|
 |
|
|
 Industry Trends, Best Practices and Insights
Define what success looks like ¾ then measure it!
It started with a movie on the plane to New York. It was just another week away from my young family to spend with clients and co-workers. Just another step on the road to success ¾ making money, but sacrificing, always sacrificing. Just another cross-country, redeye flight – business as usual. But this time was different. Rather than work my way across country, I decided I’d actually watch the movie this flight.
Total Contact Ownership
Building a culture of ownership and accountability can be achieved by implementing methodologies that support the TCO concept. A culture that promotes exceptional customer care, instills ownership in its Help Desk professionals, and promotes process compliance, will contribute to the achievement of the ultimate goal - satisfied customers.
Call Reduction Strategies That Work
I could tell by the caller-id that the person on the other end of my ringing phone was my toughest customer — the Chief Financial Officer of the largest business unit serviced by my Customer Support Center. He was tough in that he demanded a lot. He always wanted more, wanted it faster, wanted it cheaper, etc. It was budget season, so I knew instinctively what he was probably calling about. I answered the phone cheerfully, as usual, and asked what I could do for him today. His response was quick and to the point: "I want your Support Center expense line item on my monthly IT invoice to go away. I'm scheduling a meeting with you for next Tuesday, and I want you to explain to me how you are going to make that happen. See you then." Click.
Senior Management Visibility is a Contact Sport.
"My message is simple: As a support leader, you must set a course forpositive change and impact by engaging senior management in your function. Senior management is the most powerful, influential force you have to champion your support organization; and no single group has a greater ability to make you obsolete."
Click here to access
Victicrat Or Rock Star — The Choice Is Yours
Just another day… another 1,000 calls, another technology rollout, another global outage, another upset customer, another missed SLA, another senior executive challenging the value of the support organization. Amid these pressures, do you survive or thrive? Are you a Victicrat or a Rock Star?
Click here to access
How do you define success?
What does success look like? How will you know when you get there? Who wins what, how, and why? Too many questions? Perhaps. But they are meant to make you think not about tactics, but about success metrics. Let me answer them with a lesson I learned years ago…
Click here to access
“You tawkin’ to me?”
The art and science of communication
Every interaction of every day — no matter whether it’s with a customer, peer, or senior management — is both a communication event and a communication opportunity. Why? Because communication is both an art and a science, and learning to converse effectively and persuasively is a life skill that we all need to improve upon every chance we get.
Click here to access
Being the CEO of You!
Being the CEO of You is about taking personal accountability for one’s career. Today’s competitive business environment demands that not only must companies continuously improve themselves, but also the people who run them. Leave it to Mark Twain to explain the unfairness of it all: “You can be on the right track and still get run over by the train.”
Click here to access
The Enterprise Service Desk – A Roadmap to Success
According to Morgan Stanley, the over expenditure by business on technology over the last two years is estimated to be $130 billion. Is this a surprise to anyone? Excessive buying of technology characterized the last two years with companies throwing money at technology hoping it would address the significant gap between the demand for complex support, and the rapidly decreasing support budget has created the current crisis. The support crisis will continue to fail to yield any significant increase in customer satisfaction, performance metrics or value contributions as long as technology alone is viewed as the solution.
Building the Business Plan for Replacing Your Enterprise Service Tool
Current Situation:
Declining IT budgets and uncertain economic times has caused IT decision-makers to have great hesitancy when considering the purchase of an enterprise service solution. In addition, CIO's are reluctant to, further invest in an already deployed enterprise application or spend time or money in searching for a replacement. In a recent study with IT executives, the majority stated that they do not view the future investing in new applications favorably. The reality is that if you have an enterprise service application that no longer meets your needs, is not flexible enough to adapt to your changing business, or is being discontinued by the vendor - not replacing it may actually end up costing you more in the long run.
Click here to access
How to survive budget cuts and still function effectively
Economic cycles bring alternating waves of funding and budget cuts, creating an atmosphere of ecstasy and tragedy. In this atmosphere, IT managers must be prepared to defend the value of their organization to the business, or they risk disabling cuts. How can IT managers and the Help Desk prepare themselves for budget battles? What tactics can they employ to survive and still function effectively?
Click here to access
Supporting Knowledge Management
Critical Success Factors for Support Leaders
To be successful in implementing Knowledge Management (KM) and reap the rewards - you must first envision the end-result. This is not as easy as it sounds. Most people become too idealized with the high-level strategy rather than the tactical execution and operational aspects of KM. What does it take to get a return on your KM investment? It takes focus on improving productivity, operational and financial measures - metrics that matter. It is critical to know what you will need to change and how you will go about making the change. Namely, it’s people’s behaviour that will need to be changed – in discovering, providing and using knowledge to make their day-to-day responsibilities more productive.
Click here to access
In The End-It Is the Customer Who Defines the Experience!
America is a service economy in search of the real meaning of Customer Service. There is a great deal of lip service to the words “Customer Service” - two words randomly put together without meaning or substance. Companies that consistently execute against a Customer Service strategy deliver it top-down throughout the organization. From the senior leaders to the frontline – everyone in the organization treats everyone like a customer. In “Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work”, Harvard Business School Professors make a business case for putting front-line employees and customers first in a service-driven economy.
Click here to access
The Business Help Desk
Is it has evolved, the IT Support team has been centralized, consolidated, decentralized, downsized, right-sized and upsized down – in an attempt to support business initiatives. With all of this activity, have we missed the opportunity to provide the basic necessity – truly business-focused support? Are we creating more work for ourselves? Creating more frustrated customers or fewer customers? Are we further alienating ourselves from the business? Consolidate and Centralize are the rally cries for today’s IT organizations. Don’t work harder - work smarter! A mentor of mine told me once that if I wasn’t comfortable with change and f e l t nervous about embracing it on a day to day basis, that I probably should get out of the technology support business and become an accountant.
