HDI

The More the Merrier!

The 2008 HDI Practices and Salary Survey is up and collecting data!

If you have had a chance to peruse the 2007 Practices and Salary Survey results you have found that much of the survey is broken down by support center size, industry, and type of support (i.e., internal/external/blended). We have had a great response from this added benefit to the report. We have also had feedback saying you want more of it. This is great! We love to know that you are looking at and using data to drive decisions in your support centers!

In order to do this we need you! More participation in the survey gives us more options on how to analyze and report the industry’s data. We need a certain number of surveys in each demographic in order to report the results for that area. So if you would like to see the 2008 Practices and Salary data sliced and diced for your demographic we need to hear from you in two ways:

1- Respond to this blog by letting our research team know how you would like to see the data broken down. For example, is there a certain industry to which you want to be able to compare your support center? If so, on which metric(s) would you like to compare? Let us know!

2- Take the survey! Follow the link below to take the survey AND send the link on to others in your demographic categories. Maybe this year we can report the results not only for the IT support industry, but at an even more meaningful level for YOU! Complete the survey by July 21st:  www.thinkhdi.com/takethesurvey2008

Bonus – in addition to adding value to the 2008 results, all survey takers will receive a free copy of the 2008 report, AND be entered into a drawing for a Tom Tom Navigation System!

Feel free to submit any comments you may have about the HDI Practices and Salary Survey. We are always happy to hear from you! ~ Jenny Rains, Research Analyst, HDI

AT&T is returning 5000 Customer Service and Support Positions to the US from India…

Sounds like good news for American workers, but is it? AT&T CEO, Randall Stephenson, said the problem is that in some US communities, High School dropout rates are as high as 50%. American schools are failing but it’s no surprise when you see the stranglehold politicians and unions have on them.

Stephenson said, “If I had a business that half the product we produced was defective or you couldn’t put into the marketplace, I would shut that business down”. Those are wise words but in the meantime we wonder why American corporations are looking at the Global Workforce? Because the human capital being produced globally seems to be more competitive than ours here in the US. There are also economic costs that factor into the decisions of where to locate a company’s workforce, but if we don’t have qualified workers, are we not giving big business an excuse to move elsewhere?

In our industry, not only do we need excellent technical skills, we need people that can provide a quality customer experience. AT&T is looking for thousands of workers here in the US and is finding it hard to get qualified workers. My question to you is; are you having the same trouble?

I suspect you are but what can we do? What is the ramification of this for the future of our country? I guess we can start with our own kids and help them understand the value of education. If they take school seriously the sky’s the limit. Or should I say; the World’s their limit…

Rich Hand

Implementing a Successful Help Desk

By Ron Muns, Founder & CEO, HDI

Next week I will be speaking at the TribalNet 8 Conference (www.tribalnetonline.com). The title of my presentation is also the topic of this Muns Report. While preparing for this presentation, I took time to pause and consider: "What Is a Help Desk?" "What Is Success?" And, "What Are the Keys to Success?" Let me reflect on each of these.

What Is a Help Desk?

HDI, as most of you know, for years was known as "Help Desk Institute." When we first formed in 1989, the term help desk was the most common term (around 45 percent) for the group of individuals that received calls from customers on technical issues. No other term came close. In recent years, other terms have started popping up or becoming more common, such as service desk or customer support. In 2006, the term help desk usage was down to 34 percent and the term service desk had risen to 15.4 percent. I am not a stickler for what we call ourselves, and in fact, it is not overly important. However, due to the variety of names and attitudes towards them, a few years ago, we changed our name from Help Desk Institute to HDI. In reality, the primary roles of most of our member organizations are to:

• Be the central point of contact between IT and the customer (end-user).
• Resolve or manage incidents from start to finish.
• Identify quality issues via "problem management" to reduce defects.
• Build and maintain knowledge for optimal reuse by support staff and customers.

So, for our typical member we are talking about all of the above goals. We are not responsible for all of IT, but we are responsible for issues that are much broader than just first level support.

What Is Success?

• Happy customers?
• Productive customers?
• Low cost?
• Fewer calls or more calls?
• More support automation or less support automation?

Each of us must define success in terms of the IT organizations and the businesses we serve. Of course we want our customers to be happy, but not at any cost. Yes, we want our customers to be productive, but we are not slaves who will spend any amount of money to make their lives easier. Yes, we want lower costs, but not if we deliver poor service or burn out our employees. Sometimes we want fewer calls (i.e. password resets, or calls that can be avoided by self-help). Sometimes we may want more calls, if the productivity impact to the organization as a whole is greater. And as far as automation, we want more of it when justified by volume. We don't want to automate something that is expensive and is infrequent in occurrence. So, each organization has to define success in their own terms.

What Are the Keys to Implementing a Successful "Help Desk?"

First of all, let me point out two basics. Nothing is hard if you have done it before. As your association we connect you with others who have "done it before." This happens in local chapter meetings, in online forums, and at our HDI Annual Conference & Expo. But, if you have not "done it" before, then it can be intimidating and scary. So, for those of you who have not done it before, or are about to embark on a major re-engineering effort, here is a short list to consider: Implement (re-engineer) using project planning methodologies—The short list of things to do...

1. Develop the vision, mission, and goals for your support organization—In this process, involve your support team and get buy-in from your staff, upper management, your peers, and your customers.
2. Develop your task list by phases, clearly assign responsibilities.
3. Do the math on all phases—Cost justify your plans and do an after-the-fact analysis of the results. This will help you become more aligned with all of IT and the businesses you serve.
4. Present the plan, and again, get buy-in from superiors, peers, staff, and customers.
5. Execute the plan.
6. Hold regular meetings to review progress. You should celebrate your successes, but you must, of course, discuss failures and learn from them.

Conclusion

For those of you on the journey to support excellence, I wish you the best. Whether you are implementing a new support organization or re-engineering an existing one, the basics are the same. If you focus on your customers and the business as a whole, you will make the right decisions. In my presentation next week, I will have more time to talk about some specific people, process, and technology issues to consider. But, one additional piece of advice is that throughout the process be sure to communicate-communicate-communicate. All successful projects have teams and all successful teams communicate regularly. If you want to implement a successful help desk (support center, service desk, customer support, etc.), you must constantly communicate issues and successes to all concerned.

Best of luck in your journey to support excellence!

