share business processes in an easy-to-use graphical web interface.

Seeing is understanding

Visualisation gives all employees an understanding of the organisation’s processes, activities, responsibilities and information flows.

Living processes

Identifying working methods while making it easy to update is the basis for continuous improvement of processes.

Create a complete picture

Linking together documents, information and tools with clickable process maps create an intuitive and comprehensive management system.

CANEA Workflow is an IT solution that automates, quality-assures and speeds up administrative workflow processes.

You can easily define and set up processes according to your own needs using a convenient layout tool. In addition, since all types of workflow processes can be managed, you get all case management in one single system. 

Analyses, statistics and reports give you an unbeatable overview with real-time status and division of responsibility. Nothing has to fall through the cracks anymore and you always have an accurate and up-to-date base for decision-making.

By creating executable processes in CANEA Workflow, you get both better control of the situation and smoother processing.

Streamlining the work

Ensure compliance and that handovers are done correctly and with the right information.

Correct decision support

You get an unbeatable overview of the processes in real time, with both clear reports and clear diagrams.

Improve processes continuously

Our process support can be constantly adapted to changing needs and requirements. In this way, we give you the best possible conditions for your daily work.

A document management system without complicated folder structures.

CANEA Document combines simple and intuitive search features with powerful features for managing documents from a life cycle perspective.

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Search and find information quickly based on what you need, not where it is stored.

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Ensure accuracy, changes and access to all information – with high traceability.

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Manage information according to standards, legislation and other requirements for document management.

CANEA Document supports everything from production, publication and modification to archiving and deletion – with full traceability and version management.

CANEA Document provides secure management of all types of documents – in one place. Tagging the information with metadata creates a virtual, multidimensional folder structure. This means that a document appears in multiple locations at the same time, with authorisation-controlled access. The right information in the right place for the right users at the right time!

You can usefully add your company’s process-oriented management system to CANEA Document. All production and distribution of documents is quality-assured and streamlined. In addition, your employees always have access to the most up-to-date version of the documents – directly via intranet, tablets and mobile phones.

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CANEA Project is a comprehensive project tool with integrated support for all types of projects and parties– such as management, resource owners, clients, project managers and project participants. CANEA Project gives you an excellent overview of your entire project portfolio, including profitability and status, making it easier to prioritize and make decisions.

CANEA Project shares all important project information with both internal and external members.

Let your project manager focus on management rather than administration and distribution of the information.

Gather all project information in one place and make it available to both internal and external members.

Helps you with prioritization of projects, resource management and analysis of portfolios and programs.

Make reality of the strategy

CANEA Strategy makes it possible for organisations of all sizes to create a unique common thread from the strategic work to the daily operations. We do not just provide performance management tools but rather a completely new generation of IT support for strategy activation. The system guarantees and provides support throughout the chain from strategy to execution. You get no results without action. CANEA Strategy makes it possible in practise! 

CANEA Strategy ensures and provides support throughout the entire journey from strategy to execution.

Create a shared understanding of the strategy, the goal to achieve and how.

Gives management an unbeatable overview of what’s happening, how it’s progressing, and why.

Creates a clear common thread from the strategy to project, initiatives and actions.