The document discusses 5 steps to improve and market a service desk with limited resources: 1) Know your customers, 2) Transition to a customer-focused model, 3) Hire the right people with customer service skills, 4) Measure progress through customer satisfaction surveys, and 5) Market successes to the business through various touchpoints. It provides examples from the presenter's experience at Brookdale where implementing these steps improved customer satisfaction surveys from a starting point of high frustration and overwhelmed resources to current ratings over 4.6 out of 5.

1. Improving & Marketing Your Service Desk:Doing More With Less…(in 5 Steps) 1 Scott D. Madden Manager, End User Computing 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting

2. About Me… 19 Years of IT Experience Level 2 Support/POS Support Programmer Desktop Support Tech/Support Supervisor/PC Manager/IT Customer Support Services Manager/Regional Manager, IT Operations 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 2

3. About Me… Hardware Maintenance Team Supervisor/Project Manager Manager, End User Computing 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 3

4. Why We’re Needed… 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 4

5. The Evolution of a Help Desk 5 Business-Centric Customer- Centric Reactive Proactive 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting

7. Hours 8am-5pm

8. Can be chaotic

9. Dispatch focus

10. Generalists

11. Simple telephony

12. Little measurementReactive Customer- Centric Proactive 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 6

14. Extended hours

15. Best practices

16. IT-SLA’s

17. Knowledge systems

18. Self help

19. Surveys

20. Asset management

21. Measures support centerBusiness-Centric Customer- Centric Reactive Proactive

23. SPOC

24. Customer SLA’s

25. 24x7 – follow the sun

26. Multi-channel support

27. Self service

28. Workload planning

29. Chargeback

30. Partners with customers and vendors

31. Measures support performanceBusiness-Centric Customer- Centric Reactive Proactive

33. Value integration

34. “Seat at the Table”

35. Fully automated

36. Measures IT to business KPI’s Customer- Centric Reactive Proactive

37. The Brookdale Success Story… 2006: A crazy time of mergers and acquisitions – extremely rapid growth Rapidly increasing incident volume & customer frustration with slow response time In 2007, Level 1 queue balloons to an all time high, over 1000 tickets! Team is overwhelmed, frustrated and demotivated External help is hired to assist with workload 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 10

38. The Brookdale Success Story… A massive infusion of resources slowly chipped away at the queue Realization that the current processes were not working Re-engineering the Help Desk for the “new” Brookdale is deemed urgent and necessary Support obtained from all layers of IT management, up to and including the CIO Drum roll please… the results… 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 11

39. Satisfaction Survey Improvements 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 12

40. Improving the Service Desk Experience… How do you re-engineer your Service Desk with a very limited budget? Well, that’s the hard part! Let’s talk through it… You need to look at EVERYTHING. What’s working? What’s not? 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 13

41. Improving the Service Desk Experience… Step 1: KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER If you’re new to your position or the company, do some diligence to get to know your customer’s expectations Peers are great resources, talk to them, get their opinions What are the expectations for service? Are they “doable” in your current budgetary environment? If not, sometimes we have to manage expectations Carefully analyze what worked in the past and what didn’t KISS – Keep it Simple Silly - you can always build on your initiatives later Don’t over-complicate the support experience 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 14

42. Improving the Service Desk Experience… Step 2: Transition your Service Desk to a Customer-Focused Organization Is your Service Desk truly customer-focused? Does your idea of customer-focused gel with your customer’s idea of customer-focused? You can’t figure this out in a vacuum Listen to your customer with your own “customer ears” and see yourself through the “customer’s eyes” 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 15

43. Improving the Service Desk Experience… Add value through service; this is a priceless commodity Use resources that are available to you: HDI website – great information: www.thinkhdi.com LinkedIn – ask your peers! Great networking opportunities 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 16

44. “Clue Phone” Moment… 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 17

45. Improving the Service Desk Experience… Step 3: Hire the RIGHT People Review your hiring process Don’t lower your standards Make sure people “fit” with the existing team Allow the team to participate in the hiring process Ensure the candidates have a customer service mindset Technical skills are important - Customer Service skills are critical! 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 18

46. Improving the Service Desk Experience… The hard part: what if someone already on the team doesn’t fit into the new service model? Work with them Give them opportunities to be successful Use peer coaching if realistic (Caution: only mature teams should engage in this practice) Invest in their success Work with them Work with them 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 19

47. Improving the Service Desk Experience… Invest in customer service Low cost: focus on customer service during team meetings Make customer service part of the Help Desk culture Celebrate good service Higher cost: invest in a more formal customer service program Brookdale uses “Ulysses Learning’s” Coaching and Service Mentor programs Not inexpensive, but Brookdale truly believes in the importance and value of providing good service 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 20

48. Improving the Service Desk Experience… When all else fails… What if someone “doesn’t get it” after significant investment? Hard decisions to make: Transition the person off the team to another opportunity in the company Assist the person with career planning and transition planning Don’t tolerate a bad attitude; it will only create a toxic environment for the team at large and undermine your efforts 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 21

49. Measure Your Progress Step 4: Validate Your Progress Customer satisfaction surveys Brookdale sends out a “corporate” survey covering all major service focused departments twice a year IT surveys customers upon incident close via our incident management system Take the results seriously Reach out to dissatisfied customers to obtain their feedback Dedicate resources to the process, it’s important! 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 22

50. Measure Your Progress Surveys don’t have to be complicated An automated tool is very helpful, but not 100% necessary No cost: Use e-mail with voting buttons and compile results in a spreadsheet Don’t over think the questions. HDI convened a committee to determine the best survey questions. Don’t re-invent the wheel! Brookdale’s survey questions were derived from HDI’s questions The Courtesy of the IT Help Desk Analyst? Ability to solve your problem, and in a timely manner? 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 23

51. Measure Your Progress Rank your overall customer service experience. Please use this space below for any additional comments you would like to share with IT management. All questions are rated on a 5 point scale (1 being lowest rating) Current Statistics (as of last week): Overall rating: 4.61 Response Rate: ~30% Commit to the process; how do you know you’re being successful if you don’t measure results? 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 24

52. Market Your Success! Step 5: Share Your Successes with the Business Create customer “touch points” Electronic surveys/survey cards handed to customers Brochures Presence on company Intranet Training videos/tips & tricks Twitter? (customers could subscribe to outage alerts) Be “hallway marketers” Evangelize your services 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 25

53. Market Your Success! Come up with a clever slogan (not too flashy, but something catchy) Learn not to say no, but put a price tag on saying “yes” Extra services are not free and come with a price tag Become an added value to the business, not a liability An underperforming Service Desk is a prime target for outsourcing “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Service Desk Adventure” can easily take the place of a mediocre Service Desk 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 26

54. Recap… It’s all about customer service, honest! Know your customer Hire the RIGHT people Validate your progress Share your success 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 27

55. Market Your Success! Live your mission – “Have fun & celebrate life every day” is one of Brookdale’s cornerstones that we live everyday at our Help Desk Make work an enjoyable, rewarding experience Satisfied team members provide better service 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 28

56. Thank You! Questions? Want a copy of the presentation? E-mail me: smadden@brookdaleliving.com Or connect with me on LinkedIn Customer Focused. Service Driven. 20 October 2009 – Brew City HDI Chapter Meeting 29