From Help Desk or Service Desk to "The Productivity Center"

By Ron Muns, Founder & CEO, HDI

During his annual review with his boss, Bob was told, "It's not about fixes or even answers; I want our employees and customers working productively. Tell me how your support organization will increase staff productivity?" Bob is a pretty savvy guy and he has the answers to this question. Do you know the fundamental reason for your organization's existence? Before I tell you how a savvy support executive would answer this question, if you want your own IT infrastructure management and service teams to be more productive, don’t miss our next big event and learn about:

    * Running IT Like a Business
    * IT Business Alignment and Governance
    * Security, Storage, and Business Continuity
    * IT Service Management
    * Strategic Sourcing
    * ITIL Implementation
    * Technology Trends

Can or Should You Measure End-user Productivity?

Bob knows that productivity is the amount of work accomplished in a specified period of time. The trouble is, there are many different types of workers. Some do activities that can be easily measured, while many are subjective where the value is qualitative rather than quantitative. Also, many people do multiple types of activities which require different productivity measures. The simple fact is, IT is in no position to judge the productivity of the end-users while they are working. What we can determine is how much time our end users are impacted by malfunctioning or confusing systems. Our unit of measure for this should be "Impacted User Minutes" or IUMs.

When the support organization has an interaction with an end-user, we know our end-user's productivity is impacted. They aren't calling or contacting us just to chat or to say, "Great job." They contact us because they have an issue, a problem, or need to make a request for something. So, while it may not be possible to calculate end-user productivity, Bob told his boss he would measure lost end-user time in terms of IUMs, which directly impacts their productivity.

Sampling the Impact

What you are looking for is to clearly understand the big items that affect productivity and to estimate the rest. We create monthly reports of the most frequently occurring incidents. We generally know top issues that we deal with month-in and month-out and can easily create a list of the top-most frequently occurring incidents. So, for each item on your "top list," take the following approach to calculating Impacted User Minutes:

1. Sample a couple dozen incidents from each category on your most frequently occurring incidents list.

2. Contact the end-users and ask them to describe the situations. What you are looking for is for them to tell you from start to finish how many minutes they were impacted (and others around them) by the incident.

3. Calculate the average IUMs for each incident category.

4. Multiple the average IUMs by the number of incidents in the category for the month.

5. Add up all the IUMs for all categories on your "top list."

Sample all other incidents (not on the "top list") and ask your end-users to estimate their IUMs. Then, as before, average the answers and multiple by the number of incidents not on your "top list." This will give you the total Impacted User Minutes for the month.

Additional considerations:

* Don't forget your self-help portals...not all incidents are logged, so you will need to do the same for self-service interactions. One simple way of dealing with end-user time in self-service activities might be to compute total end-user time in the self-help portal or systems.

* Often times, multiple end-users are affected by one incident, therefore the impact on all end-users must be included in your calculation.

IT Productivity Impact Reports

If you begin reporting IT productivity impact in terms of IUMs, you will get senior management's attention. Initially the report may be a bit confusing and scary (the numbers may be large). But over time it will become a key metric for the entire IT organization. It will be much more meaningful than the usual "percent available" type reports. As you get better at it you may also add the cost of IUMs to the report. The impact will be to direct everyone's attention to the incident categories that are most impacting end-users. This is exactly what you want!

Conclusion

In order to become a productivity center, Bob realizes that he must measure the impact his organization has on end-user productivity. While exact measurements may not be practical, measuring lost time is critical. Lost time directly relates to end-user productivity. IT, of course, can greatly increase end-user productivity by the development of new and better systems. Such gains are critical, but somewhat beyond the scope of the Muns Report. As I said earlier, for a broader look at the business side of IT and better aligning of IT with the business, please join me and hundreds of others at our next big event, The IT Infrastructure Management Conference & Expo, November 6-9, 2007 at the MGM Grand, Las Vegas.

Best of luck in your journey to support excellence!

The IT Support Portal — 2010

By Ron Muns, Founder  CEO, HDI

My August 1st Muns Report on "Service Desk 2010" provided a number of predictions as to what the support organization and technology might look like in 2010. I would like to delve a little deeper into what the IT support portal might look like in 2010. As many of you know, I lead the HDI Executive Forum for large support centers. We meet quarterly and generally fifteen of the twenty participating support executives are able to attend. At our next meeting, September 12-14 at Amelia Island (near Jacksonville, FL) we will focus on what the group thinks the service desk/help desk/support center will look like in 2010. I know the group well enough to know that the IT support portal is and will continue to be of absolute importance. I would like to hear your thoughts and input. I suspect there are a number of vendors that might like to weigh in on this one. I will take all of the input that I receive with me to Amelia Island and to our September 17-19 HDI Strategic Advisory Board meeting, which will also be addressing this subject.

What Do You Mean "IT Support Portal?"

I see it as a starting point for end-user or customer interactions when performing self-help actions in order to solve a technical problem or to get an answer to a technical question. I use the term “IT” to indicate that the support portal being discussed is for technical or technology issues. I could have used the word "technical" or "technology" as well. The majority of our members are a part of the IT organization, thus referring to the support portal as an IT portal seemed appropriate. Some of the concepts could also refer to non-IT or non-technical support portals as well.

Key IT Support Portal Design Concepts

I want to focus on three design concepts that I think are important. Hopefully this will stimulate your mind and may even give some vendors food for thought on what to begin building.

1. My Personal Avatar—I will have a "virtual Ron," my personal agent on my workstation. The Ron avatar will learn my interaction patterns and issues, configuration and connectivity history, mistakes, and maybe even attend "virtual meetings" with other avatars. I believe there will be hundreds or thousands of avatars meeting on servers and sharing the successes and challenges faced by their "real" personas. The avatars will discuss what environmental or interaction patterns preceded the real personas need to access the support portal. Coming out of the meeting of avatars (and with input from real technologists), the avatars will monitor and take corrective action to keep me up and running. As the virtual Ron avatar is personal to me, I will control what my avatar is allowed to communicate with others. I expect that some pesky little avatars will get out of control and face legal issues related to privacy or confidentiality, so a watchful eye will be needed to ensure all avatars follow the law.

