1. Ivy Meadors
Referred to as the "Female Tom Peters"; internationally renowned, award winning, speaker consultant, Ivy Meadors, with over 28 years of experience, is a seasoned expert specializing in business, customer service and technical support. She is recognized as one of the industry's most respected leaders. Ivy is CEO and founder of High Tech High Touch Solutions, Inc.™, a full-service, vendor neutral, consulting firm specializing in service and support of the enterprise from a comprehensive viewpoint.
Together with her team, she has provided innovative solutions with extraordinary results to hundreds of Fortune 1000 companies throughout the world. Her business focus is far-reaching from people considerations to best practice processes to technology solutions.
Would you like to have high-performing, fully committed team members, a technologically advanced support environment, and incredibly loyal customers? High Tech High Touch Solutions, Inc.™ will develop your enterprise into one that offers exemplary customer services, realizes high returns on investments, has outstanding leaders and committed employees, with the primary focus always on business excellence and the customer’s experience.
High Tech High Touch Solutions, Inc.™ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

2. Creating Indispensable Service and Support Organizations: Avoid becoming a commodity
Learn methods to make your organization become an indispensable corporate asset. The level of value provided to the organization is the distinguishing factor to determine if your Service Desk or Contact Center is indispensable.
This session uses the outsourcing argument as the basis for understanding the true potential value of your Service Desk or Contact Center. What are the qualities that will guarantee management believe your operations are mission critical? This presentation shows you where to focus your efforts to realize the greatest gains.
Make the most of every opportunity for improvement. Recognize and destroy the sacred cows. Learn proven methods to make your organization become an indispensable corporate asset.

3. Get Ahead of the Curve in Customer Service
Create an Indispensable Organization
And Avoid Becoming a Commodity
Presented By Ivy Meadors

4. Slides are posted at www.hthts.com
Select the Link to Slides on Home Page
See end of slide deck for additional resources

5. Presenting Where it all started Basis for outsourcing
Change in mindset
Where to focus your efforts using CRM
Blogging to create relationships and offer additional value

6. 1878 Late 1800s e.html www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/kids/tech1900/phone.html
1876: Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone
1878: First operator and they were teenage boys. They wrestled instead of worked. They pulled pranks on callers, and even cursed at them. Were too rowdy. Switched to women.
Women had pleasant voices that customers -- most of whom were men -- would like. And because society did not treat women equally, they could be paid less and supervised more strictly than men.
Late 1800s. The first woman telephone operator was Emma Nutt. Late 1800s.
1900: All women operators.
600 calls per hour! Answer rate was 4 seconds.
1950: First PBX by Bell Lab
1978: First cellular telephone
1960’s First Mainframes
Last Cord board: 1981
1878
Late 1800s

7. History of Help Desk Technology
First MF Problem Management Systems
IBM - InfoMan & Peregrine Systems – PMS
First Client Service application for PCs
Windows 1.0
Client Server Systems come to life
Peregrine, Magic, Heat and a few others
First Client Server KM System
Symbologic – was Primus – now ATG
U S West Communications 1989: 93% 1st Call Resolution

8. The Basis of Outsourcing
“Just overhead”
“Not core to the business”
“Cheaper if someone else does it”
“Someone else can do it better”
“Organizations generally outsource a ‘Help Desk,’ not a ‘Service Desk’ (ITIL)”
“In top three jobs with highest attrition: Call Centers”

9. Service Desk Commodity: Help Desk logs and escalates calls Corporate
Asset: Service Desks solve calls and are proactive in identifying issues and accurate solutions

10. Change in Mindset
Be core to the business, not overhead
Have a critical viewpoint
Focus on solving business problems
Goal Model: Best service is no service
“Be willing to surrender what you are, for what you could become.“
-unknown

11. “The goal is perfect customer service through no customer service.”
“I’ve never had to contact Amazon about any matter. I have had, in essence, no customer service from Amazon.
Put another way, I have had such perfect customer service, the service itself has been transparent.
That is exactly what Amazon wants:
“The goal is perfect customer service through no customer service.”
Source: Fast Company April 2001 article:
“Betrayed! The Biggest Lie in Business: The Customer is In Charge”

