Managing a First-Rate Help Desk Essential Help Desk Skills 3 Days
Session 1 . Effective Help Desk Models
A. Definitions of the Help Desk
B. Expectations of Performance
C. Functions of the Help Desk
D. Services provided by the Help Desk
E. Successful Help Desk models
F. Performance objectives
Session 2. Positioning your Help Desk for Year 2000 and beyond
A. Scope of Help Desk services
B. Understanding and using Critical Success Factors
C. Help Desk staffing levels
D. Effective use of Help Desk resources
E. Defining and developing relationships with other support staff and customers
F. Organising for Problem Management
G. Integrating Remote Desks
H. Co-ordinating and managing a distributed customer support network
I. Characteristics of a first-rate Help Desk
Session 3. Management Exercise
Session 4. Charging for Help Desk services
A. Benefits of charging
B. In-house support charges
C. Basis for charging
D. Charging – keys to success
E. Outsourcing of support services.
Session 5. Quality and the Help Desk
A. Understanding the quality processes in a Help Desk
B. Using Service Level Agreements to effectively negotiate and manage service expectationsC. Managing and meeting the demand for service
D. Help Desk service quality indicators
E. Assessing customers’ needs and expectations
Session 6. Improving Customer Service
A. The importance of service to the organisation
B. What is customer satisfaction?
C. Causes of dissatisfaction
D. Ensuring customer satisfaction
E. Dealing with complaints
Session 7. Management Exercise
Session 8. Improving Help Desk Productivity
A. Understanding customers’ needs
B. Measuring customer satisfaction to improve service
C. How to succeed
D. Essential tools for the Help Desk
E. Call logging and problem escalation procedures
F. Using Help Desk data to market, manage and influence
G. Strategies for preventing problems, assuring quality and handling difficult problems
Session 9. Help Desks: The Next Generation
Automating Problem Management, Solution Provision and Case Handling
A. Strategies for improving call and problem management
B. Are all problems equal? – setting priorities
C. Selecting the ‘right’ tools: software, case reasoning, the internet – and more
D. Structuring databases to help solve problems and improve service
E. Real costs and effort involved in implementing automated Help Desk tools
Session 10. Gaining Top Management Support
A. Trends affecting the Help Desk
B. Using new technologies in the Help Desk
C. The Help Desk of the future
D. Understanding top management’s interests and expectations
E. Management challenges
F. Management expectations
G. How to effectively justify a Help Desk
H. Successful techniques for influencing management
Session 11. Keeping Staff on Top
A. Knowledge, skills and abilities required by Help Desk staff
B. Techniques for influencing customers and colleagues
C. Strategies for keeping staff motivated
D. Finding and retaining the ‘ right’ people
E. Techniques for improving communications and problem solving ability
F. Techniques for avoiding staff burnout
How you and your organisation will benefit
You will:
· benefit from pooling the knowledge of the expert presenter and delegates
· discover how to review your existing Help Desk or how to create a new one
· learn how to reconcile the expectations of customers with the capabilities of the service providers.
· find out how to achieve the potential of the Help Desk
· get insights into the methods and techniques used by the world class Help Desks
· see ways to manage and motivate staff for optimum results and avoid burn-out
· identify how you can position your Help Desk for the challenges that lie ahead
· establish a clear understanding of the latest tools and techniques to improve your Help Desks productivity and responsiveness
· apply Critical Success Factors and Key Performance Indicators
· hear techniques to mine the buried treasure of statistical information to improve overall operational performance
· understand how to market and promote the Help Desk to customers and within and outside your service
Why you should attend
Customers want exactly what they want, when they want it. And what they want is instant solutions and consistently high quality. Often a help desk is caught in the middle of the gauntlet between the hammers of technical limitations, resource constraints, budget pressure, conflicting priorities and the need to provide excellence in service.
Too often the Help Desk is forced by these constraints into being reactive, rather than proactive. The Help Desks terms of reference may not be well defined and its organisation may be ambivalent – especially when it depends on second and third level support from other departments.