2. "The People's Knowledge Base"—Knowledge is our understanding and implication of facts as we see them (my definition). The IT support portal will need massive quantities of knowledge, but it will need to be useful, findable, and current. Knowledge can exist in hundreds of places and in thousands of minds. The IT support portal in 2010 will need to improve, in order of magnitude, knowledge consolidation, findability, and currency. Many of these issues are addressed in the principles of KCS (Knowledge Centered Support) which we teach and can be read about here. I refer to the 2010 environment as the People's Knowledge Base because I see such a need to collaborate amongst everyone who accesses the knowledge base. Knowledge is not really owned and cannot be controlled by companies or people, it is to be shared to facilitate people interacting in their work and personal lives (with certain IP situation exceptions).

Consolidation—Organizations have hundreds of sources of knowledge, both from internal and external sources. There continues to be opportunities for vendors to enhance the manner in which these sources are linked and accessible within a single support portal. The vendors need to view the linkage as a two-way interaction as well. If I find knowledge that is obsolete, how does the technology communicate it back to an originating source? You should also give my avatar access to your knowledge.

Findability—(this not a real word, but I think you get it) Knowledge that cannot be found is wasted. One of the hardest things for help systems in the past has been to provide key words to helpful information that would match the words that the end-user will use. Most of the capabilities to improve findability exist today, but are not common. By 2010, the tools for finding knowledge should improve and the processes for building and maintaining knowledge will have matured, so I predict that the findability percentage will reduce the incidents escalated to a live person by 30 percent or more in most organizations and some will do much better.

Currency—Knowledge is most valuable when it is learned sooner rather than later. That applies to all aspects of our lives as individuals, but it also applies to knowledge sharing at work and at home. In the ideal world, when one person learns something and documents it, it should be available to everyone. If someone saw the knowledge and wanted to add to it, they could. If a conflict arose as to whose knowledge was best, a resolution process would exist. By 2010, corporate knowledge release policies will be far more advanced. Release means providing access to knowledge to larger and larger groups (support section, support organization, IT, the internal end-user community, and eventually to individuals throughout the customer base or even anyone with access to the Internet). Fear of bad knowledge or incomplete knowledge or inadequate knowledge will become lessoned. We will still struggle but we will and must share more as a part of our everyday interactions with technology. As I always say, "All of us are smarter than any of us."

3. Ergonomics—This term is most often used for physical things (the study of how a workplace and the equipment used there can best be designed for comfort, safety, efficiency, and productivity). I believe there are best practices for human interactions with support systems. By 2010, we (HDI) will have helped to clarify these best practices. In doing so we will find answer to questions such as:

- Should help systems be passive and only appear when requested or should our avatars be allowed to pop-up and make suggestions?

- Should a support interaction start with a portal Web site with lots of options or should the avatar be allowed to present different views based upon the situation?

- How do we ask questions quickly and easily that provide the avatar with sufficient input to be helpful?

- Do we require multiple fields for questions, context or environmental information (the avatar should know most of this), and knowledge domain clarification or should we all use Googlish search structure?

- Can we individualize information retrieved based upon our personal desire for text, pictures, videos, or links to individuals?

- How can we make it easy for everyone to be a part of keeping knowledge current?

Conclusion

Support cost will continue to be a concern. It is not an issue unique to IT or IT support, it is a concern for every area of your organization. The cost of support will be less on phone and more on technology, openness, and collaboration. Thus the IT support portal will be a requirement in 2010.

Knowledge sharing may, by 2010, go outside the boundaries of your corporations or customer base. For more than a decade, people have discussed the possibility of knowledge being shared across the Internet. Such sharing does exist today, but generally only within topical or subject areas. The models general provide incentives for the providers of knowledge (from recognition via rankings to monetary rewards) and in most, but not all, models there is a cost to the consumer of the knowledge. I suspect that the pricing models will not be successful. Regardless of how broadly you share knowledge, your support portal must be simple, intuitive, deep, consolidated, and easily updated. Such external support models will be known to my avatar who will be able to use these sources of information to help me in my daily life at work and at home.

Best of luck in your journey to support excellence!

Service Desk 2010

By Ron Muns, Founder & CEO, HDI

We must envision the future to see new possibilities in everything that we do. How far we should look is open to speculation. For practical reasons, it is impossible to anticipate organizational and operational, or even technology changes more than three years in the future. The world just changes too fast. A number of the HDI Forum Groups have been discussing what support will be like in the year 2010. I thought I might pose some of the issues being discussed as well as solicit member and industry feedback. The HDI Strategic Advisory Board will also be discussing this topic in the fall. Later this year and during our annual conference, I (and others) will be presenting my (their) views on how things will change.

I would like to thank the Support Center Leadership Forum and their leader, our very own Rick Joslin, for much of the input below:

1. Virtualization — This is going to be a major driver in allowing at-home agents. It will require: new telephony infrastructure, new management, training and coaching methods, communications tools such as instant messaging for collaboration, and performance monitoring.

2. Supporting the mobile user—The proliferation and impact of wireless devices will continue.

3. Support portals will become much more robust (broader and deeper content) and easier to use, which will result in a larger percentage of support interactions being "self service."

4. Greater use of wireless devices will be used by support center personnel, especially those dispatched to client sites.

5. KCSSM (Knowledge Centered Support) will be a requirement for support centers. (Just like you cannot do without incident management.)

6. Support centers will move away from major metropolitans. In order to drive down the cost per incident, support centers are realizing that they need to move out of the major cities. The cost per square foot is too high. This results in moves to the suburbs, small towns, and even to near-shoring and off-shoring.

7. Dynamic augmentation of staff—The ability to quickly add to staff via outsourcing or through staffing companies. This requires more people to meet a common set of expectations.

8. Higher recognition of value for certifications. Many companies have already started to make HDI certification a requirement. There was a consensus that this will become a norm along with certain technical certifications.

9. Globalization, especially the need to support multiple languages. Global support organizations will not be able to continue to make English the only language they support. To meet the needs of the customer, local language support will be necessary.

10. Focus on threat/risk management. In today's world, we have to keep our assets, including our people, safe.

11. Customers will continue to become more demanding and at the same time have more competence. As their skills increase, they will expect the skills of the support center to stay ahead of the customer.

12. Technology for agents needs to keep up with the technology used by customers. This is in a constant state of change and advancement.

13. There will be new ways to manage and measure success. The performance assessment system will have to be updated as more people become knowledge-centric using virtual support models to support the remote and mobile users who travel (domestic and internationally).