12. Change in Mindset Have a different viewpoint: “Concave Contacts”
Motivate using meaningful metrics
Increase some ‘call’ durations
It’s not how many calls you take a day or how short they are, but the quality of the exchange
Only log things that are meaningful
Focus on contact deflection and elimination (e.g. “We have training available, you can sign up for free at…or I can do it for you right now.”)
Have a different viewpoint: “Concave Contacts”

13. “One Call Really Can Do it All”
Frontline should be the “nags” (ownership)
Push specific information to certain customers (e.g. new application user, new car owner)
Know and predict the customer’s needs
Define ‘practical’ service levels
Deliver event driven notifications (e.g. Amazon.com)

15. A "sacred cow“, an expression related to the Hindu belief that cows are sacred, is a belief in something, that it is above criticism.
There are many traditions that we uphold, many processes and methods that have become "sacred cows". They can be out dated, ineffective, even destructive, and yet we don’t see them and will never consider changing them.
But we must! We must seek out and destroy these destructive sacred cows.
cows.asp
“Follow the MAG Tape”
SACRED COWS MAKE THE BEST BURGERS

16. Kill the Sacred Cows
People who use yesterdays thinking in today’s game will be gone tomorrow
- Robert Kriegel
“Think Lean!”

17. Creating a Superior Customer Experience

18. Defining CRM and Contact Management
Customer Relationship Management: A process or methodology used to:
Learn more about customers' needs and behaviors to develop stronger relationships with them.
Bring together many pieces of information about customers, sales, marketing effectiveness, responsiveness and market trends.
Help businesses use technology to gain insight into the behavior of customers and the value of those customers.
Contact management: Software to store, track and manage contacts
CRM = Sales, Marketing, & Service

19. Marketing, Campaigning
“NETWORKING”
Marketing, Campaigning
CRM
(Customer Relationship Management)
Existing Customers
SFA
(Sales Force Automation)
Leads / Prospects
Contact Management Database (CMS)

20. Why Use the Technology Know…..
Who’s buying / reading / downloading / accessing “stuff”
What “stuff” are they getting
Why are they buying / reading / downloading / accessing it
When was the last time they got the “stuff”
How long since they were last “touched”

21. Why Invest the Time and Effort
Saves time later
Builds rapport quickly (e.g. Karaoke, pets)
Schedule follow-up activities and FUP!
Differentiates you from your competitors
Know your contact in real-time
“Every customer should be made to feel that the organization cares about them personally.”

22. Results… Provide a superior customer experience
Offer superb value and innovations in service that others may not
Increase revenues
Cross-sell / up-sell products more effectively
continued…

23. Results… Acquire new customers through data mining
Know which customers are worth investing in
Help staff close deals faster / solve issues accurately
Simplify marketing and sales processes
“360 view of contacts”

24. Contributing Success Factors
Must Have
Strategy to contact your customers / end users
Frequency
Methods utilized
Quality of contact
Data capture process
Relative to their specific interests / needs
Real-time or within hours
Take the time to review & update customer profiles

25. Contributing Success Factors
Integrated Systems
integration (affords event triggered s too)
Auto generate invoices, contracts, quotes, etc.
No duplicated data and less room for error with a single database
CMS
quotes
Int.
Broch.
blog
sfa
service
acctng

26. Telephony Data Integration
Caller-id
CMS (i.e. Heat, Goldmine)
Screen-pops profile
“Immediate access to customer details”
“Call directly from CMS system!”

27. Free up Critical Resources
Seek out customer complaints
Stop manual data entry efforts (e.g. Form online, generates an , call center types in each entry into system line by line. (3-5 minutes for data entry.)
Be sure there is value in making the effort
Does anyone really care about what is measured?
5. Monitor contacts, coach, reward, and take action (e.g. Didn’t know they weren’t making any effort to up-sell, voice tone, # times customer asked them to repeat, etc.)

