Holandez - Service Desk Superhero: A Step-By-Step Guide

Service Desk Superhero

Service Desk Superhero

A Step-By-Step Guide

Mike Holandez

Service Desk Superhero: A Step-By-Step Guide

Copyright 2019 Mike Holandez

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form of by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the authors.

ISBN-13: 978-1-9990315-0-3

Edited by M X Holandez

Cover design by Luisito C. Pangilinan

THINQsys Inc.

ServiceDeskSuperhero.com

WOW is all I can say. I highly recommend this book. There is no service desk reference like this out there. Mike has succeeded in explaining complex ideas with amazing simplicity. Not only is it an interesting read but its message is completely relatable to both IT and non-IT professionals. If you only had to buy one book about the service desk, this had better be it!

--- Anupam Mishra

Business Consultant, TD Bank

I wish I had a book like this years ago! The Service Desk industry can really benefit from the research and advice from Service Desk Superhero. I'm certain that businesses will see tremendous improvements in the way IT incidents and requests are handled if they follow Mike's advice.

-- Jean Martinez

IT Consultant and Business Systems Analyst, CGI

This is an invaluable, must-have reference guide! It's an excellent compilation of best practices that Service Desks should refer to periodically .

--- Walter Santamaria

Cyber Security Consultant

Every IT professional should have this book on their shelf and refer to it often! I very much depend on timely services from IT and this book provides a step-by-step method to transform any service desk agent into a superhero!

--- Issy Penaflor

Account Manager for a

San Francisco-based technology company

This book completely nailed it! Well written, well organized, easy to understand and very logically presented.

--- Andrew Booker

IT Director, Sleep Country Canada

I cannot believe the amount of valuable information that is packed in this book! If youve ever worked in IT, you owe it to yourself to own a copy of this book. Buy this book right now!

--- Sam Tang

IT Manager for a major national retailer

About the Author

Mike Holandez has been working in the IT industry for more than 20 years. Starting with his career as a Big 5 consultant, he has since performed various roles such as an application and database developer, Information Systems Manager, Business Analyst, and a Sr. Manager for a team of Business Systems Analysts, helping companies in the banking, retail and utilities industries. His experience in service desk spans his IT management experience as well as his own journey in ITIL.

Mike is currently a Consultant with THINQsys Inc., a firm specializing in business analysis, requirements definition and project execution.

Do you have ideas to add to this book?

Send them to Info@ServiceDeskSuperhero!

To my wife Xen

and our two wonderful sons,

Christian and Matthew.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables

Foreword

Customer service can make or break a companys reputation and hence its customer base quite easily. A couple of decades ago, a bad customer service issue was mostly restricted to one disgruntled customer, and perhaps the loss of one customer account. However, in todays social media world, a bad experience by one customer quickly gets spread to many and can have considerable impact when combined with other stories of bad experience.

Customer expectations are high: they expect a friendly encounter with a customer service representative; they expect their issue to be understood quickly; they expect respect and politeness; and, most of all, they expect a speedy resolution to their issue. If any one of these elements fails, the overall experience for the customer is negative. For this reason, enough trained support and service staff are critical to avoid delays, appropriate attitude by those staff is important, and a service desk system that tracks issues and resolutions for the customer is of paramount importance.

Building a solid, top quality customer service desk seems easy: hire a few people, put in a ticketing system of some sort, build a library of potential solutions, and let the team go to it. Much easier said than done! Each of these components takes a great deal of planning, forethought, and support in and of itself. Start with the people: finding solid, customer-oriented, knowledgeable staff is a frustrating experience, and attrition in this role is often high due to the demands of the position. A ticketing system to track each customers concerns and see the issue through to a satisfactory resolution (often with a follow-up to the customer) sound simple, but it surprisingly hard to get right. Finally, building a library of common issues and resolutions takes considerable effort and forethought, as well as precious resources from technical staff. But put all three components together, and youve got a customer service and support system that will generate praise, not criticism, and help elevate the company reputation.

This can all go wrong so easily. I think back to a problem my 80-year-old mother had with her Internet service. She called the ISP, after a 45-minute wait for a service expert explained there was no service, and was told everything looked fine on their end and hence the issue was something else. But they didnt offer her any solutions, just telling her to call her phone company (even though she only has cellular service). She contacted the phone company, which said Nothing to do with us. She called the ISP back and talked to someone else, who said the issue obviously is a router problem, but we dont support that here despite the router being supplied and installed by the ISP! Another call, another agent, and this time it was my mothers fault for messing up her PC configuration, and sorry, we dont do that sort of support here; call your PC manufacturer. After a couple of days of calling and getting frustrated, she gave up. One more annoyed ISP customer. And one more cancelled account. Contrast that to an experience where a call is quickly answered, the customer support person is friendly and helpful, and offers a resolution to the issue, and youve got a customer whos happy and reluctant to change service providers. Which scenario would you rather have your company offer to its customers?

In this book, Mike dives into the myriad aspects of setting up, running, and supporting a service desk properly. Up-front planning pays dividends in this field, and Mike steps you through the process of planning the service desk, choosing and setting up the ticketing system, and optimizing the performance of the entire system. Theres a misconception that simply installing a decent ticketing system is all thats needed, but thats totally wrong! For one thing, there are a number of excellent ticketing systems on the market, but each has its strengths and weaknesses, and the best solution for your service desk often depends on the volume of tickets you expect and the nature of the business being supported. Some ticketing systems are almost install and run, while some require extensive customization and can take months to implement properly. Most ticketing systems work well with ITSM approaches, but whether ITSM is the correct solution is again not always obvious.

As Mike points out here, setting the goals of the support system is a critical step: what is good service compared to what is excellent service, for example, and how does this impact your service level agreements? If the help desk fields a technical issue, are there clear escalation processes or does the ticket end up in limbo? And is there a way to follow up with the customer to ensure everything is acceptable to them? Youd be surprised how many companies ignore this follow up, which itself is probably the best way to create a happy customer!