Insights, hints, tips, and resources for service and support professionals, given in the spirit of sharing information in a quick-read, content-rich newsletter.

In this Issue:

-- Sharing - The Frontline Should be Paid Six Figure Salaries

-- Resources - What Horses Can Teach Us About Leadership

-- Subscription Information

 

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GCS Conference and Expo 2007 - Save the Date:
The 6th Annual Government Customer Support Conference and Expo will be held in Alexandria, Virginia, May 7-10, 2007.

SHARING (top)

ITIL, ITIL, ITIL!  It seems to be on every IT organization's list. There is an unknown number of newsletters, websites and Blogs talking about it.  In fact, when I searched for "ITIL" there were 21,300,000 hits.

High Tech High Touch Solutions understands how important ITIL is to organizations.  We want to make sure you hear about ITIL from people in the industry who understand it in-depth and have applied the disciplines.  We also want you to hear from people who are working towards, or have successfully moved to the focus of offering the services of a Service Desk versus a Help Desk.

Pete McGarahan,  one of the top 10 industry legends is presenting the ITIL Service Management Foundations certification course, at the 8th Annual Help Desk Professionals Conference and Expo in San Antonio, September 25-27, 2006 (www.helpdeskconference.com). Brenda Iniguez, Greg Charles, and Donna Holt are also presenting a wealth of information at the conference on the topic of ITIL.

Just for fun, I did a Google search on "what is a service desk".  An article in a Blog on the website connect.educause.edu includes a list of 61 components that make up a Service Desk by their definition. The first 21 are listed here for you.

I think the list on this website forgot to include; psychologist, coach, mentor, trainer, counselor, customer service rep, sales rep, actor, baby-sitter, nag, and comedian.  The Service Desk staff must have traits including patience, humor, tact, empathy combined with skills in trouble-shooting, an understanding of behavioral styles, and incredible listening skills.  They often must be multi-lingual, understand different cultures and age generations. Their writing skills must be good for recording data accurately while under high-pressure typing and talking simultaneously and must keep calls short and the answer rate fast, with no calls in queue. Oh yeah, and they have to have technical skills and expertise in specific applications and products to support whatever the users call about.

And how much are they paid to work in the Service Desk?   NOT ENOUGH!
Seems to me this is a job that deserves a six-figure salary.

From the Blog on the connect.educause.edu  website the following components of a Service Desk are listed:

 An ITIL-based Service Desk

1. Provides a single point of contact (SPOC) for customers and users

2. Facilitates the restoration of normal operational service

3. Solves most incidents

4. Is the front door for other IT departments

5. Deals with many customer queries without needing to contact specialist personnel

6. Follows up calls originating from within the IT organization

7. Detects incidents

8. Verifies the details of a caller and their IT resource (also called a configurable item, or CI)

9. Handles all incoming calls and only escalates them to the second or third tier support when necessary

10. Engages in activities supporting standard processes

11. Informs users about the supported products and services to which they are entitled

12. Maintains the contacts with customers through promotion of, and providing information about, IT services

13. Supports the provision of the services that have been agreed by guaranteeing access to the IT organization

14. Acts as a filter that only lets call through to 2nd and third-line support where this is actually necessary

15. Always acts professionally when dealing with users

16. Ensures that users do not have to search endlessly for a solution

17. Ensures accessibility of the IT organization

18. Is consistent and efficient in all customer contacts

19. Serves as the main source of information to users

20. Provides information about new and existing services, provisions of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and order procedures and costs

21. Responsible for contacts with maintenance suppliers

Click to see the other 40 items and read more on this posting.

So again, I ask, how much SHOULD Service Desk people be paid?

I hope Service Desk and Help Desk Technicians soon receive the pay they are worth, for what they are, one of the corporation's greatest assets. Businesses can't effectively offer their products and services without a great Frontline.

Help Desks that are sourced offshore will find it difficult to fully become this asset, at least not in the near future. It will take time to understand the American population and their service and support needs. We're complicated, expect a lot and have a very diverse culture. We also do not fully understand our own needs yet, to be able to ask someone else to do it for us.

When you read the list above, you can see how hard it would be for an offshore company, nearshore, or onshore to offer these services effectively without the proper training and exposure to other successful companies. 

If you join us at 8th Annual Help Desk Professionals Conference and Expo you will gain many of the tools you will need and hear proven success stories from large to small Help Desks who are focused on becoming Service Desks.  Our speakers are not presenting the "same old stuff" either.

It is time to focus on how we can do the best possible job to service customers by appreciating the true value of the Frontline. Businesses will realize improved efficiencies, increased productivity, and reduced costs when they acknowledge the value of the Frontline and apply the necessary resources.

A great big thank you to everyone who works in the Frontline! You deserve more appreciation and pay than you get, for what you do, and now even more that you are going to be a Service Desk Technician.

Until the next issue of eSharings, may you find ways to do the impossible with inadequate resources, no budget and too few resources. Come to San Antonio with us and learn how others have remedied these situations using their imagination, innovation, and proven strategies.

"Thank a Frontline Tech Today!"

Sincerely,

Ivy Meadors
High Tech High Touch Solutions

www.ivymeadors.com / www.hthts.com

425-398-9292

P.S. Will you join me in San Antonio for the 8th Annual Help Desk Professionals Conference and Expo in San Antonio, September 25-27, 2006? Sign up here!

RESOURCES  (top)

What Horses Can Teach Us About Leadership

In a herd of horses, the lead mare sets the direction and pace of the herd. The lead stallion keeps the herd together and protects them from predators. For a herd to be confident in their leaders, they must know four things:

• First, that the leader is paying ATTENTION and can detect even the most subtle shifts in the energy or environment.

• Next, the herd must be confident that the leader can give them clear DIRECTION.

• Also, that she or he will follow that direction with focused ENERGY, providing them guidance on the pace (i.e., walk, trot, canter) with which to respond to those shifts.

• Finally, the herd must trust the CONGRUENCE of the leader’s inner and outer expression.

• In other words, the image the lead mare presents to you and who she is inside are the same. The herd must know that lead mare has their best interest as her source of motivation.

Source: http://teachinghorse.com, Dr. June Gunter's website, Keynote speaker at the Help Desk Professionals Conference in San Antonio.

Horses and Leadership Resources

1. Article written by June and leadership as witnessed with a pack of hourses - http://teachinghorse.com/journal.html

2. Book: Horse Sense for the Leader Within : Are you leading your life, or is it leading you? Ariana Strozzi, CMSC

3. DVD: Horse Sense for the Leader Within : Are you leading your life, or is it leading you? Ariana Strozzi, CMSC

4. Savvy Leadership: The Horse Whipsering Way: http://www.speakersofnote.co.za/list/horse_whispering.html

5. Horse Sense for Leaders: http://www.pdesigns.com/horsesense/index.html

SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION (top)

We hope you enjoyed this edition of eSharings. Feel free to reprint this newsletter in its entirety with our copyright information intact.

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