The document discusses understanding and resolving end user dissatisfaction with an IT service related to air conditioning on a trading floor. It recommends employing a heating consultant to provide a short-term localized cooling solution, and producing a report detailing long-term solutions and costs to address rising temperatures and meet user expectations over time. Implementing short-term fixes and improving communication with users can help boost the IT department's credibility and perception of responding to issues.

1. EXPECTATION AND THE ART
OF KEEPING END USERS HAPPY

2. Introduction
How we can (easily) achieve end user satisfaction
Have you ever bought something and thought ‘Is that it?’ Most of us, at some time or
other, have been left unsatisfied and disappointed with a product or service.
What makes customers happy is often not straightforward. Customers have different
feelings and thoughts as to what makes them happy. Two customers’ needs are
never exactly the same, even one customer will vary in happiness depending on the
situation. This means that your end users may have different ways of assessing
whether they are satisfied with the IT service they are receiving.
As IT's internal customers depend on multiple devices, applications and systems to
enable them to do the work their customers and managers expect them to do, it
follows that frequent dis-satisfaction with IT is currently a fact of life.
A key component of customer satisfaction is what the customer expects to
experience. For example, eating an ice cream on a hot day may result in instant
satisfaction. Expectations refer to a promise made or implied by a supplier that an
individual believes will be met. Consumer tech is now so easy to access that IT's
internal customers expect response times akin to that of downloading a mobile app.
Expectation of speed of service and responsiveness is not the only issue here for IT
departments. Another component of customer satisfaction is quality. Customers have
expectations of what they should experience. Quality is about whether what we
expect and what we receive match. Bank (1992) claimed that quality has five key
components: adherence to specification, conformance, reliability, delivery and cost.
In this guide, we provide a worked example for identifying the real issues behind end
user complaints about technology-related problems. We have looked at a
technology-centred problem facing a facilities department in a bank. It aims to help
us understand whether end users expectations are realistic, whether there are
problems outside IT's control and what you might do to overcome these challenges.
If you would like more assistance using the guide, we would love to help. Just email
us via Deborah.Pilling@SolutionsInsight.uk.com.

3. 3
Understanding the problem
To identify the heart of the problem, we need to ask all the "W" questions: what,
where, why, when, where and who? What are the symptoms of the issue? When are
they manifesting themselves and how? Where is this happening? Who is
experiencing the issue?
Problem
Identification
Who is stating there
is a problem? Where
is the problem? Why
is it happening?
When does the
problem occur?
The customer satisfaction problem is one where the end user
is complaining to senior management about the trading floor
being too hot. They believe there is a fault with the air
conditioning system on the trading floor. The complaints are
most frequent in the afternoons.
Problem Description
What is happening?
End Users are complaining to senior management that the
Facilities Department are incompetent as they can’t fix the air
conditioning system to address the problem.
Analysis
(Investigation)
Using the ‘who, when, why, what, where’ (Grundy 1983).
Analysis of who has made complaints on the trading floor
shows that there are two distinct areas where the complaints
are made and a deeper analysis shows these areas to have
an increased density of equipment.
These consist of approx. 30 people on a trading floor
of 500, which equates to 6%.
When – the complaints start to occur about 2pm in the
afternoon where the trading floor load has had a sufficient
amount of time during the day to build up to an unacceptable
level. The excessive heat drops off about 5pm when staff start
to leave for the day.
Why – the comfort levels on the trading floor will not be met if
the heat loads on the floor are more than the cooling load of
the air conditioning equipment. After reviewing these loads
there is a substantial shortfall of about 20% across the floor
as a whole.

4. 4
Figure 1.0 shows the factors affecting the comfort levels of
the trading floor cooling and where to target the solutions.
When there are multiple and variable causes of a problem, it is helpful to have a way
to capture them together and show their combined effects. This fishbone or Ishikawa
diagram can also show their inter-relationship with each other. You can see more on
fishbone diagrams at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishikawa_diagram.
Here, we can see that the combined effects and density of technology equipment,
lighting and people are making the cooling system ineffective.

5. 5
Figure 2.0 The Zone of Tolerance, shows the current level of user acceptability for
the service being provided. People have different expectations in different scenarios,
but when they are under pressure at work, they expect a comfortable temperature.
Therefore, being too hot for several days running will likely push them outside of their
zone of tolerance very quickly.
The person or team who originally ordered the product (air conditioning) may have
considered many factors to ensure a quality solution was implemented.
Bank (1992) suggested that there were five elements that people consciously or sub-
consciously consider when evaluating quality. Let’s now adapt Bank’s (1992) five-
step elements to understand why end users are so dis-satisfied with the current
situation.

