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| RealMarket Stock Index |
| RMSI | 61.30 |  | 1.47% |
| Dow Jones | 12,114.10 | | 0.99% |
| Nasdaq | 2,368.00 | | 1.53% |
| S&P 500 | 1,387.17 | | 1.15% |
| Top Gainers |
| Unica | 11.3 |  | 0.28 |
| Sykes | 16.21 | | 0.20 |
| APAC | 5.03 | | 0.12 |
| Top Losers |
| salesforce.com | 42.64 | | -1.72 |
| SAP | 46.22 | | -1.30 |
| Nortel Networks | 28.29 | | -1.14 |
| Complete Stock Index |
| As of close 03/02/07 |
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 "Our Take" - Guest Contribution
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What’s The Story Behind Your Numbers?
Are Industry Benchmark Standards or Best Practices the right answer for your business?
By Pete McGarahan, McGarahan and Associates
I was teaching last month when a great discussion arose on the use of industry benchmarks. The directors were challenging industry statistics for first contact resolution (FCR), help desk professional utilization and average wait in queue. They were also concerned that these traditional metrics were not being appropriately adjusted for new support models, access points and self-service. They wanted to know the story behind these numbers - what were the business goals that were driving these statistics? They stated that selecting certain statistics and presenting them to senior management was dangerous, especially if you didn’t know the “whole” story and what types of help desks or support models were included in the comparison. They wanted more than just the numbers. I could not blame them – so did I.
There are many types of support models – Single Point of Contact (SPOC), the Customer Care model, “catch and dispatch” and service event filtering. They all have their own characteristics, pros and cons. You need to better understand which best practices are relevant in making each support model successful. You have to “go-deep” and investigate the stories behind the numbers and the best practices. Some questions we should ask are:
- What is our alignment to the business?
- Who are our customers?
- How do they use technology do get their job done?
- What are the mission critical systems we support?
- Weighing customer satisfaction versus cost of delivery?
- Does the organization view service and support as critical and core to the business?
- And most importantly, are we positively impacting the productivity and profitability of the business.
The Service Desk leader who makes sound business decision to implement the right support model that supports the company’s current strategy as opposed to what everyone else is doing is a hero in my book!
The class determined it is critical to establish the right support model based upon the needs, expectations, available funding, goals and objectives of the business. Also, being best-in-class means you are servicing the needs of your customers while maximizing their productivity and lowering your total cost of support. The phrase “delivering cost-effective support” always rang true with PepsiCo management. A high First Contact Resolution (FCR) does not happen by accident and a lower cost of support does not happen simply by cutting the budget. The story behind all of these industry benchmarks is support best practices. Kris Brittain of Gartner identifies the components of effective problem management process as:
- A focused support strategy
- Clearly defined service policies and procedures
- Structured delineation of responsibilities and escalation paths
- A coordinated approach among customers, business management and the support organization.
These are key in order to continuously improve operational, financial and customer metrics. These categories of metrics are also included in the very popular reporting approach called the Balanced Scorecard.
The industry’s thirst for a benchmark of best-in-class service desks is understandable. Senior management wants to know how their service desk is doing relative to the other companies, and if having a best-in-class service and support organization is worth the money. They want the empirical data that tells them if their support organization is delivering the “bang for the buck”. It is important to think like a business leaser when running your support organization. You have to anticipate these senior executive questions and concerns and be prepared with the answers to their tough questions. Their perspective is simply articulated by “either you are contributing to the bottom-line or you taking away from it - period”.
I would much rather give a young student a library card than a book, and I would much rather teach the industry best practices than be a mouthpiece for industry benchmark statistics. Best practices are designed to be a guide, a roadmap for support leaders to follow based upon proven and quantifiable results – only results speak loudly when justifying your budget and existence. Best practices should be prescriptive and tell you what and how to do it where industry benchmarks are designed to let you know you have arrived. It is a holistic approach with a success story that includes the implementation of best practices, tools and training as well as vision and strategy, alignment with business goals and objectives, focus on value-metrics and using industry benchmarks as a guide, not as an end-all. Knowing how these best practices and benchmarks work together will be a key in your continued success.
After the Taco Bell’s help desk won the International HDI Team Excellence Award in 1995, my CIO called me into his office and congratulated the team on their achievement. He also said something that will remain with me forever. He asked me what it would take to have a mediocre help desk at Taco Bell. I told him that I did not understand - we were getting great internal and external validation for our performance in service delivery to the business – why mediocre? He said that senior management thought “world-class” was expensive and Taco Bell needed to excel at core competencies, not being a world-class help desk. They felt they were overpaying for something that was not necessarily strategic, nor a core competency. Lesson learned for me – don’t use the term world-class around senior managers. It’s dangerous out of context and sounds expensive.
My take-aways from the conversation were:
- You must always know your cost structure and how competitive you are to the best third party pricing for support.
- You must always work to be best-in-class based on maturity, assessment, industry best practices, funding, scope and charter.
- You must always articulate value to the business, because the business will only continue to fund the services they see value in.
- Ensure your service desk is a value-add by implementing best practices that get results and measure the impact to your business.
Support leaders need to know the story behind their numbers. They need to know how focusing on one best practice or industry benchmark can have a ripple effect on the other financial and operational performance metrics. Know the details of your support organization and use them well to guide you in determining the right support model for you and your organization. You, your team and your organization will benefit greatly in elevating the level of support, customer satisfaction and consistent delivery that is both cost-efficient and effective.
I wish you success on your journey – you are not alone – ask for help!
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