28. Are they “Really” Satisfied?
A recent survey conducted jointly by Call Center Magazine and our sister publication, Managing Offshore, reflects this predicament.
The survey found that 65% of companies think that their customers go away "highly satisfied" after a call, while only 22% of customers actually reported walking away "highly satisfied.“
ticle.jhtml?articleId= &classroom=

29. Telephony
Utilize the telephone system more fully: s, vmails, and calls all go into the ACD queue
Wrap-up / quick codes for call “logging”
Use queues to route calls to other support groups
Switching modes now…

30. OK, So what’s up with this Blog thing?

31. What is it? A blog (weblog) is…
…an online diary; a chronological log of thoughts and ideas published on a web page.
…a simple form of content management
Blog Examples:
Project collaboration (i.e. internal corporation, with your client’s team)
Personal diary, your opinions, thought for the day
News feeds
continued…

32. More Blogging…. Form of Content and Collaboration Management
More Blog examples….
Favorite links, hints and tips
Example “Privacy Blog” of links:
Ongoing dialog with key contacts about issues important to them
Personal online accounts of 9/11 drew millions of readers
Turn all your blogging into your first eBook

33. Blogging Considerations
Find people with similar interests and they find you – capture in your contact management system for future prospecting!
“Comment SPAM” - big issue (
AudioBlogger – call Blogger and lvm – posted as MP3 file
PhotoBlogger
Password secured!
Delete what you don’t want in your Blogs
Top Blogs are primarily technical in nature

34. Sampling of Blog Software
Top Blog Systems of 2004
(photo blogging)
“27% of U.S. adults who go online read blogs.”
- Anick Jesdanun, Associated Press
Hosted and installed versions available for some

35. Blogging Resources Loads of Blog info Blog Business Summit - Seattle
radio.weblogs.com/ /stories/2002/10/03/blogSoftware.html
Blog Business Summit - Seattle
Article on Blogs applicable to those publishing books
Forum for Bloggers

36. Interactive Brochures
Quick, easy way to personalize communications
Customizable content
Direct link leads contacts back to web site
Workflow approval process
Auto generate and send press releases
Resource:

37. Primary Take-aways Change in mindset – become indispensable
The best service is no service
Communicate the need for the “investment”
Demonstrate your value to the enterprise

38. “Me, Inc.” Function as if it is Your Own Business
Tom Peters
Manage costs: think of the entire company, not just your immediate group.
Call Centers are the front door to your external customers.
Help Desks are the backbone that guarantees the success for your employees to serve those end most crucial customers.

39. Eliminate the unnecessary work, scale-back functions, change in mindset, and the right team together will result in establishing
“An indispensable Help Desk or Call Center that’s Ahead of the Curve and Indispensable!”

40. Newsletters Sign up now!!
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Northwest Support Professionals
Sign up at: nwsupportprofessionals.org
Northwest Call Center Professionals
Help Desk Northwest
Sign up now!!

41. Our Exclusive Newsletter “eSharings”
Call Center and Help Desk professional’s newsletter focused on creating indispensable service and support groups; comes loaded with resources, viewpoints, tips, books, and ideas that you can apply now.
Sign up at

42. I would love to hear from you anytime, Ivy@hthts.com
Speaker, Consultant
High Tech High Touch Solutions, Inc.
(425)

43. Disclosure Resources in presentation
Do not in any way intend to show favoritism to any one product or vendor.
Information is offered to simply provide you resources for gathering information.
Lists are not intended to be all inclusive.

44. Miscellaneous Resources
SACRED COWS MAKE THE BEST BURGERS
KCS KNOWLEDGED CENTERED SUPPORT
Books
Success Principles by Jack Canfield
Trump: How to Get Rich

45. CRM Resources www.best-business.us/management-crm.htm

46. Password Resets & Provisioning
VoiceVault
Courion
M-Tech Mercury Information Technology Inc.
Anixis
RSA
Symark Software
Useful article that speaks to some of the different solutions available and many other links.

