Service request management practice

Service request management practice (hereinafter, the Practice) is the practice to support the agreed quality of a service by handling all predefined, user-initiated service requests in an effective and user-friendly manner. The Practice relates to service request and service management. This Practice is a part of the ITIL practices.

Definitions

According to the ITIL Foundation 4e by Axelos,

Service request management practice. The practice of supporting the agreed quality of a service by handling all predefined, user-initiated service requests in an effective and user-friendly manner.

Purpose

The purpose of the service request management practice is to support the agreed quality of a service by handling all agreed user-initiated service requests in an effective and user-friendly manner.

Requests

A service request is a request from a user or a user's authorized representative that initiates a service action which has been agreed as a normal part of service delivery.

Characteristics

Service requests are pre-defined and pre-agreed and can usually be formalized with clear, standard procedures. Service requests are a normal part of service delivery, not a failure or degradation of service, which are handled as incidents. Fulfillment of service requests may include changes to services or their components; usually these are standard changes. Service requests may have simple workflows or quite complex workflows.

Examples

Some examples of a service request:

• Request for a service delivery action
• Request for information
• Request for provision of a resource or service
• Request access to a resource or service
• Feedback, compliments and complaints

Best practices

Standardization and automation

Service requests and their fulfillment should be standardized and automated to the greatest degree possible:

• Opportunities for improvement should be identified and implemented to produce faster fulfillment times and take additional advantage of automation.
• Some service requests can provide a self-service experience – completely fulfilled with automation.
• Service request management depends on well-designed processes and procedures, which are operationalized through tracking and automation tools.

Policies and workflows

• Policies should be established regarding what service requests will be fulfilled with limited or even no additional approvals so that fulfillment can be streamlined.
• The expectations of users regarding fulfillment times should be clearly set, based on what the organization can realistically deliver.
• Policies and workflows are needed to redirect service requests that should actually be managed as incidents or changes.
• Steps to fulfill requests should be well-known and proven.
• Leverage existing workflow models whenever possible to improve efficiency and maintainability.
• The service provider can agree to fulfillment times and provide clear status communication to users