2. Introduction
As from the nineties I have been involved in
support activities for smaller and larger
audiences, from home users to professional
business users and teams. This presentation will
show you my perception of and experience
with the concepts:
People
Communication
Support
Services
Attitude
Knowledge
Documentation
Self initiative
Thinking Out of the Box
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3. Who is…?
Michel Hardeman briefly introduced:
- I joined the US company Digital Equipment Corporation
(DEC) in Utrecht in 1995, participated in setting up and
joining the Borland Support Desk for mainly the German
market.
- I joined the government department „Ministerie van Sociale
Zaken en Werkgelegenheid‟ in 1996.
- I joined Digital Equipment Corporation in Utrecht in 1996 and
assisted in relocating the Borland Support Desk to Sykes in
Amsterdam.
- After DEC I joined various high end support accounts for
Sykes Enterprises Incorporated in 1997 to 2006.
- In February 2006 I moved to home and corporate support for
Norman/SHARK.
- I have set up and joined corporate accounts of AXA
Belgium and Honeywell at Dell Nederland B.V. headquarters
from January 2007 to March 2012.
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4. People
For me people are the target audience to
work with and to provide support for. People
are the driver to do business. People, working
either individually or in a team, need my
assistance when they run into issues they are
not able to solve themselves.
People need support solutions to carry on their
work, viable solutions, real solutions. Me and my
team are there to provide them.
Mine and my team‟s goal is to provide them
with the solutions they need.
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5. Communication (1/2)
I strongly believe communication is the key
component of doing good business. From my
personal point of view poor communication is
liable to poor business and poor support results.
When communication requires improvement I
would call for reserving time and have it optimized
throughout the entire desk..
Also in my direct support desk environment I have
come to realize that sound communication lines
are of the utmost importance to (1) listen
attentively to our end users raising an issue (2)
recording the issue correctly in the ticketing
system and (3) based on that information
formulate a solution and finally (4) communicate
the solution in such a way that his or her issue is
solved all in a timely manner.
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6. Communication (2/2)
When I also pay attention to the tone of
communication I notice the end user‟s vs. support
desk analyst relation will improve.
Communication flaws are deadly and need to be
detected and stopped at all times within the
support life cycle.
In my job I reserve time letting communication
play a central role in the support process, from the
very start to the very end. When a complex issue is
raised then proper communication comes in
place both in receiving and transmitting correct
information. No matter what people say,
procedures proclaim, there is no excuse to have it
compromised due conflicting situations and/or
procedures!
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7. Support
I see support as the means of resuming a disrupted process for
people working in a home or corporate environment. Support
needs to be structured, accurate, provided in a timely manner
and reliable.
Moreover, I value the fact that people learn from provided
solutions so that they can resume their work as soon as the
same or similar problem reoccurs. From my own experience
people appreciate it greatly when I teach them simple
procedures on how to solve an issue.
In course of time I have documented, reviewed and amended
support solutions in an organized structure with help of business
meetings and eventually published in the company‟s
Knowledge Base. I have written new solutions in support
articles, reviewed existing ones and, if necessary, amended or
even replaced.
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8. Services
Properly designed services, which I have granted our public, are
provided accurately, in a timely manner will result in a good customer
and service provider relationship. I paid a lot of attention to any
inconsistencies within existing services. If any, I raised them and made
sure that they had been reviewed as per process.
I am familiar with the birth of a service until the actual implementation
of it as prescribed by ITIL.
Being familiar with ITIL it facilitates my work greatly. The success of any
company stands or falls with how communication and services are
being set up and applied.
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9. Attitude
An eye opener of what a company‟s view is of its service
desk, how it is managed, what its operational costs are
and what its future expectations are. Can a service desk
be managed internally or is it better to have it moved to
an outsourcing company? How this affects my attitude
towards my work at the support desk? Major decisions
may have a deep impact on me and my colleagues,
especially when it entails operational changes such as
terminations or even restructuring the support desk!
I have the ability to maintain my professional attitude
towards the client and end users when events like these
happen.
Normally, a clear and positive attitude will contribute to a
healthy working environment resulting in a good
interdepartmental relationship and a good team climate.
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10. Knowledge
Without knowledge for me doing business is like laying bricks
without cement.
My role in knowledge has been one in managing it: writing own
knowledge articles, testing acquired knowledge within a test
environment, reviewing existing knowledge articles, discussing
them during technical review meetings, and, if required,
presenting the results to the client and have them, after acquiring
approval, updated and published in our knowledge database.
I have conducted knowledge management for the AXA account:
Managing and improving knowledge serving the best of service
delivery. The AXA client had been extremely contented about my
work.
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11. Documentation
Documentation is a strong point and my opinion about
documentation is clear and simple: it is a very
important key component within a successful support
desk in order to deliver excellent support services.
Documentation as a whole must be properly organized.
Throughout the time next to delivering support services I
also monitored processes and procedures. I have a sixth
sense for gaps in both processes and procedures.
When gaps have been detected I present them to the
service desk management through the proper channels
in order to have them reviewed and, if required,
changed.
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12. Self initiative
Self initiative is one of my strong points. If a
procedure, process or service shows gaps I
immediately raise them using the available
channels.
If, however, for instance, there is no consistency in,
let‟s say, how e-mail messages look like that are
sent to end users I have developed of my own
accord a set of commonly used e-mail templates
and have them put into production as per
processes without higher management asking for
ideas to strive for a higher level of consistency.
Also in other areas I have shown myself as a
reliable person willing to display self initiatives.
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13. Thinking Out of the Box
Occasionally, thinking, or even being
creative within the boundaries imposed by
the company I work for may cause a so
called “cage” effect when attempting to
achieve goals set.
Multiple times I have achieved goals set in a
much quicker way merely by the principle
Thinking out of the Box.
When this occurs on a multiple basis I ask
management to make sure that this Out of
the Box thinking can be included in group
thinking (take it out of the Out of the Box
thinking status and include it in current
processes).
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14. End of this presentation
This presentation has been set up to provide my individual approach of service desk key
components in any company. Its goal is to provide you a clearer concept on how my
Senior Service Desk Analyst experience might fit in in any service desk.
In course of time I have gathered and exploited my current experience from the following
companies and/or organizations:
1. Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in Utrecht.
2. Ministerie van Sociale Zaken en Werkgelegenheid in Den Haag.
3. Sykes Enterprise Incorporated in Amsterdam.
4. Norman/SHARK in Hoofddorp.
5. Dell Nederland B.V. in Amsterdam.
Hoofddorp/Amsterdam, February 2012