🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2299@talos.npri.com> jerry@talos.npri.com (Jerry Gitomer) writes:
>	How about the percentage of your users who don't call the Help
>	Desk?  If they don't need help they at least know how to use
>	the system to get their jobs done.  

Be careful that you know what satisfaction you're trying to measure.
Your service...their training...the whole environment fro mthe user's
perspective...

You might be trying to ensure satisfaction that you can't provide 
because the limiting factor is not under your control.

you need to do a few things to get REAL metrics:
	- ALL calls must go to the hotline (need your mgt. approval)
	- ALL calls that go through the hotline and all items
		that are "walk-up" must be tracked
	- when you're done tracking, you have to categorize the 
		items...
		- problems/requests/training/enhancements
		- hw/sw/location, etc.
		- who's the call from (person and org.)
	- after you categorize them...look for patterns that you can
		identify...
		- do you get lots of mail questions from one org.?
		- if so, are they trained OK ?
		- are they just bored, or lonely, or pains in the neck?
		- are they trying to talk with one particular
			other organization ?
		- is there an unstable gateway or network in the middle?
		- are they complaining about something you don't think
			you've agreed or been chartered to provide?
		- is something broken ? (broken again?)

after a while, you can relax the "track all calls" rule to "track all
calls within reason".

You also need to be able to define what calls you WILL NOT be
responsible for.  If you have a particular package, are you responsible
for training the users how to make the package do something, or are you
just responsible or bring up the package so that it's correctly
configured?

[...example...around here, I'm not supposed to be an Interleaf weenie
	because there are people who ARE...but in my last job I had
	to be an expert in ALL the packages...because there wasn't
	anyone designated to be one...]

Do you want to hear that the printer needs paper because
it's your job to fix it (my condolences if so) or can you politely tell
them to get their lazy butts over to the printer and put the paper in
themselves (in such a manner that they say "thank you" afterward) ?

[another example...

I get lots of STUPID calls in this location because the people are 
treated as "dumb users" by their management, so they get sufficiently
(insufficient) training so that they BECOME "stupid users". I haven't
been too successful in getting the point across that if they get a
little training, they really CAN think for themselves, have more fun,
and relieve the pressure from us...making both sides happier and more
productive... ]

In a past job, I got a lot of calls from users who were new to one
organization who had management who wouldn't spring for a little 
training for them (yet who were quite prompt to bitch that they weren't
getting "their money's worth" from the computing organization (us)
even though we were spending 100% of our already insufficient time
doing the training rather than enhancing the environment).

The solution was to track EVERYTHING, no matter how painful it was.
We eventually got some "operations" organization to do the menial
stuff for us (password resets, print queues, etc.) and we could do the
project and enhancement stuff that the customer really wanted.

But we had to basically all threaten simultaneous resignations and 
back up our complaints with hard statistics regarding the silly
questions we were getting and how unpleasant an existance it was to be
stuck in the middle for us to get our management approval
and support.

(incidentally the same stats that helped out with getting the users the
training and getting us relief from the noise also totally answered the
question regarding "my organization adding value or not"...I pulled
out the reports with the accusing customer_manager and showed him thea
calls, categories, callers, resolution time, etc. as well as the
non-hotline stuff we were doing for them...and instead of cutting our
funding, he went to bat for ADDING funding).

You have to either force all calls through a hotline that tracks things
or discipline yourselves to track them regardless of where the calls
come from.

(we had an interesting (to me) solution...we told them to mail all
problem reports, questions, and requests for enhancement to a "service"
account...which used the vacation program to send back an automatic
response that said something along the lines of:

	"this note is intended to provide positive confirmation that
		your electronic mail has been received by the 
		service account.

	all problems should be reported by calling xxx-xxxx (our 24x7
		operations guys).

	requests and questions are worked in priority-based order
		with the priorities negotiated on a routine basis
		between engineering and computing management."

yes...we really did meet routinely with the various organizations
to let them make the call regarding priorities (with a little help
from us if we disagreed)...doing that removed us from the spot in
the middle when the inevitable request came in that was insignificant
to everyone except that one person...we could (politely) ask them to
get their management chain to change the priorities and call us.

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------
                         Vince Skahan   
 vince@atc.boeing.com                  ...uw-beaver!bcsaic!vince
        	(lifelong Phillies fan...pity me)