Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!dali.cs.montana.edu!milton!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!bcsaic!vince From: vince@bcsaic.UUCP (Vince Skahan) Newsgroups: comp.admin.policy Subject: Re: User Satisfaction ? Message-ID: <47923@bcsaic.UUCP> Date: 24 May 91 19:43:05 GMT References: <1991May21.152727.27423@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov> <2299@talos.npri.com> Organization: Boeing Aerospace and Electronics - Seattle Lines: 120 In article <2299@talos.npri.com> jerry@talos.npri.com (Jerry Gitomer) writes: > How about the percentage of your users who don't call the Help > Desk? If they don't need help they at least know how to use > the system to get their jobs done. Be careful that you know what satisfaction you're trying to measure. Your service...their training...the whole environment fro mthe user's perspective... You might be trying to ensure satisfaction that you can't provide because the limiting factor is not under your control. you need to do a few things to get REAL metrics: - ALL calls must go to the hotline (need your mgt. approval) - ALL calls that go through the hotline and all items that are "walk-up" must be tracked - when you're done tracking, you have to categorize the items... - problems/requests/training/enhancements - hw/sw/location, etc. - who's the call from (person and org.) - after you categorize them...look for patterns that you can identify... - do you get lots of mail questions from one org.? - if so, are they trained OK ? - are they just bored, or lonely, or pains in the neck? - are they trying to talk with one particular other organization ? - is there an unstable gateway or network in the middle? - are they complaining about something you don't think you've agreed or been chartered to provide? - is something broken ? (broken again?) after a while, you can relax the "track all calls" rule to "track all calls within reason". You also need to be able to define what calls you WILL NOT be responsible for. If you have a particular package, are you responsible for training the users how to make the package do something, or are you just responsible or bring up the package so that it's correctly configured? [...example...around here, I'm not supposed to be an Interleaf weenie because there are people who ARE...but in my last job I had to be an expert in ALL the packages...because there wasn't anyone designated to be one...] Do you want to hear that the printer needs paper because it's your job to fix it (my condolences if so) or can you politely tell them to get their lazy butts over to the printer and put the paper in themselves (in such a manner that they say "thank you" afterward) ? [another example... I get lots of STUPID calls in this location because the people are treated as "dumb users" by their management, so they get sufficiently (insufficient) training so that they BECOME "stupid users". I haven't been too successful in getting the point across that if they get a little training, they really CAN think for themselves, have more fun, and relieve the pressure from us...making both sides happier and more productive... ] In a past job, I got a lot of calls from users who were new to one organization who had management who wouldn't spring for a little training for them (yet who were quite prompt to bitch that they weren't getting "their money's worth" from the computing organization (us) even though we were spending 100% of our already insufficient time doing the training rather than enhancing the environment). The solution was to track EVERYTHING, no matter how painful it was. We eventually got some "operations" organization to do the menial stuff for us (password resets, print queues, etc.) and we could do the project and enhancement stuff that the customer really wanted. But we had to basically all threaten simultaneous resignations and back up our complaints with hard statistics regarding the silly questions we were getting and how unpleasant an existance it was to be stuck in the middle for us to get our management approval and support. (incidentally the same stats that helped out with getting the users the training and getting us relief from the noise also totally answered the question regarding "my organization adding value or not"...I pulled out the reports with the accusing customer_manager and showed him thea calls, categories, callers, resolution time, etc. as well as the non-hotline stuff we were doing for them...and instead of cutting our funding, he went to bat for ADDING funding). You have to either force all calls through a hotline that tracks things or discipline yourselves to track them regardless of where the calls come from. (we had an interesting (to me) solution...we told them to mail all problem reports, questions, and requests for enhancement to a "service" account...which used the vacation program to send back an automatic response that said something along the lines of: "this note is intended to provide positive confirmation that your electronic mail has been received by the service account. all problems should be reported by calling xxx-xxxx (our 24x7 operations guys). requests and questions are worked in priority-based order with the priorities negotiated on a routine basis between engineering and computing management." yes...we really did meet routinely with the various organizations to let them make the call regarding priorities (with a little help from us if we disagreed)...doing that removed us from the spot in the middle when the inevitable request came in that was insignificant to everyone except that one person...we could (politely) ask them to get their management chain to change the priorities and call us. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Vince Skahan vince@atc.boeing.com ...uw-beaver!bcsaic!vince (lifelong Phillies fan...pity me)