CRMworks Latest News and Events

By David Knowles, Director, CRMworks

Does this sound like you? Falling levels of data integrity and user satisfaction, rising levels of anxiety over SLAs and working hours, lengthening resolution timescales and missed deadlines for management reporting?
If it does, then the chances are that you’ve outgrown your help desk software and it’s time to move up a size, perhaps to a third generation service desk (3GSD). Like wearing shoes the wrong size, it’s not only painful to continue, it can actually do you damage. The good news is that it’s unlikely to be as difficult, expensive or time-consuming as you’re anticipating. Quite the contrary - a universe of efficiency improvements is waiting for you!

Most organisations start out with a help desk process that they’ve developed in-house; it may be built on Excel spreadsheets, Access or could even be paper-based. For a while it does just fine, but the key characteristic is its limitation; and soon it will unable to cope. With this kind of a system very little customisation is possible, it’s really hard to escalate issues appropriately, and it’s a single-user system so data’s often out of date. This we’ll call First Generation Help Desk.

Or perhaps you’re already using a second generation system, one of the 100s of non-configurable software packages out there; like Track-It, HelpBox or Richmond SupportDesk. Some of these are great little products which have been designed to drop into place quickly and easily and start delivering instant ROI. They’re a big improvement on a first generation approach and may be just the job for organisations that have a very small IT team, don’t have a lot of structure to work around and are happy to bend their approach to suit the software.

These products are pretty cheap too; they don’t need a consultant to deploy them as no configuration is possible and only minimal training is needed to get up and running. However, these benefits are also their undoing. Improvement, evolution and enhancement is nature and its common for users of second generation products to begin to see their failings after quite a short period of time and the structure that was once helpful begins to feel restrictive.

To move up to the next level, the third generation, is a step change for most organisations and marks the transition from a Help Desk to a true Service Desk. At this level IT Managers are able to capture much more information, and manipulate it to suit the department and business requirements. For instance, they may need to have tighter control and better reporting on SLAs than is possible in a second generation environment. Or they may require improved integration capabilities, for instance with an asset management, or network discovery product or with Active Directory.

And of course if you’re going to pursue an ITIL-ised future then you certainly need to move to a 3GSD.

These are areas that low end products are still a long way from being able to address; you’ll never get to ITIL in a non-configurable boat! And without integrating to the asset register you won’t be able to identify trends or progress towards effective change management.

Even outside the ITIL framework, it’s obviously important to be able to capture information in a timely and accurate fashion to enable the team to move beyond being incident-driven and reactive. The reactive help desk is not a fun place to be, the chances are that issues aren’t being logged, everyone is maxed out and more heads are needed. But since the stats aren’t available to support recruitment the situation is unlikely to improve.

Other symptoms you may recognise are unacceptably slow speeds for moving between records, and the inability to get statistics for departmental or board reporting.

But change is always painful isn’t it? Actually no, the move to a 3GSD is probably a lot easier to accomplish than 90% of IT managers believe. There are four key hurdles; let’s examine them in turn.

Complexity: I don’t know what I don’t know

“It sounds really hard, I’ll be asked questions I can’t answer, I don’t understand my system well enough, I know what’s not working but I don’t know what the answers are.” These are all common comments, but they shouldn’t be barriers to progress. Using an experienced consultant is the key to understanding the current requirements, tailoring a system to suit your needs and anticipating future evolution.

Loss of autonomy: I’ll be stuck with a consultant for life!

Customers often fear that they’ll be shackled to a software product and a consultant for life. This is a valid concern, and it’s important to ensure that there’s a good level of knowledge transfer to the user team so that they modify their own system. CRMworks generally believe that customers are happier if they can make changes themselves and so we, and other good consultants, work towards helping them achieve this. It’s key to pick a consultant that believes in a partnership approach, being on hand to help where needed but sometimes just at the end of a phone to give advice.

Time and money: I’m too busy to do it and I can’t afford it

This is a case of ostrich-like thinking! If you’ve got to this stage, you actually can’t afford not to find the time necessary, and deployment can be surprisingly fast. Once a decision on software’s been made a new system can be running live in under three weeks and will soon be delivering 40-50% efficiency improvement. Even the largest organisations can be seeing that kind of improvement in a month – regardless of user-base.

The final barrier to making the move is picking the right software and consultant partner. At a basic level, look for a product that has a global following, can demonstrate a proven track record of delivery, is over five years old and has good financials.

As for a consultant, look for one that wants to work as a partner, is able to provide working examples of past projects, case studies and references, and to provide alternative deployment choices. The key is experience, so ensure that the company and the specific team you’ll be working with have been round the block enough times to guide you appropriately.

For those working with the wrong size help desk, the daily grind can be painful and unrewarding. Stepping into a more efficient, productive and satisfying environment is an easier transition than most would imagine, so consider the move when you see the first symptoms and your team, users and the board of directors are all likely to thank you for it.