Click here to access
A Matter of Execution
Finding the right metrics for your operational reporting is critical for running an effective and efficient support organization. Finding the right metrics for your marketing reporting is critical to your longevity as a valued partner in helping the business continuously improve and grow. Your role is to extract data, analyze it and make recommendations to the business units on how they can improve what they are doing.
Click here to access
Find Me The Money! Creatively Financing the 21st Century Knowledge Center
Most companies have completed their budgets for 2001. Did your budget remain the same year over year? Did it increase ordecrease? If you were like most Help Desks and Knowledge Centers this year, you were probably asked to reduce your budget just in case the economy or business takes a downward turn. Did you know that your company has a few secret "hiding" places for project money? Maybe it's reserved for initiatives that drive the business, reduce operating costs, basically have a significant Return on Investment (ROI), or for customer-focused projects, quantifying customer impact, but will bring clarity to even the most complex business decisions they might face.
Click here to access
Click here to access
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Change or Irrelevance: Career Changing Technologies
07/14/2011
Rapid, breathtaking technology advances are forcing radical changes not only in how IT organizations function, but also in terms of their culture, leadership, and even careers. Combined with business, social and global trends, as well as technology investing (spending), IT organizations must accelerate their organizational change plans in order to survive and thrive. They must assess and plan for complete transformation - strategy, structure, people, processes, and tools.
Are we preparing our IT professionals to plan for and make these changes? Are we helping them position themselves and their organizations for success in this dynamically evolving world?
This Cutter Consortium article assess and addresses the impacting wave of the rapidly changing IT and business trends on traditional IT careers, positions, and skill sets.
This wake-up call is best described by a quote from four-star US General (Ret.) Eric Shineski: "If you don't like change, you'll like irrelevance even less."
The “Business” Service Leadership Agenda
07/14/2011
BSMReview.com
Next Practices in Business Service Management
The “Business” Service Leadership Agenda by Peter J. McGarahan
The Defining Moment of Truth
Why do some companies consistently exceed their business customers’ expectations and others fail to meet their customer’s basic demands and needs? Why do smaller, flexible companies seem to care more about the business impact of customer service than larger credit card, banking and cable organizations? Does the exuberant profits and size of these larger companies (“Too Big To Fail”) create a situation where customer service is no longer a competitive differentiator nor a strategic imperative? MSN Money’s fifth annual Customer Service Survey was recently published revealing the top ten companies earning a place in their Customer Service Hall of Shame and Hall of Fame. The “business” service differentiation comes down to knowledgeable and friendly staff, available and responsive staff, trust, transparency, genuine care and understanding of their customer. Simple you say, obviously not!
The Service Leadership Agenda
11/21/2011
The Service Leadership Agenda
The Defining Moment of Truth
Why do some companies consistently exceed their customers’ expectations and others fail to meet their customer’s basic demands and needs? Why do smaller, flexible companies seem to care more about customer service than larger credit card, banking and cable organizations? Does the exuberant profits and size of these larger companies (“Too Big To Fail”) create a situation where customer service is no longer a competitive differentiator nor a strategic imperative?
Learn How to Create a Highly Efficient and Effective Support Organization
04/21/2011
SupportIndustry.com Webinar:
Best Practice Strategies for Creating a Highly Efficient
and Effective Support Organization
In case you missed it, SupportIndustry.com recently conducted a webinar on Best Practice Strategies for Creating a Highly Efficient and Effective Support Organization, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive by attendees. In response to this, we are offering the on-demand version to you to watch at your convenience. More information about the event is below!
Professionalism in the Contact Center
04/21/2011
What is professionalism anyway & why does it matter?
Dana Pigford, founder of Professionalism Matters, Inc, defines professionalism as "being responsible and accountable and treating people the way you would like to be treated."1 Service and support consultants, Pete McGarahan and Ric Mims, in an excellent article, "The Essence of Professionalism,"2 suggest that professionalism is composed of such values as courtesy, respect in dealing with clients and, "Do they take pride in their appearance, their work ethic, and the quality of the work they do?"3 In addition, they observe that "In simpler days, professionalism had everything to do with customer service, relationship building, and creating the foundation for effective, persuasive communication across all levels of the organization."4 They also suggest that a good definition of professionalism "...isn’t your appearance and your aptitude, its attitude: knowing what to do, and doing it with passion and purpose."5
A CRM Approach to Business Service Management?
04/21/2011
A CRM Approach to Business Service Management?
by Peter J. McGarahan
I have been designing, delivering and supporting IT services for most of my 27 years as an IT professional. Time and time again I’ve encountered IT organizations that didn’t keep the customer or their business top of mind when designing and delivering services. Instead, they delivered “cool” technologies or strategies that met IT’s expectation and requirements, but didn’t directly benefit the business customers.
Are You Missing The Point About Customer Care?
12/04/2010
Are You Missing The Point About Customer Care?
By Peter J. McGarahan
Inbound Magazine - Issue 01:2010
Design customer centric services that improve service deliver.
Reducing Support Costs!
06/01/2010
Reducing Support Costs with a "Shift-Left" Strategy: An Interview with Pete McGarahan
By Cinda Daly
"Arise, ye service leader! The time is now!" proclaims Pete McGarahan, an industry thought leader and respected consultant for twenty-five years. It's not a new concept that service leaders need to run their support organization like a business. Achieving that point, however, is challenging. With continuing pressures to drive down support costs, service leaders need to optimize the business model: determine what's really important, then dive deep into the detail of structure, process, people, and tools. [More]
|
|
