Queue Management - Friend or Foe? - Part 2 of 4

This is a continuation on our Queue Management Basics conversation. In Part 1, I covered a Brief History of IT Support Desks – Part 1 of 4. In this post, Part 2, I explain what Queue Management is and how to proactively manage your queues.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions at [email protected] or 303-514-8958

Thanks,

Bob

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Queue management is a fairly straight forward, but subjective process.  There are many factors involved ranging from customer complaints to technicians becoming overwhelmed.  The primary key to successful queue management is to continually and consistently communicate with customers throughout the ticket’s lifecycle.  Proactively communicating with customers regarding the status of their ticket will reduce, or in many cases, eliminate complaints entirely.

 Most customer complaints that emerge during the ticketing process can be attributed to the customers’ perception of the service provided.  For example, if the customer does not hear from the service provider on a regular basis, their perception may become one in which they believe that they themselves are unimportant to, ignored by, or worse yet, have been forgotten by the service provider altogether.  On the other hand, if the customer is kept in the loop throughout the servicing process, the customer will feel that they are significant and every effort is being exhausted to expeditiously resolve their issue.  Queue managers must remember that the customers’ perception of how their request is handled will become their reality.    

 The good news is, a small amount of due diligence on the part of the queue manager by proactively reviewing open tickets and contacting the customer regularly will result in a significant increase in customer satisfaction and an overall decrease in complaints.  On the surface it may appear that communicating with customers in this manner only creates more busy work for queue managers, however implementing this attentive method of communication will result in a decrease of reactionary incident resolution over time.  An added benefit to proactive communication is that the technicians will become more effective.  For example, technicians may no longer fear or avoid going to the field where they may be “cornered” by an upset customer wanting to know why they have been overlooked.  This reduction of reactionary responses will allow queue managers to allocate resources more efficiently and effectively, resulting in happier customers, technicians and organizational management.

Many factors including priority, impact and quantity of tickets in a queue are only the beginning.  Effective queue management requires an in depth knowledge of customers, technicians, and the overall organizations business practices.  Although proactive communication will reduce customer complaints, the “human factor” must not be overlooked.  Forgetting that technicians are only human is a major mistake for any queue manager to make.  For example, many queue managers will assign all available tickets to technicians simply to move the tickets out of their “realm of responsibility.”  The justification behind this wholesale ticket assignment by queue managers is to allow them to concentrate on “their own job” and let the technicians work on the tickets.  Although this may appear the fastest way to complete service tickets, it is a mistake.  For instance, if more than eight to ten tickets are assigned to a specific technician at any given time, the technician may become overwhelmed resulting in a loss of productivity due to despair.  This despair will eventually manifest itself as lack of willingness to complete tasks, burnout and even technician turn over. 

 Summary

It is critically important to remember that merely assigning a ticket is not queue management.  Queue management is not a one time or flat process.  There are many levels and only through a constant and consistent review of open tickets, proactive communication and proper resource allocation will the queue manager successfully manage customer expectations, ticket loads, and technician effectiveness.  Suffice it to say, queue management is a comprehensive endeavor. Nevertheless, if the queue manager is proactive, attentive and consistent, customers will fall in love with the overall service provided as a result of their effective queue management efforts.

Continued in Part 3 - Queue Management - Inside the Organziation