14. Expect to see agents become more specialized, augmented by knowledge. This is due to the simple stuff shifting to self-service and the increasing breadth of technology being supported. The counter argument here would be that with improving knowledge bases, generalists will be able to perform at almost the same level as the specialists.

15. There will be a growing number of support organizations that employ specific professional roles based upon best practice standards (i.e. ITIL®), such as the Service Level Manager, the Change Manager, the Problem Manager, and the Incident Manager.

16. There will be a move away from best of breed technologies to an integrated suite of technologies from a single vendor. Continued consolidation in the industry as vendors augment their suites with new functionality. We are already seeing this in the industry.

17. Much higher adoption of industry best practices. ITIL, KCS, and HDI are just the three most common to support centers.

18. The global economy will be a major driver.

What Do You Think?

The above items are not in order of percent probability or even importance. They are food for thought. So, what do you think? Which ones do you think will be most likely or most important, and what other predictions do you have for 2010? Some of the items may be elements that you have thought of and wish to ask questions about or provide some detailed comments on. I would definitely welcome your input. Thanks in advance. Your input is what makes our association work! I will read every comment and respond to your thoughts. At HDI I believe our most important role is to provide you guidance for the future. So, please send me your thoughts and I will share our consolidated thinking with your peers, our HDI members, and industry leaders.

Conclusion

The future will come and it will be interesting. By continuing to network and collaborate with one another and share opinions, we will be prepared for the future. One thing we know, things will never stay the same. Technologies and processes continue to improve, which impacts the organizations we manage and the organizations we support. So, be a part of the thought process for the service desk of 2010 and send me your opinions and ideas.

Best of luck in your journey to support excellence!

Building a Change Management Plan

By Robert Last, HDI

Yes, building a formal CMP is a great deal of work, but failing to build one invites failure and makes an already tough job only tougher. The phases of the typical Change Management Plan (CMP) are as follows:

1. Preparation: Anticipate the constituent groups that will be affected by the consolidation project; this can include everyone from the CEO's assistant to the people in the mailroom. Be prepared to answer their questions, address their concerns, and help them understand how the consolidation will affect them.

2. Planning: Build the CMP and anticipate how to keep each constituent group informed and involved in the project. Communication is the most critical of critical success factors. Change has a tendency to scare people and a good CMP is an acknowledgement that human beings matter in an organization. Persuasion, information, and even consultation with employees should be a part of every CMP.

3. Transition Structures: Establish special ways of working together and temporary organizational structures as needed. For example, teams from two support centers being consolidated into one will need to identify their individual problem solving and troubleshooting methodologies and combine them into one set of methodologies that the entire staff can use. When this task is completed, the team may be dissolved and replaced by another team that will design and deliver training on the new methodologies.

There may be dozens of such structures created and disbanded as the need presents itself.

4. Implementation: In this step, the CMP is activated and all constituent groups begin learning how they will be kept informed about the progress of the project. As this phase begins, there will be significant uncertainty, fear, curiosity, and even anger that will have to be dealt with.

5. Reward: Acknowledge the people that served on the project team and don't forget to thank all of the people that came to work every day and did the best job they could.

Despite over fifty years of study, many organizations still stumble and lurch their way into planning a consolidation and creating a Change Management Plan. Creating, documenting, practicing, and implementing these plans are indicators of an organization's maturity, the seriousness of its commitment to managing its problems, and its ability to respond to market and organizational forces. The best and most effective organizations have leaders that take consolidation projects seriously and use best practices to make them successful. A sample of these best practices is presented on the following page:

To read more about change management, see HDI's focus book, Techniques for Help Desk and Support Center Consolidation by Robert S. Last. This book is available on the HDI eStore at www.thinkhdiestore.com.

iPhone:™ Lessons for Support

By Ron Muns, Founder & CEO, HDI

Two of my children, Andy and Katherine, bought me an iPhone for my birthday. I must say, at first I panicked. I didn't want anyone to take my Blackberry® Pearl away from me. I have grown pretty attached to this device, and then along came the iPhone. Wow! I am amazed at how easy-to-use and intuitive it is. In fact, its ease-of-use is what will make it hugely profitable for Apple® and AT&T. There are a few lessons here to be learned for technical support organizations.

First, Let's Chat about Why I Like this Device

It is thin; it is light; the touch screen works magnificently; it connects to wireless networks as easy as a PC; it requires very few touches (aka key strokes) to get what you want; good camera (2M); easy-to-sync (music, photos, podcasts, and videos); simple to send text messages; photo viewing is as amazing as it looks on TV; links quickly to YouTube.com; easy access to weather, stocks, maps and the Web; e-mail is fine (issues with syncing with exchange server should be resolved in the next couple of months); and, oh yeah, the phone options are super...okay, enough with this commercial (neither Apple or AT&T are sponsors, nor did they approve nor review my comments.)

A Few Comments for Your Development Teams...

We have always said the objective of IT is to eliminate all reasons to contact support. Well, the iPhone will certainly reduce calls as it is so easy to install and operate. I opened up the package, changed phone carriers, installed iTunes, got everything in sync, selected my call plans, etc. and have not had a reason to contact either Apple or AT&T. The lesson for developers is that if you make installation easy and application usage obvious, your customers will be able to take care of themselves. So, let me repeat: "DEVELOPERS, do the following:"

Make installation procedures easy—some might say dummy proof, but I wouldn't because we, of course, do not have dummies for customers.

Think about navigation from the customer's point of view—present them with only the options they need, when they need them, and at all times reduce the number of clicks (or touches) required.

Build support automation into your products—anticipate where problems might occur and give your customer's support and links to extended help.

Don't over-engineer options that will complicate things.

So, You're Not a Developer...You Are in Support?

Most of the message is the same. If you are in support, you have the role of being the advocate for the customer. You communicate with them more than any other group. Capture what they say and how they say it. You should pick up clues as to when and why your customers get frustrated. Document customer issues and frustrations and discuss with others within your support teams. Ask yourself what the underlying issue is. What could change that would reduce customer issues and frustration? Think out-of-the-box about possible solutions.

Do you think developers want to make life difficult for the customer? Of course not! But, you may know some things about the customer's experience that the developers are not aware of. I believe that Apple/AT&T have hit a real home run with the iPhone because they took the time to build features into this device that their customers want in an easy-to-use manner.

