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Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Explain what IT service management (ITSM) is and why it’s relevant across all industries.
- Describe the role of IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) as a best-practice framework for ITSM.
- Explain the common challenges without ITSM best practices and how ITIL helps overcome them.
Before You Start
Before you start this module, consider completing this recommended content.
Understanding IT Service Management and IT Infrastructure Library
The world of IT loves acronyms, and two of the most important—ITSM and ITIL—are at the heart of how organizations keep tech running smoothly.
IT service management (ITSM) is the practice of designing, delivering, and continually improving the way organizations provide IT services. It’s industry agnostic. So whether you’re in healthcare, finance, or education, if your business relies on IT, then ITSM can help. ITSM creates a structured, repeatable, and consistent way for technology to support people and processes.
The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is one of the most widely used frameworks that brings ITSM to life. Think of it as a collection of best practices that help IT teams deliver reliable services that align with their business needs. Even though ITIL isn’t an official standards body, it’s highly relevant across industries where IT plays a critical role. By giving teams a common approach, ITIL helps reduce risk, control costs, and keep service quality high—making it a cornerstone for modern ITSM.
Think of ITIL like a playbook for IT teams. Just as a sports team relies on a set of plays to work together and win games, IT teams use ITIL practices to deliver consistent results. And when organizations don't follow that playbook, they often face challenges.
Here are some of the most common challenges IT teams run into.
- Slow response times when employees need support, leading to frustration and lost productivity.
- Inconsistent service quality, where the experience depends on who handles the request.
- Difficulty in scaling IT services as the organization grows or adds new technologies.
- Reactive fixes instead of proactive and continuous improvement, leaving little time to innovate.
Though not exhaustive, this list provides a good sample set of the challenges many industries often encounter. A subset of these issues are manageable on their own, but when they start to pile up, the result is often unhappy employees who eventually churn out of frustration. Agentforce IT Service can help make it avoidable!
What Does ITIL Have to Do with Salesforce?
In short, a lot! That’s where ITIL best practices come in. They provide the roadmap for modern ITSM and also guide how Salesforce built its own approach. With Agentforce IT Service, Salesforce takes those proven practices and adds the power of AI agents to reimagine how IT teams support employees. It’s a fresh take on ITSM that builds on the familiar playbook, but with smarter, faster, more agentic help at every step along the way.
Here are a few ITIL best practices that many organizations find valuable. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it highlights some of the more widely applicable benefits across industries.
Best Practice | Benefit | Key Metrics |
|---|---|---|
Standardized Service Management Framework | Provides consistent processes and language across IT teams; improves collaboration, and reduces duplication | % of Processes Documented, Process Adoption Rate, Audit Compliance Rate |
Incident and Problem Management | Restores services quickly (incident) and prevents recurring issues (problem); improves availability and customer satisfaction | Mean Time to Repair (MTTR), # of Repeat Incidents, Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) |
Change and Release Management | Reduces risk and downtime by ensuring changes are tested, approved, and communicated effectively | Change Success Rate, % of Failed Changes, # of Emergency Changes |
Service Level and Performance Alignment | Aligns IT services with business goals via SLAs and KPIs; increases trust and transparency | SLA Compliance %, Uptime %, Performance Against KPIs |
Configuration and Asset Management | Maintains accurate records of assets and relationships; improves troubleshooting, planning, and compliance | CMDB Accuracy %, Asset Audit Pass Rate, Incident Resolution Time Linked to CMDB |
By now you’ve learned how ITSM and ITIL set the stage for delivering reliable, consistent IT services, and why following a playbook matters. Salesforce takes those best practices and builds on them with Agentforce IT Service, our AI-powered approach to ITSM. In the next unit, explore its core components, Service Management processes, and see how they put the ITIL roadmap into action.