Lean6σ GOLD Urgent Support A Reduction in Urgent Customer Requests Resolution Cycle Time Charles Hollingsworth

Lean6σ GOLD Overview Apply Lean and Six Sigma methodologies to the process of receiving and resolving customer support request. This project follows the DMAIC process while iteratively applying Lean methodologies within the DMAIC steps to identify constraints and define the appropriate problems to solve. Suggestions are made to control the process in the future and establish requirements for a decision support system to monitor the variation.

Lean6σ GOLD Process Flow Iterative process throughout the project –Defining the objective –Redefining the objective –Re-measuring after analysis –Re-measuring after controls applied Lean methodologies considered and applied at each stage

Lean6σ GOLD Pre-Kaizen Received Executive Support Allocated Potential Resources from Project Managers and Affected Department Leads Assembled Kaizen Team with Customer Support Manager –Front-line support (support reps) –Customer expectation management (account executives) –Back end higher tier support (developers) Define

Lean6σ GOLD Kaizen Define Urgent Requests Have the Biggest Impact on Customer Satisfaction Urgent Requests Have the Biggest Impact on Other Departments

Lean6σ GOLD Scope Increasing Every request is desirable, but must stay focused on Urgent right now! Benefits are huge since every second impacts revenue. “It all boils down to wait time.” Define

Lean6σ GOLD SIPOC Measure Suppliers are also the Customers –They create the tickets. –They receive the solution to the issue. Inputs involve resources from several other departments –Customer Support –Development –QA –Account Executives

Lean6σ GOLD Categorize Tickets progressives cashier casino client/art change credit system processor setup CD create processing transactions admin access coupon admin education After painstakingly reviewing the support ticket database, I scrubbed the data to evaluate Urgent tickets and we separated the tickets into these groups: Measure

Lean6σ GOLD Time Series Measure Applied these categories to about 140 tickets that I was able to classify as urgent. Tracked workload and concurrent outstanding tickets over the previous months.

Lean6σ GOLD Ticket Submission Rates Ticket categories and their resolution times. Tickets submitted in each defined category. All tickets (urgent and non- urgent) are considered here. – All tickets are not created equal, but they do have similar overhead costs. – All tickets (urgent and non- urgent) are considered here since their interrelationships impact quality of service and resolution time for urgent tickets. Measure

Lean6σ GOLD Updated Ticket Categories We considered the categories and identified the “low hanging fruit.” Stayed focus on the biggest constraints as they would dynamically impact the other categories. Based on the results from the Measure phase. cashier casino client/art change/progressives processing transactions/setup admin access coupon admin education insufficient report admin report bug/creditSystem affiliates admin performance misc/CD/integrations Analyze

Lean6σ GOLD Pareto Analysis Allow for further categorization for Improve –May seem counter to Lean at first –Efficient and simplest approach for software development. Analyze Prioritize categories

Lean6σ GOLD Time Series Analyze Software upgrades correspond to ticket submission spikes.

Lean6σ GOLD Statistical Analysis Created dummy variables for ticket categories, but found no predictive relationships from regression analysis Factor analysis did not provide anything of value, but exposed a correlation between minutes and ticket updates (number of times a ticket is updated before resolution). Reduced analysis to tickets closed within one day. Developed model for expressing impact of updates to tickets on resolution time. Minutes Open=372.2 (Number of Updates to Ticket)-660 Analyze

Lean6σ GOLD Process Flow Map Analyze

Lean6σ GOLD Improvement Objectives 1.Reduce tickets that need to be addressed 2.Reducing complexity beforehand to eliminate defects and then reduce complexity in troubleshooting and solving the defect when it is reported. 3.Giving the customer what they really need to circumvent defects. 4.Put the person who can solve the problem closer to the process. 5.Identify high-risk periods and allocate resources accordingly Improve

Lean6σ GOLD Reducing Tickets Improve Eliminating Defects Reducing Complexity Increasing Responsiveness

Lean6σ GOLD Process Flow Streamline Improve Add “decision” (Urgent?) subsequent to the receipt of the ticket and a corresponding flow (in red) to a higher level resource. This will be made even simpler when the aforementioned improvements are implemented. Tickets are categorized and higher level resources are assigned to receive these urgent issues. Customer is not willing to “pay” for these extra steps when their entire business is down!

Lean6σ GOLD Techniques Control Eliminate defects first as some employees have made a career of simply fixing things repeatedly to get the proverbial “pat on the back.” Admin application performance cannot be “fixed” for customers that are not willing to make an investment in hardware. We will identify these customers. This is a customer account management issue not a support issue. Customer Tiers are important for many of the same reasons. The premium customers pay more for premium support. We strive to meet expectations of all customers, but in the short term this is strategic in meeting our goals. Rollout Time means that we need to have a developer dedicated. This is the Support Team’s responsibility to coordinate with the development group. Keep giving feedback on our control tools since this is the only way that we have for measuring our progress and real-time customer satisfaction. Most of all…stay focused on urgent tickets! The current process is extremely out of control. We will incorporate these real-time control charts into our customer support application.

Lean6σ GOLD Future Projects Process Improvement Cycle –Prevent Repeated Mistakes –Stop playing with puzzles Application Performance –Microsoft Laboratory Engagement –Replicate Urgent Scenarios –Load Testing Tools –Six Sigma within the application Customer Satisfaction Surveys –Integrate the customer –See how we are doing Simplify Development Cycle with Scrum and Agile