Support can be a soft target for cuts, since its benefits are difficult to quantify.
It all sounds depressing: but there are ways to improve the performance and status of the Help Desk and turn it into a proactive weapon to improve overall operational performance: creating the Strategic help Desk.
In this highly interactive, intensive and pragmatic workshop, you will hear the latest thinking on all key challenges of Help Desk management including technical, organisational, personnel aspects as well as discovering latest trends and information from around the world.
Is the Help Desk going to be automated out of existence? What is the optimum organisation for global enterprises, for public sector organisations and for Help desks within smaller, dynamic organisations? How can you increase the effectiveness and prestige of the Help Desk?
You will leave this workshop with tools and ideas to enable you to customise your Help Desk for optimum results.
Kingswell brings experience from successful training courses and consultancy in China, the Gulf, Southern Africa and Europe. Be sure to bring your ideas and experiences you wish to discuss. You will find this powerful course stimulating, entertaining and immensely practical.
Books by Kingswell Consultants
Hiles A.N. and Gunn, Dr. Y. Creating a Customer-Focused Help Desk: How to Win and Keep Your Customers. Published by Rothstein Associates Inc. 2000 ISBN 0-9641648-6-8 This book has the support of the Help Desk Institute.
The Complete Guide to IT Service Level Agreements, Matching Service Quality to Business Needs. Revised and enlarged 2000 edition ISBN 0-9641648-2-5 published by Rothstein Associates Inc. The standard work on IT Service level Agreements.
Service Level Agreements, Winning a Competitive Edge for Supply and Support Services. Revised and enlarged 2000 edition ISBN 0-9641648-4-1published by Rothstein Associates Inc. This book applies Service Level Agreements to services other than IT. Real case studies and example SLAs are provided ranging from Human Resources, Logistics, through Training, Livestock Handling, Logistics and Field Service Engineering.
Who should attend
Help Desk, Support Centre, Service Desk, Hot Line and Call Centre and Customer Support managers and staff; Problem and Solution managers and teams, second line support personnel; account managers, Building Services managers, Premises managers, Facilities managers; all building industry staff having regular interface with customers.
Presenter
A Senior Consultant with Kingswell International, Jo Johns has 25 years of practical business experience gained both within the IT environment and as part of the user community, Jo brings a common-sense and credible approach to all courses she presents. She has been designing, building and presenting Help Deskcourses for the past 5 years.
Her knowledge of key support issues, concerns, problems and successes stem from her hands-on experience of the environment acquired in various roles from Help Desk Analyst to Service Management Consultant, whilst working within a variety of organisations ranging from SMEs to multi-nationals. She has also been on the receiving end of support services! She puts this knowledge and experience to good use in the delivery of courses.
Jo has worked in UK, Europe and Australia, and is also a regular speaker at Customer Services Management and IT Service Management Forum Conferences. She also writes for Service Management publications on topical issues.
Essential skills for Help Desk
An intensive one-day inter-active workshop in Help Desk Skills
1. Creating Help Desk Excellence
. towards Total Quality
. who are your customers; what do they want
. targets, motivation and appraisal
. key metrics to measure success
2. Crucial Techniques in Customer Care
. neuro-linguistic programming: a new tool
. advanced telephone techniques: power words
. active listening
. vital questioning techniques
. negotiating skills for Help Desk staff
3. Assertiveness for Help Desk Staff
. assertiveness – what it is; what it isn’t
. benefits of assertive behaviour
. identifying assertive, aggressive and passive behaviour
. coping with criticism; asking and refusing; feedback; handling put-downs.
4. Making stress work for you
. stress in the Help Desk: nature, cause and cost in performance
. stress indicators, levels and types
. identifying and combatting stress symptoms
. how to avoid stress and use energy
Overview
When a customer needs help, they call the Help Desk: and thereafter the efficiency of the organisation is judged by the effectiveness, efficiency, courtesy and responsiveness shown in handling that single call. Badly handled, that could be the last call the customer ever makes to you. Properly handled, the call could consolidate and strengthen the customer relationship, lead to enhanced customer satisfaction – and further business.
