Moving from frustrating to frictionless IT experiences

Today’s employees expect their corporate technology to be as seamless and intuitive as their personal tech. Yet, clunky IT systems and outdated software often create a frustrating reality – a world of slow downloads, application crashes and endless troubleshooting. Here Justin Rutherford, CTO of managed service provider OryxAlign, explains how ‘digital friction’ wastes valuable time, disrupts workflows and ultimately leads to a poor employee experience.

The traditional approach to solving digital friction, the Service Level Agreement (SLA), focuses on technical aspects like uptime guarantees and response times for resolving incidents. However, SLAs often neglect the user's perspective on how easy it is to use the technology. Now, a new paradigm is emerging: Experience Level Agreements (XLAs). 

XLAs go beyond uptime metrics, focusing on employee sentiment and proactive problem-solving, in addition to areas like application performance and security posture. SLAs measure deliverables, XLAs measure impact.  

Imagine constantly rebooting your computer due to application crashes – a frustration many employees face. On average, users experience this issue seven times before reporting it to IT. By leveraging telemetry data collected from user devices, XLAs gain insights into a wide range of issues that can hinder productivity. This data can include everything from boot times and application crashes to connectivity issues and even the number of times a user hits the enter key or encounters blue screens.

This telemetry can also provide valuable clues about underlying hardware problems. For instance, frequent Microsoft Teams crashes accompanied by blue screens could indicate a device overheating or nearing hardware failure. Similarly, a spike in dropped calls during meetings, coupled with a high number of blue screens, might suggest a device on the verge of failure.

XLAs set clear expectations for the user experience, focusing on metrics like ease of use, resolution times and self-service capabilities. I believe XLAs can significantly improve employee experience by proactively addressing issues and streamlining IT support.

OryxAlign is making the shift to XLAs and thereby focussing on the digital employee experience (DEX). Our approach to DEX tackles digital friction across four key areas: device, applications, network, and security. These areas form the foundation for what we call "guaranteed states" – essentially, the normal operating limits for your device.

By continuously monitoring these areas, we can identify potential problems before they disrupt your workflow. Imagine this: you're working on a project when Stephen, a member of our IT team, sends you a notification. "Hi Justin," it reads, "we can see that your machine hasn't rebooted in 15 days, and you've had three applications crashing. We can schedule a reboot that will restart these systems and bring your device back to a guaranteed state, potentially improving performance." 

This is the power of DEX in action – identifying issues, automating fixes where possible and empowering you to take control through user-friendly notifications.

The shift towards automation and user engagement is key. It enables IT staff to focus on more complex issues while giving you the tools and information you need to maintain a smooth and productive work environment. No more waiting on hold or feeling like IT is a distant entity – DEX fosters a collaborative approach to digital wellbeing.