Technical support professionals thrive on helping others solve problems; it’s in their DNA. Provide these same people with the chance to give beyond the day-to-day, to serve the community in significant ways, and you have everything you need to make a difference in the world. No matter what you...
Tag(s): people, leadership, professional development
May 25, 2012
Who doesn’t want a workplace where good employee relations are the norm? Where the threat of an organized labor invasion isn’t looming? The vast majority of wise employers want to create and maintain an environment where everyone can flourish, where cooperation and collaboration are the norm....
Tag(s): people, leadership, coaching
May 23, 2012
Your CEO just returned from a two-week business trip. Company data is normally backed up to the network via VPN, but not this time. The only copy resides on your CEO’s hard drive and it can’t be accessed. You’ve been contacted because that data is mission critical to the enterprise and your CEO...
Tag(s): technology, process, business continuity, disaster recovery
May 23, 2012
A support center has two principle assets: a robust, well-managed knowledge base and talented people. Support centers typically invest significant time and effort into training and developing specialists, supervisors, and managers; a support center leader’s job is to ensure that this time and...
Tag(s): people, workforce enablement
May 23, 2012
Most businesses claim to use their customer service organizations as key differentiators in creating competitive advantage in the marketplace, but this claim does not withstand closer analysis. The service the vast majority of these companies provide is actually the same as their competitors, so...
Tag(s): customer service, people, process, business of support, practices and processes
May 23, 2012
It all started in the spring of 2009, after coming in as the runner-up for the HDI Team Excellence Award. We knew we were delivering great service to our customers, making recommendations to be more effective, and creating a great working environment, but there was something missing. After...
Tag(s): process, practices and processes, framework and methodologies, people, customer service
May 23, 2012
If there’s one thing service desks are good at, it is collecting information and reporting on it. If there is one thing they are terrible at, it is being able to focus on the few instead of the many. But one way to find out if anyone is actually reading the reports you spend so much time...
Tag(s): metrics and measurements, people, workforce enablement, process, business of support
May 23, 2012
Once upon a time, customers relied on advertising to shape their perception of an organization. Certainly, some money was poured into customer service, but only enough to keep things moving. If customers had problems, their complaints were usually isolated to a strongly worded letter to the company.
Tag(s): people, customer service, process, business of support
May 23, 2012
When it comes to customer service, it really is only as good as the customer says it is. But what do you do when your customers think your service is great, but you know it could be a whole lot better? Think Lean! We did, and we were able to reduce our abandoned call rate from 28 percent to 9...
Tag(s): people, customer service, process, framework and methodologies
May 23, 2012
Certification has never been more relevant than it is in today’s challenging economy, when IT pros are faced with greater competition and struggle to stand out from the crowd. Ultimately, certifications are a filter for hiring managers who have tons of résumés to review, giving IT professionals...
Tag(s): people, professional development, certification standard
May 23, 2012