47. Perform Root Cause Analysis “It’s Imperative!”

48. “The Contact Center of the Future”
Multi-channel access: , Web chat, Web callback, voice-over net, voice-over IP, Web collaboration
Integrated knowledge management and contact management tools 
Personalization of every customer interaction 

49. “The Contact Center of the Future”
More powerful off-the-shelf telephony integration 
Genuine customer knowledge through superior business analytics and market intelligence 
Front line employees who deliver extraordinary service
Employees who are recognized for their outstanding value and worth!
Incredible Leaders!

50. Service Desk is often viewed as a commodity service by the lines of business in an enterprise. Is the Service Desk actually strategic?
If a company’s Service Desk is really a Help Desk, the perception is correct, but there are strategic uses of Service Desks as well. For example, if you take the wealth of data generated by a Service Desk and use it as a tool to better manage the IT organization and infrastructure, that’s strategic. For example, a company who learns from their service desk data that operating problems occur as a result of an existing process, can benefit from learning what in that process should be re-engineered in that process to eliminate those concerns. The Service Desk is helping the CIO make better choices. It’s strategic when you can take the data and use it to better manage the human resources in IT as well.
Ask the Expert
Service Desk Outsourcing
Michele Hudnall, Senior Research Analyst, META Group

51. The Ritz-Carlton Basics
1.    The credo will be known, owned and energized by all employees.
2.    We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.
3.    The three steps of service shall be practiced by all employees.
4.    Smile. We are on stage. Always maintain positive eye contact.
5.    Use the proper vocabulary with guests. Eliminate hello, hi, okay, and folks.
6.    Uncompromising levels of cleanliness are the responsibility of every employee.
7.    Create a positive work environment. Practice teamwork and lateral service.
8.    Be an ambassador of the hotel inside and outside of the workplace. Always talk positively, no negative comments.
9.    Any employee who receives a complaint owns the complaint. (Resolve it).
10.  Instant guest pacification will be insured by all. Respond to guest wishes within 10 minutes of the request. Follow-up with a phone call within 20 minutes of the request to ensure their satisfaction.
11.  Use guest incident action forms to communicate guest problems to fellow employees and managers. This will help ensure that our guests are never forgotten.
12.  Escort guests rather than pointing out directions to another area of the hotel.
13.  Be knowledgeable of hotel information to answer guest inquiries
14.  Use proper telephone etiquette. Answer within two rings and with a smile. Ask permission to put a caller on hold. Do not screen calls. Eliminate call transfers whenever possible.
15.  Recommend the hotel's food and beverage outlets prior to outside facilities.
16.  Uniforms are to be immaculate. Wear proper footwear clean and polished and your correct nametag.
17.  Ensure all employees know their roles during emergency situations and are aware of procedures. Practice fire and safety procedures monthly.
18.  Notify your supervisor immediately of hazards, injuries, equipment or assistance needs you have.
19.  Practice energy conservation and proper maintenance and repair of hotel property and equipment.
20.  Protecting the assets of the Ritz Carlton Hotel is the responsibility of all employees.

52. Focus on the Importance & Worth of the Workforce
Select Staff by their“Behavioral Communication Styles
Develop in-depth personal growth plans
Understand behavioral & interpersonal skills
How to communicate with different generations
Teach focus on the Customer Experience
Measure the right thing to motivate for the reasons you want them to be motivated
“Call monitoring to offer immediate training”

53. Do I really hear and listen to their spoken & unspoken words?
Ask Yourself
Am I a good listener?
Can I hear what isn’t being said?
What’s it like to know me?
What’s it like to work for me?
What’s it like to work with me?
How effectively do I communicate?
Do I have goals and aspirations?
Does my enthusiasm and direction in my life
Do I positively impact those around me? (i.e. dreams,
goals, etc.)
Do I try things that are out of the norm or considered a risk?
Would you work for you?
Do I really hear and listen to their spoken & unspoken words?

54. One of the sensitive measures of customer satisfaction and depicts the higher cost per incident is how many contacts are made per incident.
As many as 3 calls are made to get a status of an incident already called in.
Average cost per call at the conservative $20 each, now represents a $60 per incident cost and three calls excluding incalculable productivity loss.