Chapter 7: Business Skills for Technical Professionals A Guide to Customer Service Skills for the...

Chapter 7:Business Skills for Technical

Professionals

A Guide to Customer Service Skills for the Help Desk Professional

Second Edition

A Guide to Customer Service Skills for the Help Desk Professional, 2e 2

Objectives

• Understand how to acquire and use business skills in the workplace

• Understand how to use business skills to identify and justify improvement opportunities

• Develop presentation skills you can use to communicate

• Learn advanced business skills such as managing projects, conducting a cost benefit analysis, and calculating return on investment (ROI)


Business Skills for Technical Professionals

• Technical professionals must acquire business skill such as:– The ability to understand and speak the

language of business– The ability to analyze business

problems and identify improvement opportunities


Acquiring and Using Business Skills in the Workplace

Business skills are useful and increasingly required:

1. The business world is extremely competitive2. Trends such as automation and outsourcing

mean that companies have fewer job positionsPeople who have a mix of skills—including

business, technical, soft, and self-management skills—create the greatest opportunities for

themselves


Acquiring and Using Business Skills in the Workplace (continued)

• Some business skills are particularly relevant to technical professionals and transferable to other professions

• Some skills are acquired by observing and inquiring about the activities that occur where you work

• Business skills will grow with education and experience



• Customer service

– Skills such as understanding the importance of meeting customers’ needs and knowing how to manage their expectations are imperative

• Process management

– The need for people who have experience developing, documenting, and continuously improving processes is increasing

• Listening and communication

– Two of the most basic skills needed in today’s fast-paced business world



• Writing

– An increasingly important business skill when using e-mail and instant messenger

• Problem-solving

– Imperative skill in the support industry and highly valued

• Financial management

– The need for these skills increases as technical professionals advance to team leader or supervisory positions



• Making presentations

– Presentations are an accepted and effective way to communicate information and gain acceptance for ideas

• Project management

– An understanding of concepts makes it possible for a person to be effective whether he or she is a member of a project team or responsible for planning and managing a project

• Conflict management

– Important when working in a team setting

– An excellent life skill that can be improved with practice



• Basic business skills can be learned on-the-job, through self-study, or in the classroom

– Listening, communication, writing

• These and other skills are relatively universal and can be used regardless of a person’s chosen profession

– Customer service, problem solving, project management, conflict management, time management

• Skills such as financial management and human resources management are also important and become even more important as people advance in their careers



• An understanding of ethics is another increasingly important business skill

• Ethics - The rules and standards that govern the conduct of a person or group of people

• Ethical behavior is behavior that conforms to generally accepted or stated principles of right and wrong

• The policies of a department or company dictate what is right and wrong behavior and may vary from one department or company to the next



• The business skills required for a help desk job vary based on:

– The industry in which the company is engaged

– The job category

• The specific skills a company requires are determined by the job description

• Most employers do not expect technical professionals to have fully developed business skills when they first join the workforce

• Some basic knowledge, such as service industry knowledge, and a willingness to learn are viewed as a positive.

• Some companies also desire industry knowledge, or business skills that are unique to the industry or profession the help desk supports



• Managers are increasingly requiring technical professionals who want to advance in their careers to hone and use business skills

• People applying for help desk management positions are also expected to have more advanced business skills and experience

• Developing and demonstrating business skills is an effective way to differentiate yourself from the competition and increase your opportunities


Understanding and Speaking the Language of Business

• The term business has many meanings and encompasses a broad range of disciplines

• Business - A commercial enterprise or establishment– Has profit as its chief aim

• The term may also be used to describe a person’s occupation, work, or trade

• Nonprofit – A company established for charitable, educational, or humanitarian purposes rather than for making money; also known as not-for-profit

• The business skills required to work for nonprofit and for-profit companies are similar


Understanding and Speaking the Language of Business (continued)

• Learn about your company (or a company where you want to work)– Its mission– The industry – Its competitors

• Study the words that are used to describe your company, its mission, and its goals

• A “big picture” perspective will help you understand why certain technologies or data are viewed as highly important (strategic), or why certain projects are viewed as essential to the business (mission critical)