Building Easy-to-Use Applications Costs a Lot, But Support Costs Even More

Your developers may tell you that they do not have the time or money to build systems that are overly intuitive and easy-to-use. Well, the truth is, in the long term it will be cheaper. We are really talking about the tradeoff between higher front-end build costs versus back-end variable support costs. The later goes on forever, while better engineering of products is a one time or fixed cost.

Conclusion

I would like to congratulate Apple on building a fine, intuitive product. I now believe that all of Steve Job's predictions as to how many iPhones they will sell are true and may be understated. Just as the iPod has become the portable music device others try to imitate, the same will be true for the iPhone. Apple picked up a blank sheet of paper and produced the best possible PDA. Let the competition begin. I challenge all leaders in the support world to use this as an example for supportability. Talk to your developers about the importance of ease-of-use technologies and intuitive applications. In the long run, the cost will be lower and your customers will be happier and more productive.

Best of luck in your journey to support excellence!

Implementing Knowledge Management

By Chris Farver, Richard Joslin, and Char LaBounty for HDI®

The first step many managers take when asked to implement knowledge management is to investigate the vendors. Approaching a project such as knowledge management should never begin with the technology. Following is a brief overview of some of the key steps necessary to successfully implement knowledge management within your support center.

Define the business objectives. Understanding why you have been asked to implement knowledge management is the first step in the project. What are the expectations of management for the project? Is the goal to reduce your budget? If so, you might need to educate your management. The project can save money by reducing the cost of support on a per-case basis, but you have to remember that the support demands are going up. Implementing knowledge management is a step for managing the rising support costs, not a step that will reduce costs. Perhaps the goals are customer satisfaction or customer retention. Whatever the goals are, you need to understand them, develop a plan to measure them and ensure you deliver on the defined business objectives.

Once you know why you are implementing knowledge management, you need to secure a management champion. Generally this is the sponsor of the project. A champion is someone with enough authority and resources to support the project. This individual understands the ultimate business gains and can communicate the vision. The champion will also support you when things are not going exactly as planned.

The third step is to understand your customer. Do you know who your audience is? Who will have access to the knowledge base? Supporting field technicians and supporting customers require different things. Do you need to provide global support or 24/7 support? Understanding who the customers are will help define the requirements for both the content in the knowledge base as well as the functionality of the technology. At this point you can propose what your new service levels may be, once self-service knowledge management is implemented.

You should model the workflows that you will be implementing. Make sure to consider the various contact points to the support center. Here is a simple example; however, you will need to be more detailed in your plain.

Customers have a choice to check the Web, call the support center, or send an e-mail. If they check the Web, then they are presented with the ability to search or browse the knowledge base. If they find a solution, then the workflow is complete. If they do not find a solution, then they are presented with an option to escalate the problem to the support center. The escalation could be done via an e-mail to the support center, with an automatic e-mail confirmation to the customer that the support center will respond to all e-mails within one hour between the hours or 7:00 A.M. and 9:00 P.M. Monday through Friday. If this is an emergency, the customer is requested to call the support center at 800-321-HELP for after-hours support.

You need to consider the impact of implementing knowledge management on your various audiences. Do not simply focus on how they will use these new tools, but on how it will alter the way you are providing support.

Now it is time to visit with vendors and evaluate the technology options. Share with them your vision and allow them to demonstrate to you how their tool can support and possibly enhance that vision. You most likely have already invested in technology within your support center. Ask to see working examples of the vendor's products working with your existing tools, such as your problem management system. You should also talk with the vendor's existing customers to hear about their implementation and use of these tools; you may learn about other options that will allow you to enhance your plans. When selecting a vendor, remember that you are looking for a service partner—someone that will help you ensure success.

Implementing in phases will reduce your risk. You need to have a problem management system in place to manage and track the problems, questions, and inquiries your customers contact you about. You need a knowledge management system to capture and deliver the answers your support center is creating. That does not mean you have to provide a knowledge base for every product you support. You might elect to implement knowledge management within the support center first and provide customer access in a later phase. This allows you to get it right internally before you make it visible to customers. Your first knowledge base may be related to a new product you are supporting. By limiting the scope of the knowledge base, you may be reducing the number of people involved in the initial project. This also allows you to work through the processes with a small team before rolling out the changes to a larger audience.

To read more about knowledge management at the  help desk, see HDI's focus book Knowledge Management by Chris Farver, Richard Joslin, and Char LaBounty. This book is available on the HDI eStore.

The Perfect Handoff to your “Desktop Support Technicians”

By Ron Muns, CEO and Founder HDI

We recently asked our members to provide a name for the individual or group that goes to your client’s site to resolve support issues.  Thanks to the 265 individuals that responded to our survey and congratulations to John Gibson, Manager of Customer Service for Goodwill Industries of Central Indiana, who won the drawing for an HDI t-shirt.

The term “Desktop” was far more frequent than “Deskside” or “Field;” and, “Technician” far outnumbered “Analyst” or Specialist” which tied for second place. The word “Support” was used in 72 percent of the votes. So, it is official, the individual who is dispatched to a client site to resolve/repair issues at a client's workstation will from this point forward be referred to as a “Desktop Support Technician” and the group will be referred to as “Desktop Support.”

So, this week I want to explore the "Perfect Handoff" for level one support to desktop support...

The Perfect People

Coordination between level one support staff (support analysts) and desktop support technicians (DSTs) is critical. From a people perspective, the important elements are:

Mutual respect – The support analyst (SA) knows the time and cost   associated with desktop support and sets an objective to never send a DST to   the client needlessly.  

Clear communications – The level one support analyst documents the   situation well to help the DST solve the issue on one visit. Likewise, the DST   documents the actions taken and resolution in the call tracking system and   provides immediate notifications to the end-user (customer) and the SA.

An example job description for a desktop support technician can be found at http://www.maine.edu/pdf/0155.pdf.

Perfect Processes

  

Processes for desktop support start with Service Level Agreements or service commitments to the customer (how long it should take for the technician to arrive, how long it should take for various issues to be resolved, if the customer is required to be present, etc.). Perfect processes also require Operating Level Agreements (OLAs) between the support organization (service desk) and the desktop support organization. Arrival times, fix times by issue type, and assistance needed, if any, from the support analyst.

In order to be clear about processes for SAs and DSTs, you should write down the procedures and draw process flow charts. This leaves nothing to chance. When the SA receives notification from a customer that there is a need or issue that may require a DST, the SA should know exactly what steps are needed to clarify the situation, and then, resolve it or dispatch it to the DST with the proper information included in the handoff.

