theartofservice

Inverse Demand Management….. (as part of the “”Anti” – Service Management Framework)

Demand Management – aim is to influence user behavior by physical or financial means….

In our IT Service environment, we work hard to manage capacity through Demand Management.  But what about the concept of “inverse demand Management”? ie – encouraging the use of “more” than required service?  Why would we want to do that??? You might be thinking???  Wouldn’t that create a greater workload for us? Cost more… and so on??? Maybe….

Demand Mgt is about influencing user behavior… so – why not influence them to use more when it suits us to do so??? Eg – encouraging users to call the service desk, or promoting the use of 1 particular service over another similar, yet more expensive service.

We are influenced in real life everyday to use something “more”  than we are currently using… It’s classic marketing… sometimes overt, sometimes not…

An example of this -  for a while now, I have been using the same washing powder.  I know that you are suppose to “use 1 cap per load”.  My last container suddenly has a cap with twice the capacity (ie longer lip thing).  It still says use 1 cap per load….. hmmm.. suddenly i am needing to buy more.. and them hoping that I didn’t realize why…..

The benefits… all in favour of the product owner…  more income, more usage, more dependence on the product or service….

There’s something in that for all of us, don’t you think????

Till next time

Cheers from The Art of Service

Michael