Technical Support Management

Service and Support is obviously a very people intensive operation. The management challenge is to select, train, lead and motivate the right people in an organizational structure to lead to success. Effective organizations implement and refine business process to ensure repeatable operational behaviors. Supporting the people and processes are information technology tools to leverage and improve the efficiency of the people performing the processes.

People - Services is a people intensive business. Finding, attracting, developing and growing the right talent pool is core to a successful Services organization. In this section, we will cover Attracting and Interviewing new hires, the Development of the talent pool from new hire to experienced support representative, and Retention of your top talent.  See People Managment. 

Process - Is the primary focus of this effort. Processes are the repeatable steps to accomplish business objectives. They should be viewed as guidelines, directions, and not hard rules. The development, documentation, training and implementation of effective processes is a key step in managing a effective organization. Our objective is to collect the best of the best processes as examples and templates for you to use in the assessment, and improvement of your service and support organization. One of our first examples is the Problem Resolution Process – presented in overview form. A detailed version is under construction.

There are excellent management programs with methodologies to develop, measure, continuously improve business process. These programs have grown out of the Quality Improvement movements. Examples are;

ISO 9000

Six Sigma

Lean Six Sigma

Business Process Mapping

All of these had their beginnings in improving the quality of manufacturing processes, by reducing errors, defects, and improving the overall quality of manufactured goods. All have been adapted to service based functions. As you grow in size, you should adopt one as a way of examining your implementation of the best practices presented here.

Technology - Continues to evolve at a rapid pace, and offers new opportunities to improve the quality of service and support we deliver to our customers. Unfortunately, it is to frequently viewed as the ‘silver bullet’ to solve inefficient or ineffective processes. To get the most value from technology investments, the process work needs to come first. The technology should augment the process, not be the process. Knowledge and awareness of technology options is important in designing the process, but can’t be a replacement. Any one in the application development or package application business knows that the sure sign of a project that will suffer or fail, is one where the business processes are not documented and agreed to in the business, under change or flux.

We will provide insight into technology options, but only in the context of how it supplements and improves the business process.