The Evolution of Support A Demand Based View of Support Consortium for Service Innovation Greg Oxton

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 2 Agenda What is the Consortium? Developing some context – The dynamics of the big picture Knowledge and connectivity changes everything! A value proposition for customer support A recommendation for multivendor support

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 3 What is the Consortium? An alliance of support organisations Focused on improving the customer’s service experience Member funded, not for profit The members are the Consortium

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 4 Board of Directors LaVeta Gibbs – Cisco Rob Schauble - HP Kurt Samuelson – Microsoft Mike Lyons – Novell Brad Smith - Openwave Sallee Peterson – VeriSign Mike Runda – Symantec Greg Oxton – the Consortium

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 5 Consortium Mission Develop innovative concepts and strategies for customer interaction and service delivery Evolve the concepts into operational practices –Develop optimal ways to satisfy customer demand for support –Identify opportunities to improve customer success –Identify ways to improve the relevance of the offerings (products/services) –Bridge between emerging academic theory and research and operational reality

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 6 Our Values Innovation –Exploring new ways to solve challenges Interaction, collaboration and networking –collective thinking and collective experience Results –Practical ways to implement, develop operational models Open, safe environment Fun Learning Ability to deal with uncertainty and ambiguity –If we have great confidence in an innovative idea… it is probably not so innovative… Courage to try new approaches Change agent Fiscally responsible Customer focus - transcends company affiliation Cross industry perspective

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 7 Our Work… Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS) –Demand driven, just-in-time knowledge creation and maintenance Betty (aka the Adaptive Organisation) –Knowledge enabled networks –Improving the relevance of interactions –Organisational learning Articulating the value of support –A leadership model –A simulator; a holistic view (the bigger picture) Collaborative support model –Dealing with multivendor and open source support issues

The Dynamics of the Big Picture Looking at support from the point of view of user demand

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 9 An exception is anything that inhibits or prevents the user from getting their job done. Exceptions include issues with: Usability Installation Configuration Interoperability Defects Customer Exceptions

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 10 Customer Exceptions Level 1 Level 3 Level 2 To handle exceptions we have built the Support Center Development Engineering

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 11 Customer Exceptions Level 1 Level 3 Level 2 To handle exceptions we have built the Support Center Development Engineering Each Level Solves 80% And Escalates 20% 10,000 2,

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 12 Customer Exceptions Level 1 Level 3 Level 2 Support Center 10,000 2, Development Engineering Assisted Support Create A Knowledge Base (KCS) KCS dramatically Improves the operational efficiency of the funnel... And, creates web consumable content. Fix it once use it often Knowledge Base

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 13 Customer Exceptions Level 1 Level 3 Level 2 Support Center 10,000 2, Development Engineering Assisted Support Self-help Customer Access to the KB 10, ,000 Customers will use a good web site for more exceptions than they ever called us about… …A lot more! Knowledge Base

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 14 Product Management Customer Exceptions Level 1 Level 3 Level 2 Support Center 10,000 2, Development Engineering Assisted Support Self-help Closing the Loop with Development Now Development and Product Management have a more complete view of the customer experience. 10, ,000 Knowledge Base

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 15 Product Management Customer Exceptions Level 1 Level 3 Level 2 Support Center 10,000 2, Development Engineering Assisted Support Self-help Customer Success on the Web Changes the Funnel 10, ,000 5,000 Success on the web removes many of the known exceptions from the funnel. The mix of work in the funnel changes – from mostly known to mostly new! Knowledge Base

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 16 Customer Exceptions Support Center Development Engineering Assisted Support Product Management Knowledge Base Self-help Product Management Move From Streaming to Swarming Most Problems have to be escalated to be resolved The tiers of support become ineffective Level 1 Level 3 Level 2 10,000 2, ,000 Knowledge Base

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 17 Customer Exceptions Support Center Development Engineering Assisted Support Product Management Knowledge Base Self-help Product Management Move From Streaming to Swarming We still need generalists and specialists Collaboration replaces escalation The KB has content and profiles of people 5,000 Knowledge Base