Understanding and Speaking the Language of Business (continued)

• IT and business alignment – A process aimed at ensuring that information technologies support corporate goals and objectives

• Learning about your business will help you:– determine ways technology can help your

customers achieve their goals– Help business people understand available

technologies and how best to use them– Ensure that new technologies offer real value to the

business


Using Business Skills to Identify and Justify Improvement Opportunities

• Help Desk professionals have a unique opportunity to support the goals of business by working to:– Eliminate or minimize the impact of

business problems– Identify improvement opportunities


Using Data to Identify and Quantify Improvement Opportunities

• Help desk tools and technologies are useless if they do not provide and produce meaningful information

• People working in a help desk must understand clearly that the data they collect on a daily basis becomes information

• This information is used to:– Track outstanding problems and requests– Measure analysts personal performance– Measure the overall performance of the help desk– Measure customer satisfaction with the company


Using Data to Identify and Quantify Improvement Opportunities (continued)

• Help desks divide information into various data categories

• Data categories tend to be similar from help desk to help desk because most help desks perform similar processes

• Each help desk captures additional data categories specific to its business or industry

• Data are typically captured through fields in the help desk’s incident tracking and problem management system



• Customer Data - Identifying details about a customer, including the customer’s name, telephone number, e-mail address, department or company name, address or location, customer number, and employee number or user ID

• All of the fields that describe a single customer are stored in a customer record

• Customer records are linked to problem records by a unique key field

• Used to quickly identify a customer contacting the help desk and to research a customer’s history of problems



• Problem Data - The details of a single problem including the problem category (such as hardware or software), affected component or system (such as a printer or a monitor), symptom, date and time problem occurred, date and time problem was logged, analyst who logged problem, problem owner, description, and severity

• All of the fields that describe a single problem are stored in a problem record

• Used to research and track trends or to search the knowledge base for solutions



• Status Data - Details about a problem that are used to track problems not resolved at level one including problem status (such as assigned, awaiting parts, resolved, closed), the person or group assigned, date and time assigned, and priority

• Stored in fields in the problem record

• Record is continuously updated as new data becomes available

• Used to report on the status of outstanding problems and to monitor SLA attainment



• Resolution data – Details about how a problem was resolved including the person or group who resolved the problem, resolution description, date and time resolved, customer satisfaction indicator, date and time closed, and root cause

• Stored in fields in the problem record

• Record is continuously updated as new data becomes available

• Used to track service level compliance and perform root cause analysis



• Forward-thinking companies use data to spot trends and discover the root cause of problems

• People working in a help desk have the opportunity to continuously capture the data and information needed to determine customers’ wants and needs

• Successful help desks seize this opportunity by designing and implementing processes and technologies that enable them to capture and use customer information efficiently

• People interested in a support-industry career must learn how to interpret data, share and add value to information


Performing Trend and Root Cause Analysis

Performing Trend Analysis:

• Trend analysis - A methodical way of determining and, when possible, forecasting service trends

• Trends can be positive or negative

• Trend reports provide help desk management and staff with the information needed to formulate improvement plans and communicate achievements


Performing Trend and Root Cause Analysis (continued)



• Trend analysis involves looking at a set of data and viewing it from different angles in an effort to identify a trend

• Trend reports make it possible to:

– Determine the most common and frequently occurring problems

– Identify anomalies

• Anomaly - A deviation or departure from the average or the norm



Performing Root Cause Analysis:

• Used to determine why problems are occurring so the company can take steps to prevent problems in the future

• Root cause analysis - A methodical way of determining the root cause of problems

• Root cause - The most basic reason for an undesirable condition or problem, which, if eliminated or corrected, would prevent the problem from existing or occurring



• Determining the root cause:– Takes time

– Requires analysts to look beyond the obvious and seek an answer to the question, “Why?”