Perfect Technologies

The exact mix of technologies for you may be different than the list below, but hopefully the list will help you select the tools you need. I have listed them in the order of the process steps most commonly followed:

 

• Call tracking system – This is a basic for all call centers and is   generally taken for granted. You might want to be sure your system has proper   integration with the other technology aspects listed below. The call tracking   system will either be the input point for a service request (i.e. new   workstation), or the location of information associated with an issue that   needs to be resolved.
 
• Self-help technologies (portals, knowledge bases) – In many cases,   the customer may be able to resolve their own issues without contacting a   support analyst.
 
• Chat communications – This technology, if operable from the   customer's desktop, will allow the support analyst to begin the diagnostic   even before a phone call is required. If chat does not resolve it, the   communications can continue via phone or the incident can be sent to the   support organization via an automatic incident logging process.
 
• Remote control technologies – The support analyst can often avoid   the need for dispatching a DST by taking remote control of the customer’s   desktop. This allows the analyst to handle software conflicts, version issues,   upgrades, patches, etc. that otherwise might have required a desktop visit.  
 
• DST support communications – Usage of
    Blackberry^®   type devices or interfaces from the field can help speed the communications   into the call tracking system. This will speed the ticket close procedures and   help ensure clear documentation of the issue, actions taken, and the   resolution. This will also help with early classification of incidents as   “known errors” which can improve your problem management procedures.  
• Customer satisfaction surveys – Be sure to sample your customers   via incident transaction sampling to track customer satisfaction against your   goals. (If you are participating in HDI’s free Customer Satisfaction Research   project, you will get comparisons to peers and more…for   more info.)

Perfect Metrics

I won’t try to list all the metrics that could be used by and between the support organization and desktop support, but I will suggest two that I consider most important:

 

• Percent correct assignments – What percent of the time that an   incident results in a dispatch to desktop support was this correct? You could   use the negative term as well, “percent of time dispatch was not needed.”
 
• Costs per visit – Better processes, people interactions, and   support technologies will lower the cost per visit.

Conclusion

Again, thanks to those who participated in the survey. So, remember the objective...minimize customer downtime regardless of whether it is for a software refresh, hardware migration, or to correct an issue. Working together, the SAs and the DSTs can minimize customer downtime, minimize incorrect DST dispatches, and can properly document the incidents, issues, and resolutions, which will enable better problem management to minimize customer disruptions in the future.

Best of luck in your journey to support excellence!

Keeping IT Support Strategic

By Ron Muns, Founder & CEO, HDI

For quite a number of years, IT support has been considered important, indispensable, and yes, even strategic. IT support is the go-to resource to not only keep the end-users/customers up and running, but it is the key resource for problem identification and elimination, knowledge acquisition and access, and an advisor for which technologies to build or buy in the future. Wow! Let's celebrate what we have accomplished. No so fast! The future continues to evolve and you need to plan for the changes that will happen, with or without you.

We've Become Strategic by Expanding our View of Support

At one time, support was thought of as "just those people" that answered end-user/customer questions or escalated calls to desk-side/field personnel or to more senior technical staff. Support took the calls no one else wanted. Well, once we took those calls we realized that support included the need to understand the root cause of problems; that we could enable self-help, auto diagnostics, and self-healing. We learned that knowledge does not have to stay within the support organization, and that customers really are willing to answer their own questions and submit their own service requests, if we give them the necessary tools. We learned that we need access to accurate configuration information. We learned that we could act as an advisor to procurement on assets to acquire, and we began to advise applications development and training on application issues and usability factors.

ITIL® Service Desk Definition Inhibits our Strategic Value

This will be a bit controversial, and those who disagree are welcome to respond. ITIL® primarily describes IT Service Management processes and, for the most part, does not discuss IT organizational structures, with one primary exception. ITIL defines the service desk. This would be fine, if it represented the real world. ITIL defines the service desk to be what most of us would call level one support. This is what support was before we better understood our organization's/customer's needs. Level one support (aka ITIL's service desk) is one of many roles for the typical support manager. In small organizations, the support manager handles level one, some level two, possibly desk-side support, problem analysis, knowledge management, configuration management, and more, with a group of people that often times have multiple roles. In very large organizations, the support manager has many operating groups, and it is likely that one is a level one group that fits the ITIL definition of the service desk. 15.4 percent of our members call themselves the service desk, however, I suspect that the primary organizational unit includes the functional activities identified above. The term service desk has picked up a lot of popularity as the adoption of ITIL has expanded and virtually all vendors of call tracking systems now consider their products ITIL-compliant and have begun to use the term service desk. I very much value level one support as this is the connection between the end-users/customers and IT (or the company in the case of technology vendors). I would recommend to the OGC (and have) that they reconsider the term service desk and go for one with a more strategic focus.

Functional Responsibilities for IT Support Organizations

While there will be some variation depending upon size, technologies supported, geographic dispersion of end-users/customers, I see the following functions reporting to the person in charge of IT support (who likely reports to the CIO, head of IT infrastructure, or in some cases, an executive outside of IT): Level one support (aka service desk) Level two support for most, if not all issues Desk-side support Knowledge Management Maintenance of self-help portals Self-diagnostic and self-healing tools Problem Management/root cause analysis Configuration Management/Asset Management tools Governance/Oversight over IT assets Coaching end-users/customers Focus on Alignment with the Business If you look at support from the business perspective, you will develop the right role. Don't take a limited view of support and don't let anyone limit you by the labels they use. Focus on the business. Once you do that, I am certain that you will see the list above is a realistic look at the needs of the business and what they expect you to deliver. Regardless of what you call yourself, you will remain strategic in the years ahead by keeping a business focus. I believe the ITIL processes are, overall, "right on" but their focus on defining the service desk is quite limiting.

Conclusion

If you want to keep IT support as a strategic IT unit, organize around your customer's needs and do not accept a limited organizational view. The approaches to organizational structures vary a great deal due to size, geography, industry, and more. I recommend that you take a strategic and holistic view of support and that you develop an organizational structure that will best serve your customers. Best of luck in your journey to IT service and support excellence!

