Focus Book Series

Do you need more information on current trends? Do details on how to implement common support center initiatives like measuring customer satisfaction and selecting outsourcers escape you? HDI focuses on hot topics in must-read mini-books you can download immediately.

HDI members receive a hard copy of the current Focus Book each quarter but may downloaded the books as well. Non-members can purchase a Focus Book from the HDI eStore.

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Bridging the Gap to Your Customer

By: Mitch Bryant

The thing that truly matters the most in the customer satisfaction business is the ongoing continued actions that your organization employs to demonstrate your commitment to customers each day. Will you fail your customers occasionally? YES, but how you perform service recovery and how you provide exceptional service day-in and day-out will make or break that relationship. Instead of fancy “slogans,” how about letting your customers do the bragging for you about your amazing service and support? Let them be a part of your marketing campaign.

This focus book takes you inside the on-going relationship between end-users and customer support, focusing on interactions, consequences, cause and effect, loyalty, service recovery, and more.

Top 10 Leadership Strategies to Build an Exceptional Team

By: Darien Chimoff and Brandon Caudle

Each June, HDI® invites all local chapter officers from across North America to attend an annual summit in Colorado Springs, Colorado. These local chapter officers are technical and customer support analysts, technicians, and managers as well as a host of other technology support practitioners who work in the trenches of Information Technology across the United States and Canada. At the 2008 meeting, two support desk managers with industry award winning teams (Darien Chimoff and Brandon Caudle), compared notes about what each had learned in their years of experience and it was found that they had much in common and employed almost identical leadership strategies.

The Sound of Quality: Best Practices in Call Monitoring

By: Bob Last

This HDI Focus Book discusses ten of the most common best practices used in technical support call monitoring programs. Like any customer support initiative or program, a call monitoring program requires a commitment of both time and resources to be successful. In addition, the best programs and the ones that are most accepted by employees are the programs that are closely tied to training and quality improvement programs.

The Professional Association: Cultivating Leaders and Harnessing the Power of Community

By: Rich Hand

Since the founding of our country, Americans have understood the value of being able to associate and assemble. Our founders understood and believed the concept of forming “associations” as important to the future of our country, so much so, that they wrote it into the United States Constitution.

The First Amendment (Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression) reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”1

The Support Center in 2011: A Report on the Future Trends Facing the Support Industry

By: The HDI Support Center Leadership Forum, HDI Executive Forum and HDI Strategic Advisory Board

“In this, the first Focus Book of 2008, the HDI Support Center Leadership Forum, the HDI Executive Forum and the HDI Strategic Advisory Board met, discussed and identified the most prominent trends support managers and IT executives will encounter in the next three years. These groups identified 14 trends that will transform the way IT support is delivered and managed and made some policy-setting predictions that will impact everyone from the Tier 1 analyst to the CIO.”

Building a Web Self-Service Portal: Keys to Success

By: Paul M. Dooley

The trend today is toward globalization, 24x7 coverage, and multichannel support. Customers want choices, flexibility, and support—when they want it, how they want it, and where they want it. Our customer base is asking for: • Choices—to get support how and when they want it • Convenience—the right reporting tool for the problem, question, or request • Availability—to avoid problems in the first place • Empowerment—to be informed • Return on Investment—to get the most from their system

Understanding the Business Value of Customer Service Skills in Technical Support

By: Robert S. Last

In this focus book we will discuss the value of soft skills training and how it can provide a positive Return on Investment (ROI) to an organization providing technical support. Service success in the technical support arena does not appear by magic; it is hard work, burdened by the myth that it is too expensive, and thought of as a necessary evil. These factors help explain why service in technical support is so often problematic and even poor.

Translating IT Metrics into Business Benefits

By: Rae Ann Bruno

To better communicate alignment with business goals, IT must embrace the overall goals and objectives of the organization and clearly show value in business terms. In Translating IT Metrics into Business Benefits, Rae Ann Bruno explains how to align IT goals with organizational goals and how to translate support center metrics into business benefits. Also, she explores ways to communicate this new set of metrics that highlight specific advantages to the organizations.

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