It sounds simple…. but poor quality systems, inadequate resource, stress, internal politics, insufficient training, lack of inter-personal and communications skills can conspire to thwart the best of intentions.
This course shows how to avoid the pitfalls, improve customer satisfaction and create a service-oriented Help Desk.
Course objectives
By the end of the course, delegates will:
. discover how Quality methods can help in delivering Help Desk Service
. learn how to elicit information to improve their problem diagnosis and analysis
. be better equipped to deal with difficult customers and colleagues
. build personal communications skills to satisfy customers
. learn how to improve confidence and cope with stress
Help Desk: Programme day 1
0900 Registration of delegates and coffee.
0930 Why a Help Desk?
The Customer as King Defining the tasks
Customer expectations – and needs Benefits of a Help Desk
What is a Help Desk? Making the case
Help Desk Objectives Help Desk Trends
1030 Coffee
1045 Help Desk – the Portfolio
New customers: hand holding Manuals/Guides/Newsletters
The Help Desk – fault reporting Evaluations
The Technical Help Desk Customer Education
Problem Solving Customer Training
1145 Organisational Issues
What type of Help Desk? Resource planning & justification
Central or Distributed Help Desks? Managing expectations
Real, Virtual or Outsourced? Management commitment
The One Stop Shop What Service Hours..
Who should run the Help Desk? …& How to Cover them
1245 Lunch
1400 Skills Issues
Skills for the Help Desk
First & Second Level Support
Technical Support
The Customer Support Manager
1530 Tea
1545 Implementing the Help Desk
Planning Implementation Call logging
User Surveys Help Desk Software : Options & Selection
Equipment Problem Management Databases
Sources of Help Expert Systems
Internet & Intranet
Help Desk: Programme day 2
0900 Problem Management
Problem Diagnosis
Problem Prioritisation
Problem Escalation
Problem Management
Problem Resolution
1000 Telephones – Friend or Foe?
Telephone technique – Call Handling
Telephone technique – Customer Care – wrong and right ways
The right tools
Computer Telephony Integration – new tools, new technology
1045 Coffee
1100 Help Desk Service Issues
Performance Standards
Using Service Level Agreements to Manage Customer Expectations
Handling complaints
Value added service
Proactive Help
1230-1345 Lunch
1345 Workload Management
Jobs & Skills for the Help Desk
Layered Support
Assessing Resource Requirements
How to Improve Agent Productivity
Management Reporting: Treasure Trove!
1500-1515 Tea
1515 Help Desk Staffing: The People Issues
Skills Mix – Manager, Supervisor and Help Desk staff
Communications Issues & People Problems
Staff Motivation, Performance & Appraisal
Managing Staff Stress
1600 Relationships & Politics: How to Win Support
Power to Influence: Getting Results without Authority
Politics & The Help Desk
Interface with Change Management Procedures
Managing customers
Business issues; Fee or Free?
Getting Charging Right
1630 Where Next?
The pilot/trial application
Planning the Future
Help Desk Clinic & Delegates Forum
The programme is intended as a guide only: the seminar is intended to be interactive and the running order may be changed or amended to reflect delegates’ interests and requirements
Customer care
An intensive 1-day workshop
Objectives:
On completion of the workshop, delegates will be able to;
§ Understand the business background, logic and issues of client care
§ Have an understanding of they key elements of client care
§ Identify the interpersonal skills necessary fully to deliver client focussed services
§ Develop a strategy for delivering excellence in customer service
§ Be aware of and respond to the importance of internal customer care issues
§ Understand the latest initiatives in client care including partering and inter-organisational team working
Programme:
§ Identifying the present level of service and justifying resource for the required customer care quality
§ Fee or Free issues of charging for support services
§ Features and benefits of a customer oriented service
§ Colleagues are customers too
§ New initiatives in client care
§ Measuring performance in customer care
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