Support Center Service Trends

by Robert S. Last, HDI

Support centers are playing an increasingly strategic role in the health and performance of all types of organizations. As solutions and technologies become more complex, the support center's role in resolving tactical technologies on an ongoing basis will assure the successful deployment of rollouts, products, increased customer satisfaction, and early adoption. Organizations are beginning to realize that support centers must be aligned to the core of their business and organization's mission. As such, organizations continue to expand the role of the support center by integrating it into:

-Customer satisfaction efforts
-Product development
-Marketing, sales, and service functions/activities
-Change management

While integration into other business functions continues, support centers are still measured by profitability and cost management. High levels of support and customer satisfaction, and even loyalty, are expected despite:

-Economic variability
-High levels of employee turnover
-New demands on the support center (for example, support centers need to support more products with less staff)

The increased value of the support center is supported by the following technological trends:

-Increasing use of self-help technologies
-Rising reliance on knowledge management and knowledge tools
-Improved usage of real time collaboration or remote control tools
-Sophisticated problem solving and troubleshooting techniques
-Integration of asset metering and management tools

While the support center is now critical to the health and performance of an organization, it is often still marked by a less than glamorous image and status within the organization, and to the outside business community as a whole. This status is quickly changing. Support centers are increasingly seen as the core of an organization's:

-Technical proficiency
-Attitude towards customers, employees, and partners
-Communications to the Chief Information Officer (CIO) or executive management team
Support center employment and management, which has truly come of age and is now a profession in its own right

To read more about service trends in the support center, see HDI's focus book The Executive's Guide to Understanding Technical Support by Robert S. Last. This book is available on the HDI eStore at www.thinkhdiestore.com.

Getting Everyone on the SAME PAGE

By Ron Muns, CEO and Founder HDI, Leading IT Service and Support, and IT Infrastructure Management Association

"Every time I call the service desk I get a different approach. It seems the analysts have their own styles" or "Every time I call I get the same slow menu approach to problem solving! I expect more from our support organization (service desk/help desk)?" Have you ever heard these complaints? Your analysts should be "on the same page" as far as how they:

Structure conversations
Handle problem solving
Search and solve
Log and contribute
Celebrate and support

Why

Gaining consistency is good for everyone involved or affected by how your analysts handle incidents and service requests. Consider the following:

If you run an internal support organization, it is likely your employees call 1.3 times per month. If each time they call, the call process changes, they will be confused, waste agent time, and be less confident in the support organization. If you support external customers, they will likely call you more than once upon acquiring the product, and occasionally thereafter. They will be affected similarly.
 
Most analysts yearn for guidance, directions, and wish to do a good job. By setting up standard call structures, processes, and clear expectations, you define "good performance" for them. In order for performance to improve, you must have monitoring and reporting systems that measure compliance.
 
Whenever you are training employees in the art of problem solving and call handling, think how difficult it would be if you didn't all agree on the approach, attitude, values, and processes. There are best practices, so teach them to everyone.
 
We all say that knowledge is important, so how do we build it? Well, it can only be successful if we teach common techniques for logging incidents, documenting solutions, and improving existing solution information.
 
By making an effort to celebrate one another's successes, we teach the value of support. I recommend that you put reward and recognition programs in place that both support the extra effort that your top analysts provide, and be sure to recognize agents that really show their support for "best practice" techniques (i.e., adding and/or updating knowledge that is frequently used).
Begin the Discussion, "What Page Are We On?"

I am a big proponent of team involvement. In order to get your team behind any initiative, you need to get their "buy-in." So, bring your existing processes, policies, and call handling guidelines into a meeting with your staff and discuss in-depth. Everyone should consider:

Are we following best practices?
Have we adequately communicated incident handling practices?
Are there new suggestions or techniques that we should try?
Have we incorporated these practices into our new employee training?
How do we reinforce consistent behavior?
Being on the Same Page Does Not Need to Make You a Robot

Some would say, "I don't want to talk to agents that have overly structured call handling techniques. It is so slow, boring, and a waste of time." No one said take the human factor out of the equation. I am only saying agree on the best approach, get everyone's buy-in, and track compliance.

Conclusion

We all want to have "world class practices." In order to have them, you must decide what they are for your organization. This is YOUR PAGE. Get everyone on it! You must teach YOUR PAGE, measure compliance to YOUR PAGE, and celebrate results that come from everyone being on YOUR PAGE. Over time, processes will change as you implement new support technologies and you enhance YOUR PAGE, but believe me YOUR PAGE being consistently followed is key to your success.

Best of luck in your journey to IT service and support excellence!

Lessons Learned and Delivered

By Ron Muns, Founder & CEO, HDI

The globalization of the support industry continues. And while much of the world looks to the United States for leadership, around the world you can find centers of excellence that match the best the U.S. has to offer. I spent a significant amount of time with support executives from Egypt, Dubai, and Saudi Arabia. Each of these individuals manage world class support organizations.

So, let me tell you what this conference brought to the many members and friends of HDI. Read on...

Pride Matters

Leveraging Your Cultural Heritage

Phil Verghis, President of The Verghis Group, provided an interesting perspective on different cultures and how their expectations vary based upon cultural background. This same perspective also varies the support experience delivered. He gave examples of process-oriented cultures versus relationship-oriented cultures. This is very important to all of us, as we deal with people from many backgrounds. If we understand the heritage of the people we support, we will be better equipped to deliver quality customer service. Our communications with them will be based upon an understanding of how they view things and not a "universal" one-approach-fits-all mode.

Service Quality Management

Hans van Herwaarden, CEO of Quint Wellington Redwood in the Netherlands, told the audience to focus on quality models. Specifically, one model that is gaining fast acceptance, ISO/IEC 20000, for IT Service Management. For more information, visit www.iso.org/iso/en/commcentre/pressreleases/archives/2005/
Ref985.html or use search engines to look for more details.

Quality Assurance for Knowledge

Rick Joslin, HDI's Director of Certification and Training, informed the participants that most help desks focus on verbal communications with customers, logging incidents, and solving problems. "But," he told the audience, "too little time is spent on capturing and improving knowledge." "Knowledge," he says, "is the only real product in the support organization. Ensuring processes are in place to capture and maintain knowledge for reuse can greatly improve your results."

Networking Works

As with all HDI events, plenty of time was provided for networking with peers and relaxing. I was reminded of something I have said before, "When you go to an industry event, plan to ask questions in areas that are troubling you and plan to share your most recent successes." This happened in Cairo, just as it does anytime HDI members and friends come together.