6. 6
Element Measured Against Consumers’ Perceptions
Specification The air conditioning system did meet the original specification
when the trading floor was built. Over time trading technologies
and traders themselves have grown in number and more and
more has been added to the floor without any consideration for
the air conditioning. End users would expect the Facilities
department of the bank to have the right specification.
Conformance It is unlikely that an end user knows or cares about the
specification of the air conditioning system, but they will have
expectations that their employer can specify the right heating and
cooling systems. When the working environment is too hot,
facilities are not conforming to expectation.
Reliability The end user does not know when the problem will be fixed, but
their expectation is that they should be told the issue is being
worked on and they should be provided a date for resolution. If
this information is not communicated, they will believe the
facilities department is unreliable.
Delivery As no fix plan has been communicated, no date for providing a fix
has either. As such, end users may have low confidence that the
facilities department can deliver.
Cost In this case, the end users are traders working in a bank in the
city. Their expectation is that in the "grand scheme" of the money
generated by the bank that this is a minor issue. They would
expect that we should be able to just "get on" and do this.
Adapted from Bank (1992)
Conclusion to the
Analysis (Results of
the Investigation)
The end user does not want or need to understand the
specification of the cooling system and just wants the problem
fixed – a comfortable temperature to work in. The
management team who pay for the space for the end user to
use, may not fully understand the problem and may need
more information about the breach of specification and the
complaints from the end user. Although the infrastructure may
eventually need to be upgraded to cater for the additional
cooling load, there are only a small proportion (6%) of people
affected. So, a more local tactical fix which is more cost
effective may be appropriate and acceptable.
Other assumptions at this time are that no investment is
available to explore what new technologies are available to
reduce the heat load (e.g. efficient screens, LED lighting etc.).

7. 7
Recommendations for a solution
We will propose the solution as a set of SMART recommendations. SMART stands
for Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic and Time-bound.
Specific – target a particular area for improvement or a single activity.
Measurable – quantify or suggest a measure of progress. How will we know that we
are on our way to achieving a solution? How will we know when we have achieved it?
Agreed – are the right stakeholders aware of the problem and need of a solution?
Realistic – does the solution acknowledge constraints like time, skills and budget
and work within them?
Time-bound – when will this happen? Too often people say "ASAP" but one
person's ASAP is another person's "too late". For example, can we say we will have
a solution by December 31st
? Can we say that by November 28th
we will have
received several quotations?
The Solution, Listed
as a Set of SMART
Recommendations
Solution 1
Specific and Time-bound
Employ a heating consultant by November 19th
to look at a
supplementary cooling solution to provide a tactical fix to the
two general problem areas on the trading floor.
Measurable
A quotation will be provided by November 21st
for the
remedial solution.
Agreed
My management team are aware of the issue and will
approve £2,500 budget to bring in the consultant.
Realistic
We know consultants with the right skills and the problem is
considered manageable.

8. 8
Solution 2
Specific
Write a short report detailing the issues on the trading floor to
address the status of the end users level of expectation
against the service they are receiving and the breach in
specification.
Show solutions/costs to address the breach in a staged
approach. Ask for funding to address the breach in
specification in a staged format to lessen the impact of cost
and to build confidence in the solutions proposed.
Measurable
The paper will be presented to my line management and
stakeholders with funding.
Agreed
I need support from my line manager to have the time to write
this paper.
Realistic
I am experienced in writing reports and proposals and I know
how to tackle this exercise on my own.
Time-bound
I will produce the report within one week.
Strengths and
Weaknesses of the
Recommendations.
How to Overcome
the Weaknesses
and how we can
improve end user
perceptions of
service quality.
Strengths
Implementing a tactical solution of local cooling will limit cost
exposure to the company.
Weakness 1
End users are mobile and may move to a different location on
the floor and take the issue with them.
Weakness 2
If more people join the trading floor, the issue could spread
out to other areas.
Overcoming Weaknesses of the short term solution.
Investigate new technology solutions for reducing heat load
as this also reduces energy consumption and is a more
sustainable solution.
Ongoing Service Quality Improvement
To assist with improving the end user perceptions, I have
adapted the work of Parasuraman (1985,1991) relating to
service quality.

9. 9
Tangibles
By providing a staged approach, physical evidence of
success can be shown with reports showing a decreasing
temperature.
Reliability
End users need to know when the issue will be resolved.
Responsiveness
By requesting funding and communicating to end users the
status of resolution, it demonstrates responsiveness.
Communication
Provide a weekly email to end users on progress of resolution
of the issue. We must use everyday language and avoid any
technical language that might alienate the end user. We can
also launch a survey, asking end users to identify priorities.
Credibility
Demonstrating how we are tackling the issue improves
credibility of the department from being perceived
“incompetent and unable to fix the problem”. We can "walk
the floors" asking people if they recognise an improvement.
Competence
When the heating engineer is in, we will ask him to stay for
one extra day to provide training to the team. This will
increase skills, knowledge and confidence in dealing with
building issues.
Understanding/Knowing the Customer
The writing of the paper shows the end user that their
problem is not being ignored.
Access
We can "walk the floors" asking people if they recognise an
improvement. This makes us more accessible to the end
user.

10. 10
The Implications of
the Solution, if
Implemented
The plan will definitely improve the current situation in the
areas with high densities of end users.
The new system will be compatible with the existing systems
and could be used to indicate a “step” in the right direction for
addressing the problem with the whole floor. It can be
marketed as a trial with other areas to be considered in the
future.
It also gives us an opportunity to start communicating more
regularly with end users and to build a trusted, credible
relationship with them.
A paper showing a number of steps and what actions are
required to initiate each step could assist with communicating
to all stakeholders what inputs are needed to maintain and
meet service levels.
All in text citations have been taken from:
The Open University (2010) B629/BZX629. Managing 2: Understanding Marketing and Financial
Information, Module Activities, Milton Keynes, The Open University.