ITSM educational program: Users and Customers - who is hiding behind these names?

Original author: Dena Wieder-Freiden
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Translation of an article explaining a couple of basic concepts for ITSM. If you can’t clearly formulate the difference between the customer and the user in a couple of words, the article is worth reading, it is not big.

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Author: Dena Wieder-Freiden (Dena Wieder-Freiden)
Publication on October 18, 2016
in the service desk section of the gods on sysaid

Rose smells like a rose, even though you call it a rose, at least not.
(W. Shakespeare)

I don’t often start my blog posts about IT Services Management with quotes from William Shakespeare, but in his Romeo and Juliet there is a phrase that is ideally suited to the current topic: “A rose smells like a rose, at least call it a rose, at least not.” Unfortunately, like the heroes of Shakespeare, who find a tragic end, the human community in reality is fixated on the names, labels and words that it uses. So, due to the substitution by the authors of ITIL of the meanings of some generally accepted words for those specific to ITIL (for example, “incident” and “problem”), many begin to get confused in the sense of what was said. The situation is so similar to a Shakespeare play, when all the problems accumulated by generations in relations between the families of Montecchi and Capulet, are destroyed by the meaning of love for a boy and a girl to each other.

So ... Users and Customers in IT Services Management.


Let's focus now on one important idea, which, in my opinion, causes a lot of problems due to the peculiarities of the terminology. In ITIL, the concepts of “user” and “customer” have very different meanings.

The customer has a financial basis, i.e. this is the one who pays for the service. But this can mean not only payment with real money. Sometimes this may be the responsibility for the budget, i.e. the person who distributes it, or simply the responsibility for accepting work with the signing of work certificates, without directly paying them. But each time the Customer is the position of the person responsible for obtaining a greater result in the ratio of the price of the service to the benefits that it gives.

User- This is the one who uses the service. Users deal with the inputs and outputs of the service, and not with its price and the resulting benefit (value). Users are carriers of opinions based on what the service does and nothing but that.

In fact, we are all already familiar with this concept, as she is part of our daily lives. Let's show it with an example.

Car selection


And so, let's say that your car was stolen, the insurance company sends a check with compensation and you go to buy a replacement. You go around car dealerships in the area and you see a beautiful sparkling red car with a cute prancing horse on the emblem. "Oh, yes," you think: "I want to get it." Then they say how much this Ferrari costs and you drive home on a used Ford loan you bought to feed your children.

You have just been a customer balancing your wishes and the benefits of owning a car with its value and what you can afford. The customer may find a compromise, as he sees both aspects. The user (for example, your child, whom you also allow to use this car) only drives the car and is never satisfied that he drives and always wants more, because it is not his money.

Toy story


Perhaps you have already participated on both sides in this example, both as an adult and as a child. You go to the toy store with your son, daughter, niece or nephew (imagine such a picture) and let him or her look around all the toys on display and choose one you like, promising to buy it. Children will not look at the price tags, they will focus on what the toy can do and how much they like it or how much they want to possess it. Adults have different ideas. First and foremost, they are concerned that each toy has a price for which you can either get it or get other benefits from this money. They can go further and appreciate the educational or entertaining value of the toy.

In this example, adults act as customers and children as users.

The difference in roles does not only mean that they are different people.


In IT scenarios and in everyday life, it is important to understand that customers and users are roles that are not necessarily performed by different people. You can choose a profitable option, acting as a customer, and feel dissatisfaction later due to insufficient functionality, reliability or support (or lack), acting as a user.

This appears in situations where the customer signs, for example, a service level agreement with support from 8am to 8pm on business days. Despite the fact that this gives a feeling of good savings when buying, the user will not be satisfied when on Saturday he will not be able to use the service due to its refusal and no one will be available to help him until the next business day.

Or for your home, you can have an offer from an energy company for an additional $ 400 per month to guarantee a stable and continuous supply of electricity. It can be so much for your internal customer and you will reject this offer. Then, when six months later, when the electricity “runs out”, your user will be upset, either by the energy company, or by himself.

Whatever you call them, they will all be the same two roles


Of course, only because these two names are used in ITIL: users and customers, you are not required to use them. But understanding the meaning of these concepts allows you to see and use these two roles. Customers, of course, must make decisions to which they are authorized, and users should use the services if they are appropriate for their skills, work style, preferences and general culture. If this is not done, then the services will not be used to their full potential and are unlikely to be of value for making money.

And all this does not end when the service is put into operation, ongoing support and improvement requests are generated in the form of a dialogue with both groups. ITIL offers channels for discussions with both of them: both customers and users. Sign and evaluate service level agreements (SLAs), service improvement procedures, change management, etc. interact with customers. With users, the main channel was told by the Service Desk, which, in addition to receiving calls about problems with the operation of something, can also collect user complaints and wishes and transfer them to procedures for improving services.

Leading organizations have already taken steps to establish and maintain contact with both types of stakeholders in services. Do you do that too?

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