What makes Enterprise IT end-users happy in 2021?

We analysed 948,280 end-user responses to present our latest findings about end-user happiness and productivity across 8 IT touchpoints.

Read on for a summary of the highlights of The Global IT Experience Benchmark H1/2021 report.

July 9, 2021

In the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced organisations to rapidly transition to remote work. Measuring, understanding, and improving employee experience with the digital workplace is hence more important than ever.

So what makes Enterprise IT end-users happy in 2021?

That is the question The Global IT Experience Benchmark H1/2021 report sought to answer holistically from different angles — Overall IT Experience, IT Service Management, and Remote Work. The report presented the latest insights on how end-users are experiencing different Enterprise IT touchpoints, from IT Support Services to Portals, Devices, Remote Work and more.

Our analysis is based on nearly 1 million end-user responses from 130 different countries, which were gathered through the HappySignals IT Experience Management platform between December 2020 and May 2021.

Here are our key findings, summarised:

Overall IT Experience

End-users rate IT touchpoints that involve human interaction more highly than purely technological touchpoints. Happiness with Support Services and Collaboration with IT were significantly higher than Happiness with, for example, Portal or Enterprise applications. Investing in excellent IT Support and Services are hence an important way to improve overall end-user satisfaction with IT.
Company size affects end-user happiness and the viability of outsourcing IT service desks. The bigger the company, the harder it is to please IT end-users. Outsourcing makes sense in companies with over 5000 employees, where outsourced IT service desks are just as good or better at making end-users happy, than internal service desks.
End-users in happier countries are harder to please. The higher a country ranks in the “Happiest Country on Earth” study, the lower the end-user happiness with IT services.
End-users in some industries are easier to please than others. Within our customer base, it seems to be easier to make end-users in Finance and the Public Sector happy than in IT.

IT Service Management

Happiness is good business. End-users reported an average lost work time of 2h 50min for IT incidents, which translates to -142€ (at an hourly rate of 50€).
Speed of service remains the top determinant of end-user satisfaction with IT support services. Avoiding reassignments and getting the ticket to the right expert as quickly as possible is key to increasing end-user happiness.
IT should tailor support services to the different needs of end-users with different IT support profiles (Doer, Priortiser, Supported, or Trier). Over half of end-users contacting service desks are “Doers” who are capable of solving simpler problems themselves, and hence want expert help.
Untechnical employees (Supported and Triers) logged more IT incident tickets during Covid-19, likely because peer support is less accessible during remote work.
Organisations with clear processes for using IT experience data see the fastest improvements in end-user satisfaction with IT.

Remote Work

Interpersonal factors contribute most to positive remote work experiences. End-users most appreciate being able to easily reach colleagues remotely and having good internal practices for remote working.
Poor internet connection is the biggest reason for negative remote work experiences.
End-users in happier countries rate their happiness with remote work lower. The higher a country ranks in the “Happiest Country on Earth” study, the more demanding end-users seem to be towards their remote work experience.

Intrigued? This was just a very short summary of the full report. Read our detailed analysis and see the data for yourself in The Global IT Experience Benchmark H1/2021 Report, available both on our website and as a downloadable PDF.

I also discussed the report insights in detail in a 47-minute Webinar last month. You can still watch it now on demand on BrightTALK.

Prefer something more bite-sized? In the latest episode of ‘Happy in 15’, I explain how end-users have increased happiness with IT Support Services, and why more end-users think Remote Work is efficient than inefficient, amongst other insights. Watch it here.

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What makes Enterprise IT end-users happy in 2021?

Overall IT Experience

IT Service Management

Remote Work

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