The FT Word – November 2001
The FT Word
The FT Word is a free monthly newsletter with support management tips. To subscribe, send us email with your email address. The subscription list is absolutely confidential; we never sell, rent, or give information about our subscribers. Here’s a sample.
Welcome
Welcome to the November 2001 edition of the FT Works Newsletter, a monthly review of trends in the support management arena. In this month’s issue:
· key metrics for support centers – part 2
· why you should go to a direct-to-support-rep phone model
· ideas for holiday giving for your team
Looking for useful holiday gifts? See the end of the newsletter for how to get an autographed copy of The Art of Software Support. Also offered is a special introductory price on The 10 Commandments of Support Pricing booklet: your guide to higher support revenues and profits.
Key Metrics for Support Centers – Part 2
Last month we talked about the “must-have” metrics no support center should do without: case productivity, issue distribution, case aging, customer satisfaction, and knowledge base productivity. This month we take a look at the second tier, the nice-to-haves. If your support center is beyond startup mode, and assuming you have already implemented the must-have metrics, the nice-to-haves become mandatory too, and useful to boot.
So what should the “nice-to-have” metrics include?
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financials dashboard
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top 10 customers
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knowledge base usage
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metrics by manager and by geography
1) Financials Dashboard
Goal: get a snapshot of the financial data so you can make business decisions. Financial metrics are very important, of course, so you may wonder why they did not make it to the set of “must-haves”. This is because, if you are just starting out, the standard financial reports run by the Finance group will suffice. Run this set of numbers monthly.
Show:
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revenue, expenses, and profits against targets, preferably on a rolling 3-month average (monthly spikes are often meaningless)
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renewal rates
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cost per case
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cost per customer
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if applicable, the numbers should be broken down by geography or product family
2) Top 10 Customers
Goal: track the heavy-usage customers so you can identify both customers who are struggling and customers who may be abusing the system. A weekly run should suffice.
Show: the top 10 (or 20, or 40) customers with the number of cases they created during the period, number still opened, percentage of P1s (optional). You may want to run this both by contact (individual) and by customer.
3) Knowledge Base Usage
Goal: track the documents with the heaviest and lowest usage and ratings so you can identify key issues and documents that need to be reworked. You can also use this to reward the authors of particularly successful documents. A weekly run should suffice, although a daily run may make sense in busy environments.
Show: the top and bottom 10 (or 20, or 40) documents for both usage (access, hits) and user rating. This requires that our tool tracks such entities. If they do not, you can certainly build the customizations required to get the data, but you may also want to review your tool strategy. It may be time to upgrade.
4) Metrics by manager and by geography
Goal: go beyond the global view to a detailed view by geography, by manager, by product line, or whatever other variable makes sense in a support center that’s too large to be managed as one piece. This is really a philosophy that applies to all the metrics you run rather than a separate report. It may be a difficult hurdle for your tracking system to clear. Indeed, many upgrading decisions are precipitated by the inability of the current system to handle more finely focused metrics.
Show: all or most of the metrics you have, but “sliced and diced” appropriately. So a first-level manager should get detailed information for his team, while his manager gets information for each of her manager’s teams.
Clearly there is no end to support metrics, and each new customer I work with provides renewed inspiration for my quest for the perfect metrics set. Whatever choices you make, and although you may choose to run a wide variety of metrics for analysis purposes, keep the core set of metrics very small, ideally on one page, make sure they are correct, read, and acted upon daily.
Direct-to-Support-Reps Models – Why they are good for everyone
The traditional support model for complex support environments is to have the phone (remember, we are traditional here, so phone is king!) answered by a dispatcher who checks entitlement, logs the issue, and then dispatches it to the appropriate group or individuals. Dispatchers also often field return phone calls on existing issues. The model dates back to traditional hardware support, with reps in the field and dispatchers coordinating assignments.
With traditional hardware support, the dispatchers add the tremendous value of being there to answer the phone while the reps are out in the field. In a world where physical dispatch is the exception rather than the rule, dispatchers don’t add much value and using them for any and all call is a mistake, in my mind. Calls should be routed directly to the support rep(s) who can best handle the problem, thanks to an appropriate ACD menu. In larger centers, dedicated dispatchers can be retained to help callers who don’t have the proper entitlement, need extra assistance, or simply won’t wait in the queue.
And yet most support centers resist the so-called “direct to support rep” model. Why?
1) It’s not the traditional way. Point well-taken, now try something different (and save money and increase customer satisfaction too!)
2) The phone system is not set up for it. Now if you have an ACD in place for the dispatchers, it’s really easy to extend it to the reps. And if not, you may well be able to implement a simple system with the existing PBX technology you have.
3) The reps resist it. Indeed, reps don’t want to feel like “phone jockeys” and they fear having to adhere to a more disciplined schedule. Many times, however, they come to appreciate the decrease in phone tag and the increase in customer satisfaction associated with the direct model/ Well worth trying!
Looking for useful holiday gifts?
Show your staff you care and help them increase their skills with their very own autographed copy of “The Art of Software Support”, the practical manual to running support centers. It’s a great way to protect your own copy from avid borrowers. (You can order one for yourself too!) The cost is just $30 *including* the personalized dedication, shipping and handling. To order, go here.
Special Introductory Pricing on “The 10 Commandments of Support Pricing”
Until 12/31/01 you can get a special price of $25 (including shipping and handling) on the newest FT Works booklet entitled “The 10 Commandments of Support Pricing”. The booklet covers strategies for maximizing support revenues and profits from designing the support packages to selling them and managing renewals. To order, go here (the special pricing is available to newsletter subscribers only).
FT Works in the News
SupportWeek published an article I wrote entitled Can anyone a trainer be? which offered strategies to leverage support staff members to create and deliver training. http://supportgate.com/supportweek/20011113/article1.html
Curious about something? Send me your suggestions for topics and your name will appear in future newsletters. I’m thinking of doing a compilation of “tips and tricks about support metrics” in the coming months so if you have favorites, horror stories, or questions about metrics, please don’t be shy.
Regards,
Françoise Tourniaire
FT Works
www.ftworks.com
650 559 9826
