TUI UNIVERSITY

Module 2: Case Effective support for information users

ITM 301: Principles of Finance

Date: 25 January 2011

Effective support for information users
In this module I will address the question of “What are the five to seven important strategic things that a company can do to ensure that its Information Technology (IT) users get adequate technical support”.

"Our clients know, within minutes, if their customers are unsatisfied with a service call - and they can react accordingly." says Anthony Lacopo, President and CEO for Utopia Image who believes that real-time service is of great value to the merchants. "Great service providers increase loyalty by constantly measuring service quality and adapting their customer assistance service in real time, which is drastically different than counting the number of tickets closed or resolved. Don't confuse customer satisfaction with customer service."

The five strategies that I feel are most important to having an effective helpdesk and which will afford user with the most desirable technical support are the areas which I will discuss in more detail below.

The first area is to train & empower help desk agents. “Complacency is the biggest challenge we face today,” says Technical Support Manager Drew L. Jaehnig of the Defense Information Systems Agency (www.disa.mil). “Education and an infusion of enthusiasm for change are the best ways to overcome that challenge. Make training a priority and be sure that the team understands the importance of their role.” (http://www.processor.com/editorial/article.asp?)

Training is of paramount importance. Training may seem costly, but your return on investment with higher-skilled individuals leads to higher morale, faster incident resolution, and a significant reduction in the amount of billable hours. The single most cost-effective improvement in an organization is having the right skill sets to be able to reduce overall staffing levels.

Secondly, teach agents how to interact with users. People who work in Customer Service/help desk divisions of companies must be people persons. They must possess the ability to interact with the public and demonstrate a positive attitude. When customers need help or assistance on a product or service and call the help desk, they should hear a warm voice on the line that is sensitive to their needs. The customer should feel comfortable in asking questions, and the representative must ensure that the customer is satisfied at the end of the call. Help desk agents should treat users as equals and never be condescending to users.

Thirdly, show your support as a leader. I think it is very important for leaders to demonstrate to their workers that their services are invaluable to the company. This can be achieved by the CEO or President of the company showing his support to the help desk division by spending time with the workers to determine what their concerns may be. This is one approach to boosting morale and help-desk productivity.

Fourth, focus On Root Cause Analysis. Root Cause Analysis (RCA) initially is a reactive method of problem detection and solving. This means that the analysis is done after an incident has occurred. By gaining expertise in RCA it becomes a pro-active method. This means that RCA is able to forecast the possibility of an incident even before it could occur. While one follows the other, RCA is a completely separate process to problem management. (Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_cause_analysis)

To find root causes there is really only one question that's relevant, "What can we learn from this situation?" Research has repeatedly proven that unwanted situations within organizations are about 95% related to process problems and only 5% related to personnel problems. Yet, most organizations spend far more time looking for scapegoats than causes and because of this misdirected effort seldom really gain the benefit they could gain from understanding the foundation of the unwanted situation.

The fifth and final area I’ll discuss is to teach users to be self-reliant. Don’t allow your help desk agents to become a crutch for your personnel. If a user has a simple problem that they can rectify themselves, teach them how to do it so that, should it occur again in the future, they can fix it themselves rather than call the help desk repeatedly with the same problem.

My research leads me to believe my strategies are related to a sociotechnical structure. A sociotechnical structure is defined as an approach to complex organizational work design that recognizes the interaction between people and technology in workplaces. The term also refers to the interaction between society's complex infrastructures and human behavior.

The first perspective relates to social theories (principally structuration theory), the second to linguistic theories (principally the structural linguistics of Chomsky), and the last to science studies (principally actor-network theory). The objective is to study areas of agreement and contention around the structure concept. Areas of agreement can be incorporated into integrative theory development, whereas areas of contention must be resolved (a far more difficult task). The resulting theoretical model is illustrated with a case study involving competence management systems design and use at Volvo Information Technology in Göteborg, Sweden. (http://www.springerlink.com/content/e92q9vt13h0n1k17/)

Self-regulating work groups are a promising alternative to traditional forms of work design. Their emergence from socio-technical systems theory and field experimentation is discussed, and their theoretical bases and implementation strategies presented. Managerial functions appropriate to their design and supervision are also proposed.

In summation, the help desk is imperative to having an effective organization. I can say unequivocally the help desk in my current organization is manned by professionals that place the needs of the user first. Additionally they pride themselves on having 100% of the unit computers operational at all times.

Reference

"Help is Only a Phone Call Away! How to get good service" by Russell Hoffman (http://www.animatedsoftware.com/misc/stories/jobs/dbmscntr.htm)

"Setting up a successful help desk--physical considerations"
(http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-5112459.html)
http://www.helpdesksurvival.com/

http://www.processor.com/editorial/article.asp?

Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_cause_analysis