Tuesday, November 9, 2010
HDI Upstate SC local chapter meeting!
Thanks to all who attended.
Use Metrics to Run your Business
It has been said that if you’re not measuring, you’re only practicing. Measuring trends in call volume, performance metrics and the like can mean the difference in mandatory deductions in staff and staff expansions, budget cuts and budget increases. But what should be reported on? Who should receive these reports and how often? Although the answers may differ from company to company, there are many good and best practices that should be followed. Our speakers will endeavor to provide the latest trends in reporting so that you leave with new ideas for implementation. Join us on November 9th for ideas you can implement tomorrow!
Our next HDI Upstate SC meeting will be Tuesday, November 9th over lunch from 11:30 AM – 1:30 PM at the Advance America building featuring Yolanda Muhammad, Support Group Manager for Ogletree Deakins, Victor Gonzalez, Enterprise Network Manager for Windstream Communications and Trina Thomason, Director of Help Desk Operations for Advance America. We encourage all helpdesk, technical support, vendor and customer service professionals to attend.
About our speakers:
Yolanda Muhammad
Yolanda Muhammad's tenure in the support service industry spans over twenty years with fortune 500 companies in legal and financial verticals. She is currently the Support Group Manager for Ogletree Deakins. Her concentration involves developing winning incident and problem management strategies, while creating a notable customer satisfaction track record. Utilizing ITIL methodologies and extensive work experience, Yolanda identifies areas to improve processes in escalating issue resolution and identifies problems with the ultimate goal of restoring customer productivity.
Victor Gonzalez
Victor Gonzalez is the Enterprise Network Manager for Windstream Communications in downtown Greenville, SC. His realm of experience includes hardware and software deployments, computer image standardization, and software compliance auditing. In his 15 years in the service and support industry, Victor has developed strong teams of leaders and implemented new programs to reduce costs and build customer loyalty.
Trina Thomason
Trina Thomason is currently the Director of Help Desk Services and Production Support for Advance America Cash Advance centers. She and her team are responsible for providing internal support throughout the U.S. and Canada. She has held such positions as Help Desk Analyst I & II, Knowledge Engineer, Telecom Specialist and Operations Manager. She is certified in ITIL v3 Foundations, Knowledge Management, Project Management (PMP) and also holds A+ and Net + certifications.
HDI Joint Chapter Event!!
Charlotte |
Greenville | Columbia
May 13, 2010
One of the largest HDI events of the year featured five outstanding guest speakers, multiple regional HDI chapters, networking, vendors, prize giveaways and more!
Topics for this event included Service Desks, Motivation, Interviewing, ITIL Change Management, Community, etc.
- "Interviewing Skills : Tips And Tricks To “Ace The Interview” by Bill Peppler
- "What The Heck Is A Service Desk" by Ryan Hasbrook
- "Change Management: The Greatest ROI of ITIL" by Matthew Neigh
- "The Value Of Community" by Sophie Klossner
- "The JUST US League of America : Unleashing Your Super Natural Abilities & Putting Your Talents In Play" by Kirk Weisler
Summer social time with HDI!
A special thanks to all the attended this
Networking Event!
Benefits of Membership:
- Access to the HDI Website which contains Industry Best Practices
- White Papers
- Focus Books
- Webinars
Windows 7 Capabilities Presentation for IT Managers
Yung Chou
Thursday March 18th.
Yung Chou is currently an IT Evangelist in the Microsoft Developer and Platform Evangelism team. His previous roles and responsibilities within the company include support account management, service deliveries, and enterprise technical sales. His professional interests include Windows infrastructure, collaboration solutions, replaceable desktop and virtual desktop infrastructure.
We would like to thank all who attended, and our sponsor Robert Half Technology!
SC Local Chapter HDI 2009 Analyst of the Year!
Congratulations Nathan Gillow
Congratulations to our Analyst of the Year ( AOY ) Nathan Gillow as well as our two finalists, Connie Clyburn, and Tyler Davis.
Our first runner up was Connie Clyburn. Connie is a Help Desk Analyst for Advance America. She demonstrates outstanding customer service as well as technical skills. Connie is relied on to analyze and resolve complicated issues on a daily basis. She has also made it her aim to coach and train those less experienced than her. Our customers often ask for Connie by name because they know she will go above and beyond to ensure their satisfaction.