Conclusion

A lot was shared and learned by all who attended, and planning is already beginning for next year's MEA event. I would be remiss if I did not mention that John Custy and Jim Bolton also came along to present at the conference (both involved in numerous HDI programs as well as being on the HDI faculty). We are truly a global community and we can learn from one another around the world. Within a few hours, people on every continent will be receiving this issue of the Muns Report. This is another example of how the world gets smaller, and how we can continue to learn from one another.

Best of luck in your journey to support excellence!

As with all people, the people of Egypt and all middle easterners are proud people. The Egyptians invented paper (papyrus) and built the pyramids thousands of years ago. One of the global constants is that the best support organizations are managed by leaders that have pride in what they do (the value proposition of support) and in their people. I have seen this over and over again. Whenever I meet a support manager that would rather complain about problems than focus on accomplishments and plans, I suggest that maybe he or she should be in another field. Proud support managers have a special way of instilling a positive outlook within their staff, and respect for the organization amongst their peer and organizational executives.

Focus on Performance and Quality

During the conference, Malcolm Fry, industry luminary, communicated in clear terms the folly of organizations that only measure performance (how much, how fast, volumes, etc.). This can often be to the detriment of quality. He presented the analogy of the pyramids that have lasted thousands of years. By the way, the Sphinx's nose did not wear off, Napoleon shot it off. It's amazing the damage leaders have caused with their big egos!

Within the support organization, when focusing on improving the first call resolution rate, we might ignore the fact that agents will be incented to close tickets early, and then re-open a new one when the customer calls back. Or, we may delay implementing self-help tools because these tools handle the easy incidents such as password resets, which help us keep our first call resolution rates high. Malcolm encouraged the audience to take a balanced approach and to remember the consequences of performance measurements.

Why Consolidation May be in Your Future

By Robert Last, HDI Even at the height of the boom years of the late 1990s, help desk consolidation was a hot topic, as the comments listed below indicate: "The clearest trend is help desk consolidation: Nearly 40 to 50 percent of organizations are moving toward a consolidated help desk..."1 "Help desk consolidation means that the various support resources—people, software tools, and processes such as problem resolution and change management—are rearchitected to work together.2 "The consolidation of support services is a strong trend in the support services industry. Motivated by customer demand, the desire to streamline business processes, and a mandate to reduce costs, help desks are working diligently to deliver a wider range of value-add services."3 "The need for new or enhanced services, and/or the opportunity to eliminate services that no longer add value, may occur as a result of: • A consolidation or merger • The need to reduce costs • The need to increase productivity and quality • A change in the way your company is doing business, or the need to change the way your company is doing business, caused by:    ° New laws or regulations    ° The need to reduce costs    ° The need to increase productivity and quality. Sound familiar? Welcome to the 90s"4 The interest in consolidating help desks/support centers has not abated in 2006. If anything, it has probably increased as a result of the 1990s' boom, the preparation for Y2K, and the continuing challenge of managing legacy systems. Peregrine Systems describes the situation this way, "Years of increasingly complex applications, processes, and network configurations—combined with ill-matched legacy systems inherited through mergers and acquisitions—have created Byzantine service desk environments that are costly, inefficient, and simply not very good at providing service at an appropriate cost."5 To make matters even more complex, support center's (including IT) have managed to engage in a years-long conflict with their parent organizations that essentially goes like this: Q: Why does it still seem that no one on the business side understands the issues on the IT side, though we’ve been talking about the same problems for a lot of years? A: Spectacular question. I pose an even better one: Why is it that IT (Editor's Note: support) staffers still don't speak the same language as their business counterparts? Why do we have entirely different micro societies within a common company?"6 Didn't we just discuss this problem back in 1998? It all sounds very familiar and it sounds like we (IT and support) are still forgetting who it is that we work for (the business or the parent organization) and what it is we are supposed to be doing (supporting the business or organization and adding value to everything that it does with technology). With these concepts once again established for our newcomers, we can now begin our discussion of help desk/support center consolidation. As an operational support unit with a particular niche in the business or organization, IT/support is particularly susceptible to reorganizations and consolidations. C-level executives have come to see consolidation as an opportunity "...to reduce the cost of IT services while addressing an enterprise's specific needs to meet service goals and enable business flexibility. A comprehensive IT consolidation strategy needs to address every aspect of an enterprise's IT organization, including not only the facilities and technology, but also the processes, budget, and people."7 There is no definitive technique to determine if one's support center/IT operation is a candidate for consolidation, but the current trends are powerful and show no signs of diminishing. IDC describes the situation this way, Companies of all types are struggling with increasing infrastructure demands and changing business practices while often being constrained by smaller IT budgets. As a result, consolidation is increasingly becoming a central theme in many companies' IT strategies. Consolidation is done for many reasons; however, the main drivers include reducing cost, improving service levels, and improving security. What do you think? Do you agree? What has been your experience with help desk consolidation? Your comments are welcome. 1 "Panic at the Help Desk—Reorganizing User-support Teams," Software Magazine, October 1997, Rick Whiting, p.1 at URL: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0SMG/is_n11_v17/ai_20212255/print. Printed on April 7, 2006. 2 Ibid, p. 1. 3 "The Support Center Model: Re-Thinking the Help Desk Role," Donna Knapp, April 1998, at URL: http://www.afsmi.org/sbusiness/journal/apr98/apr-006.htm, Printed on April 7, 2006. 4 "Aligning Your Help Desk Services With Your Customer's Needs," Donna Knapp, February 1998, at URL: http://www.afsmi.org/sbusiness/journal/feb98/feb-006.htm 5 "The Economics of Service Desk Consolidation," David D'Agostino and Rebecca Lawson, Peregrine Systems, October 2005, p.1 URL: http://www.peregrine.com, Printed on April 8, 2006. 6 "IT to Business: You just don’t 'get' me," Steve Duplessie, Computerworld. 7 "IDC Executive Brief—IT Consolidation: Business Drivers, Benefits, and Vendor Selection," September 2005, p. 5. Adapted from “Server Consolidation 2004: Trends and Success Factors," Matthew Eastwood, IDC #31399. To read more about consolidating your support center, see HDI's focus book Techniques for Help Desk and Support Center Consolidation by Robert S. Last. This book is available on the HDI eStore at www.thinkhdiestore.com.