What’s The Story Behind Your Numbers?I was teaching last month when a great discussion arose on the use of industry benchmarks. The directors were challenging industry statistics for first contact resolution (FCR), help desk professional utilization and average wait in queue. They were also concerned that these traditional metrics were not being appropriately adjusted for new support models, access points and self-service. They wanted to know the story behind these numbers - what were the business goals that were driving these statistics? They stated that selecting certain statistics and presenting them to senior management was dangerous, especially if you didn’t know the “whole” story and what types of help desks or support models were included in the comparison. They wanted more than just the numbers. I could not blame them – so did I. There are many types of support models – Single Point of Contact (SPOC), the Knowledge Center model, “catch and dispatch” and service event filtering. They all have their own characteristics and there are pros and cons for each. We need to better understand which best practices make these support models successful as well as the stories behind them. Some questions we should ask are:
And most importantly, are we positively impacting the productivity and profitability of the business. The Help Desk leader who makes sound business decision to implement the right support model that supports the company’s current strategy as opposed to what everyone else is doing is a hero in my book! The class determined it is critical to establish the right support model based upon the needs, expectations, available funding, goals and objectives of the business. Also, being best-in-class means you are servicing the needs of your customers while maximizing their productivity and lowering your total cost of support. The phrase “delivering cost-effective support” always rang true with PepsiCo management. A high FCR does not happen by accident and a lower cost of support does not happen simply by cutting the budget. The story behind all of these industry benchmarks is support best practices. At a recent Executive Consortium, Kris Brittain of Gartner referred to an effective problem management process involving a focused support strategy, clearly defined service policies and procedures, structured delineation for responsibilities and escalation paths, and a coordinated approach among customers, business management and the support organization. These are key for improving operational, financial and customer metrics. These categories of metrics that also include learning are all components of the Balanced Scorecard. The industry’s thirst for a benchmark of a world-class help desks is understandable. Senior management wants to know how their help desk is doing relative to the other companies, and if having a world-class organization is worth the money. They want the empirical data that tells them if their support organization is delivering the “bang for the buck”. It is important to think like a senior manager when running your support organization. You have to anticipate their questions and concerns and be prepared with the answers to their tough questions. Their perspective is simply articulated by Roger Green, “either you are contributing to the bottom-line or you taking away from it - period”. I would much rather give a young student a library card than a book, and I would much rather be the instructor teaching industry best practices than a mouthpiece for industry benchmark statistics. Best practices are designed to be a guide, a roadmap for support leaders to follow based upon proven and quantifiable results - results speak for themselves. Best practices help you get there and the industry benchmarks are designed to let you know you have arrived. It is a holistic approach with a success story that includes the implementation of best practices, tools and certification as well as vision and strategy, alignment with business goals and objectives, focus on value-metrics and using industry benchmarks as a guide, not as an end-all. Knowing how these best practices and benchmarks work together will be a key in your success. After Taco Bell’s help desk won the International HDI Team Excellence Award in 1995, my CIO called me into his office and congratulated the team on their achievement. He also said something that will remain with me forever. He asked me what it would take to have a mediocre help desk at Taco Bell. I told him that I did not understand, that we were getting great internal and external recognition for our service to the business – why mediocre? He said that senior management thought that “world-class” is expensive and that Taco Bell probably did not need a world-class help desk. They felt they might be overpaying for something that was not a core competency. The lesson for me was that the term world-class was dangerous to use around senior managers because it sounds expensive. You must always know your cost structure and how competitive you are to the best third party pricing for support. You must always work to be best in class and always articulate value to the business, because the business will only continue to fund the services they see value in. Make sure your help desk is a value-add, contributing to the bottom line and implementing best practices that are getting results that drive your business. |
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