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 18 Customer Exceptions Support Center Development Engineering Assisted Support Product Management Self-help Product Management Acknowledge the User Community Community Conversations Community Knowledge Base

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 19 Customer Exceptions Support Center Development Engineering Assisted Support Product Management Self-help Product Management Integrate the User Community Community Conversations Community Knowledge Base A network that connects people with content and people with people

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 20 Customer Exceptions Development Engineering Assisted Support Product Management Knowledge Base Self-help Product Management The Real Customer Experience = 70,000 Exceptions! Community Conversations Community 10, ,000 Improved Products & Environment User Experience

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 21 Customer Exceptions Support Center 80 Development Engineering Assisted Support Product Management Knowledge Base Self-help Product Management Integrate the User Community Community Conversations Community Knowledge Assets Solutions People profiles Systems/products Customer profiles

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 22 The Role of Support Changes Support’s role: –Resolution experts for new, complex problems –Collaborators instead of escalators –Facilitators of relevant connections Connect people to content Connect people to people –Based on: Context, Need, Legitimacy (identity and reputation) The knowledge base is the enabler –Content (the collective experience) –People profiles, identity, reputation Support is the Network

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 23 Value Proposition for Support… How much demand is there? How much demand can we satisfy? How efficiently can we satisfy it? In what ways can we contribute to reducing demand? –Learning and improving And, how much should the company care about support demand? –Impact of demand satisfaction on customer loyalty?

The Value Support Creates is not Realized in the Support Center! It is realized in; Customer success and productivity Customer loyalty Better products – more usable, more relevant Company profitability

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 25 Emerging Support Metrics Loyalty; customers, partners and employees –link to revenue & profit? Support cost as % of total company revenue $/Exception Channel mix (demand) –% assisted, % self-help, % community % New Vs Known in the assisted channel Diversity of source - enabling contribution –% from internal, % partners, % customers Time to solve (customer view) Time to cure (remove source of issues once known) –Updates available to customers Time to adopt –Customer adoption of new releases or products Time to stability (after new release)

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 26 Support’s Contribution Change the Ratio of Support Cost to Revenue $ Total Revenue Time Actual Support Costs Expected Support Costs Additional Profit Customer Experience and Better Products

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 27 Critical Success Factors Knowledge management practices in the funnel (KCS) –Internal efficiency – solve it once, use it often –JIT publishing of content to the web (in minutes) Excellent web based self help –Satisfy pent-up demand –Support center shifts from mostly known to mostly new Nurturing the user community –Knowing who your power users are Persistent learning –Closed loop processes and metrics –From a more complete view of customer demand –Patterns and trends from the web use and user community

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 28 Critical Success Factors (continued) Leadership model that is focused on: –Alignment to a compelling purpose –The value proposition –People as human beings (Vs resources); people are the creators of value: Relationship, knowledge, innovation –Process and technology as people enablers –The health of the knowledge and the network that creates it Collaboration and learning New metrics

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 29 You Know you are “Doing KCS” When... Time to publish for 90% of customer consumable content is measured in minutes Customer use of and success on the web is 80%+ –Timely content in the customer’s context –Good portal design The work shifts from mostly known to mostly new –Perceived incident complexity in the support center increases Support process evolves to a non-linear, collaborative network (no more tiers) Support analysts morale is at an all time high –Turn over rate is at an all time low –Analysts don’t tolerate their peers messing up the KB

@copyright Consoritum for Service Innovation 30 You Know you are “Doing Betty” When... Interactions are highly relevant –Context, need and legitimacy drives connections Interactions cross traditional organizational boundaries –Customers, partners, employees “People” loyalty is at an all time high –Customers, partners, employees Metrics are about; –The creation of value (loyalty and relationships) –The health of collaboration –The speed of learning –The customer experience drivers Direct cause and effect is elusive

The Consortium for Service Innovation Greg Oxton