Our second runner up was Tyler Davis. Tyler has been with Self Regional Healthcare since October 2008. Tyler earned his Bachelor of Science at Lander University in Computer Science and minored in Mathematics. Tyler’s primary role is the Lead Help Desk Analyst providing first level support for Self Regional’s Team members for the main campus, extended campus and remote sites as well. Tyler also provides support to physician offices in the area on limited capacity and has also accepted the challenge of Blackberry device configuration, deployment and training for Self Regional. Tyler’s ambition is to make the Self Regional Healthcare I.T. Help Desk a true Call Center for the organization by providing support proactively using trending and monitoring. Tyler is married to the former Angela Allen and they have a son, Michael.
And our Upstate Chapter Analyst of the Year is Nathan Gillow. Nathan is an IT Technician at Bob Jones University. He is working there as a Graduate Assistant while working on a Masters of Accountancy. Nathan is the team leader providing first level support for a variety of remote sites associated with the school including the Elementary Schools, IT Management, and Facilities Management. He is a hard working individual who strives to put his heart into all that he does and strives to solve the customer’s problems as quickly as possible while caring for the customer needs.
As our winner Nathan will be entered into the competition for the Southeast Region Analyst of the Year with a chance to compete in March for the National Analyst of the Year.
Again, congratulations to Nathan and all the nominees. You have clearly shown a high degree of dedication to the profession and your customers.
September 17th
Topic: Customer Service – HDI Customer Service Workshop
Speaker: Richard Voegele, Partner, GENESIS Management Consults, LLC.
Our speaker for the evening, Richard Voegele with GENESIS Management Consultants, LLC. Richard’s topic of discussion was Customer Service.
After the primary discussion was concluded, door prizes were awarded to members and non-members.
We are in demanding times, are you satisfied with the bottom line performance of your business or organization?
Is the total value you provide your customers better than your competitors?
We would like to extend our graditude to our sponsors, guest speakers and all who participated in our quarterly chapter meeting!
The Future of IT Support - Industry experts will be talking (in a vendor neutral capacity) about some cutting edge technology trends and some of the new avenues where the support industry is headed. We will touch on topics such as network and data center virtualization, support center virtualization, as well as software as a service...with a panel discussion to follow.
Topic:
The Future if IT Support ( Trends, Telecommuting, Software as a Service, Virtualization )
Featured Speakers
Tim Dewey, CEO if “B Virutal”. Also industry experts from “Service Now.com”, and “Abacus Solutions”.
Food:
Barbecue, slaw, ice cream station with toppings
Giveaways:
ITIL Class Cert, various gadgets.
April 17th
Greenville Drive Game, A spring social event!
This social event was sponsored by FGP "Find Great People".
We appreciate their support of our Local HDI Chapter in Upstate SC.
Thanks for making our HDI Upstate SC chapter spring social a success! The social event was held on April 17th at the Greenville Drive Game in downtown Greenville, SC.
We got to meet some great people in the local area that work in the IT support field. People brought their families and it was a good time for all who attended. We even had a special guest "Bo" a little blood hound puppy who will one day do some great things in his line of work. Hope to see you at our next local chapter meeting in June. Don't forget we will have another social event in the fall. Stay tuned to our website and LinkedIN page to find out more.
March 19th
Chapter Meeting (Baseball theme)
Topic: Baseball fight (baseballs representing problems; homeruns representing solutions)
Location - Ogletree Building, 300 North Main St., Greenville, SC
Baseball Game – The round table discussion – “what is your biggest challegenge or problem on your job? And Answers provided by attendees.
Topics Covered:
- Getting staff to close their trouble tickets
- Shortage of Jobs in a shrinking economy and when will things turn around.
- Stopping venomous behavior, and turning a venomous environment into a place where people look forward to coming to each day.
- Dashboarding – Having real-time view of currently reported incidents and being able to compare that to baselines or past performance.
- levels - # of agents to # of calls.
- Consistent performance out of team members. Slacking off, internet surfing, always excuses for not meeting deadlines.
- Prioritrization of Things to Do.
- Dealing with slow /unresponsive IT support
- Win XP Pro Errors – Virus/Spyware
- Finding a job.
- Work life balance
- Dealing with people that are lazy or don’t want to work.
