Accenture's employee tech support

A Technology Support self-service portal heavily emphasizes “proactive support,” providing technology-related information, tips and educational videos to help Accenture people understand and get the most from their technology.

Employees can also sign up for 30- or 60-minute virtual workshops on key tools as well as request a one-on-one coaching session with a subject matter expert.

Additionally, social tools for critical apps let Accenture people help each other and share “tips and tricks” to become more productive.

The focus on proactive support and problem prevention helps reduce lost productivity and helps lower support costs.

The customer-centric, Technology Support self-service portal is well established among Accenture people with most support contacts made through this consumer-style, self-enablement channel.

ACCENTURE TECHNOLOGY SELF-SERVICE PORTAL = ONE-STOP SHOP

The self-service area across Accenture is one of continuous improvement and investment with new capabilities being added to drive more incident volume via self-service channels. This self-service provides the same answers with the same quality as with a live agent to maximize people’s time.

Accenture is moving toward having all support and services that can be self-enabled delivered that way. A step in this direction has been the introduction of a single Accenture Support Portal on the ServiceNow platform that covers all business areas to provide one starting point for any help.

Further enabling Accenture’s digital agenda is a major change to its Service Desk program to introduce digital tools and technologies that will transform the provision of technology support to all Accenture employees and greatly reduce the number of interactions requiring Service Desk assistance.

New self-service and automation capabilities will be deployed providing automated solutions to common problems, real-time diagnostics with semi-automated solutions for agents and self-heal technology. Service delivery will be analytics driven and fully integrated with digital channels to proactively manage and deflect issues to minimize employees’ use of the Service Desk.

The development of the Technology Support self-service portal owes much to extensive user profiling and analysis to build real-life, Accenture-specific “user stories” that define what employees need from their support organization.

The support model is designed with the employee experience front of mind—to be simple and intuitive, and provide a choice of ways to interact with the support organization. The element of choice is a cornerstone of the IT Support strategy, enabling and trusting employees to get support in the way that keeps them most productive.

In recognition of the surge in social media usage in the consumer world, Service Desk agents now offer support via Accenture’s social media platform, the Stream, where employees can also help each other through crowdsourcing support.

Remote support capabilities have been stepped up to make support available and resolve issues anywhere, anytime, keeping Accenture people productive at client sites or in other locations, without the need for an in-person or office-based visit.

Accenture’s Technology Support organization offers remote support at both the Service Desk for more routine troubleshooting and through Remote Technology Support teams. These teams are positioned as the equivalent to local office “desk-side” support teams and provide remote resolution for complex issues. Today, they resolve 75 percent of the PC software issues that would previously have been resolved by onshore local teams.

The business benefits of introducing Tier 2 remote support are many: Accenture people remain productive in the field, the support is cost-effective as remote teams are located offshore, and local office support teams are freed up to focus on higher-value activities.