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In response to some of our client’s concerns, SCP launched a boot camp (intervention) to tackle various managed services contracts.

We allocated subject matter experts to help achieve improved performance and documented a common practice procurement support?desk approach. We also implemented assessments to measure team progress and improve to drive high performance.

Here is a list of all the pain points we have identified as well as the approach formulated for our clients:

Support response etiquette

Support feedback did not contain valuable information but was generic and cryptic. Tickets were closed, with limited detail, and without corrective action to ensure the issues were rectified for the long term. In the boot camp, we created a template that defined the problem statement, the steps of investigation, the solution, and a root cause analysis to prevent the issue from happening again. The support agents all agreed on how to respond to tickets, and SCP helped our client implement weekly quality assurance exercises.

Not meeting SLAs

The team did not collaborate on common issues or themes raised by the user community. Time was wasted troubleshooting issues as each member had to work through the same steps of investigation and research to get to the same solution. Since Covid restrictions were lifted, a physical in-office presence was reestablished, and daily, as well as weekly, meetings were put in place to communicate these themes upfront. Going forward, the team knows about the common issues and has shared their findings, so they will save troubleshooting and response time.

Support?team connectedness

A successful support desk runs as a team. Each member needs to take ownership of their user inquiry or quickly reach someone with the right information. Internal resource allocations resulted in missing IP among the team and left members disconnected and isolated. Along with an in-office presence, the team now has weekly initiatives to socialize, build up morale, and connect on a personal and professional level. Our clients are learning to communicate, respond, and think as a team.

Consistency in feedback is key

A critical part of responding and building credibility is to communicate as one body. Support agents provided different feedback based on their understanding of the solution design and integration landscape. As part of the two-week boot camp to address support concerns, the client went through standard procurement processes and how that relates to the custom procurement process for their customers. SCP also facilitated playback sessions and presentations from the support team members to articulate their understanding of the process and to explain where there was misalignment. To ensure this won’t become a recurring problem, the client now plans on documenting findings and compiling recordings of the landscape for future consideration.

Support scope

The team did not understand the scope of their support. This meant that they went from functional support to providing integration support and validation between different back-end systems and middleware. Our client acknowledged these gaps; however, they embraced the knowledge transfer, growth, and development that occurred in the process. To ensure that they do not become experts in repairs of automobiles or landscaping (not their field) next, they have since implemented regular ticket reviews and check?in meetings to drive ownership of the right support objects.

Categorization of issues

Typically, companies who provide managed services as an offering depends on technology as an enabler. The support desk technology provides a view of the issues, owners, and statuses of tickets. The system is usually owned by the customer. Unfortunately, in our client’s case, the technology did not reflect accurate categorization of issues, and team members did not share an understanding of the categories. This meant that the core reason for ticket volumes was unclear. Our client has since documented ticket categories and shared them with the support team for consensus, and we’ve proposed that their customer align these with their technology solution.

Ticket status

Ticket statuses should provide an accurate reflection of managed services’ efforts to support users. Upon investigation, it became clear that most tickets had been resolved but were still awaiting user feedback. The status showed that the ticket was open, and this led our client to believe that there wasn’t any progress or support provided. We suggested an amendment to the service desk technology to allow for more accurate statuses so that our clients can manage responsiveness and feedback much more effectively.

Proactive identification of issues

All team members were involved in all issue types, which resulted in overwhelming ticket volumes. Lack of focus meant our client had to react to issues instead of doing proactive monitoring. In the boot camp period, we assisted our client in nominating individuals who would focus on certain areas, while everyone else would have a basic understanding of all system functionalities. This meant the support agents would understand the specific issues and they would give timely and accurate replies to the users.

Structure and roles (internally)

Since the solution landscape is quite complex, in terms of customizations and integration, it isn’t easy to nominate a single team leader that has a comprehensive enough understanding of the entire design. This role used to be vacant, but our client has now nominated team leaders to identify and address common issues, own weekly meetings, and be responsible for team engagements. In an ideal world, a team leader has all the answers to all issues and understands the entire design as if they built it themselves. This is not the case, but the nominees are willing to learn and will continue to grow in this role. Our client has also given their team leaders access to implementation resources for additional support.

Structure and roles (externally)

When our customers make use of an external service provider, the external service provider must collaborate with the existing customer’s (internal) established support approach to achieve success. A support desk may include specific role players like change agents, superusers, and power users, in addition to Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 support (assistance across the support network varies depending on complexity). The external provider is often not aligned with the customer's structure, which means that many of the tickets could have been resolved by other internal members of the support channel. The result was an increase in volumes that led to breached SLAs. The customer has since communicated and shared the network with the internal and external support team.

Managed services are a critical function of embedding a successful software implementation. At Supply Chain Partner we are committed to "following the sun" in partnering with our clients, supporting them with subject matter experts, knowledge-sharing sessions, training, connectedness, responsiveness, and high performance.