• Root cause is:– Captured in a data field when problems are closed

– Supplied by the person who identified the solution

• Root cause is not always related specifically to hardware products or software systems

• It is often related to how people are implementing or using technology



• Many companies subscribe to the “80/20 rule”

• Relative to problem management, the 80/20 rule means that 20% of the defects or failures that occur cause 80% of the problems

• By identifying and eliminating the root cause of the most common defects or failures, companies can:

– Considerably reduce the number of recurring problems

– Focus on eliminating the problems that are the most costly to the organization and that have the greatest impact on their customers



• Trend and root cause analysis work hand-in-hand

• They can be used reactively or proactively• Root cause analysis is the more difficult of the two

disciplines

• Companies that fail to capture and then eliminate root cause put themselves at risk for the problem to happen again

• The fact that there is a solution in the knowledge base does not make it okay for a problem to recur

• Ultimately, customers would prefer that problems be prevented


Communicating the Financial Benefits of Improvements

• Help desk managers are under pressure to:– Demonstrate the value of help desk services

– Justify the funds and resources the team needs to deliver those services

• Members of the help desk team must learn to:– Justify and quantify the benefits of their ideas in financial

terms

• Budget - The total sum of money allocated for a particular purpose (such as a project) or period of time (such as a year)

• Good budgeting ensures that the money does not run out before the goal is reached or the period ends


Communicating the Financial Benefits of Improvements (continued)

• To justify improvement initiatives:– State the expected benefits in the form of goals

– Express those goals as metrics

• Metrics typically assess characteristics such as:– Cost

– Customer satisfaction

– Efficiency

– Effectiveness

– Employee satisfaction

– Quality



• Some characteristics are tangible, or capable of being measured precisely– Cost, efficiency

• Other characteristics are intangible, or more difficult to measure precisely– Customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction,

quality

• Intangible characteristics reflect perception and are therefore more subjective

• Both tangible and intangible goals are important



By establishing both tangible and intangible goals with goals such as quality and customer satisfaction as primary objectives, companies can achieve a balanced, customer-oriented result



Calculating a Labor Savings:

• “Time is money” - Labor often represents a company’s single greatest expense

• Labor and benefits usually represent 60% to 80% of a help desk’s overall costs

• Saving time, will in turn, save money

• To calculate an hourly rate:

$40,000 / 2,080 = $19



• When calculating savings, accurate data are important

• When actual data are not available, industry standard data (such as hourly rate) can be useful

• Cost per contact is a financial measure frequently used in the support industry

• Cost per contact - The total cost of operating a help desk for a given time period (including salaries, benefits, facilities, and equipment) divided by the total number of contacts (such as calls, e-mails, faxes, and Web requests) received during that period

• Contact volume - The total number of contacts received during a given period of time



• Cost per contact can be used to:

– Benchmark a help desk’s services against other help desks or the industry average

– Compare the cost of operating a help desk to a service agency (outsourcer)

• Benchmarking - The process of comparing the help desk’s performance metrics and practices to those of another help desk in an effort to identify improvement opportunities


Using Presentations to Communicate

• Presentations are an important form of communication in today’s business world

• They are used daily to:

– Convey information

– Promote the benefits of ideas and opportunities

– Win approval for ideas and opportunities

• For professionals, presentations are an important way to build credibility

• The ability to make presentations can greatly influence a person’s standing in his or her company, community, and industry


Using Presentations to Communicate (continued)



• The setting in which presentations are made may vary

• Audience members are being brought together for a reason

– Their approval is needed to move forward on a project

– Their input is needed to formulate an action plan

– You need to make them aware of something or teach them something

• There is a reason you are making the presentation

You are the expert!



Step 1. State Your Objective:• A clearly stated objective:

– Determines whether a presentation is needed

– Focuses your thoughts and the thoughts of your audience

• A single sentence should be all you need to state your objective

Step 2. Know Your Audience:• This step greatly influences all future steps

• Determine what is important to your audience members

• Understand the background of your audience • When in doubt, ask



Step 3. Design the Presentation:• Create an outline with an introduction, body, and

closing

• Research your topic and collect facts that support your objective

• Develop visual aids that support and communicate your ideas– Visual aids should not be your presentation

• Anticipate the questions your audience may ask and use visual aids to answer those questions



Step 4. Rehearse the Presentation:

• Make sure that you can cover your material in the time allotted

• Make sure that you leave time for questions

• Rehearsing is different than memorizing

• Memorize your introduction and closing – They are critical to setting audience expectations

• Memorize only the key points you want to make during the

body of your presentation



Step 5. Deliver the Presentation:

• Be prepared, confident, and enthusiastic

• When time is a constraint, politely ask your audience at the start of the presentation to hold their questions until the end

• If you run out of time for questions at the end, let the audience know that you will be happy to answer their questions offline

• When possible, try to handle questions when asked



Step 6. Learn from the Experience:

• Most mistakes made when making presentations are the result of overlooking one of the steps previously discussed

• Take time after each presentation to evaluate your performance and determine how you can improve

• If evaluations are provided, view the feedback you receive as constructive

• Presentation skills are essential if you want to educate, inform, obtain information from, build consensus with, and communicate with others

• The more often you present and the more varied the setting, subject matter, and audience are, the more comfortable you become


Advance Business Skills for Technical Professionals

• Advanced business skills are critical skills for more senior technical professionals– Managing projects

– Conducting a cost benefit analysis

– Calculating ROI

• The need for these skills may vary from company to company

• Understanding of these concepts will enable you to make the most of learning and growth opportunities

• To excel at advanced business skills, technical professionals require a blend of formal training and experience


Managing Projects

• People in a help desk are continuously exposed to projects

• Project - A distinct unit of work aimed at producing a specific result or end product

• Projects can be small or quite large

• Help desk professionals may:– Complete projects

– Support the end product of a project

– Initiate projects

• Technical professionals must understand:– Project management concepts and tools

– The roles that people play within a project

– How to work successfully on a project team


Managing Projects (continued)

• Project management - The process of planning and managing a project

• All projects, regardless of their size, require some planning and have the following:– A clearly defined scope

– Well-defined deliverables

– Clearly defined acceptance criteria

– An established start date

– An established end point

• Scope - A general description of the work to be done

• Acceptance criteria - The conditions that must be met before the project deliverables are accepted



• For small projects, the project scope may be a request

• For larger projects, the project scope is typically defined by a project planning committee made up of project stakeholders

• Project stakeholder - A person or group who is involved in or may be affected by project activities

• Project scope includes:– Project overview

– Project deliverables

– Project objectives

– Considerations and concerns

– Change control plan



• Project scope must be approved by the project sponsor

• Project sponsor - The person who has ultimate authority over the project– Responsible for ensuring that the project is aligned with the

organization's business goals

– Not typically involved in day-to-day activities

• Project manager - The person who leads the project team and is assigned the authority and responsibility for overseeing the project and meeting the project’s objectives

• The project manager is selected after the project scope is defined and approved



• Project manager responsibilities include:

– Developing and maintaining a project plan

– Directing project activities

– Creating project status reports

– Preparing and participating in project reviews

– Resolving project plan deviations

– Resolving and escalating, if necessary, issues that pertain to the project to management

– Administering project change control



• Project plan - A summary document that describes the project, its objectives, and how the objectives are to be achieved– For smaller projects, may consist of scheduling a request and

documenting a simple To Do list

– For larger projects, a more formal approach is taken

• Work breakdown structure - A task oriented breakdown of the work to be done. Used to:– Logically arrange the tasks to be completed

– Define milestones

– Assign resources to tasks, create schedules, estimate costs



• A critical project manager responsibility is communicating on a regular basis with all interested parties

• Project status reports typically include the following:– Accomplishments this period

– Accomplishments planned next period

– Resources required next period

– Considerations and concerns

– An updated project plan

• Ongoing communication—before, during, and after the project—is critical to a project’s success

• Failing to communicate will almost always result in mismanaged expectations and dissatisfaction



• Technical professionals can learn about project management by:– Observing how projects are run

– Trying to understand the keys to project management success

– Being an active participant when working on a project team

• If you are interested in being a project manager:– Take advantage of training that is offered where you work

– Seek out self-study opportunities

– Ask a seasoned project manager to serve as your mentor

– Serve as a deputy, or assistant, to another project manager

• With a better understanding of projects you can begin initiating projects aimed at implementing your ideas


Conducting a Cost Benefit Analysis

• Cost benefit analysis – A technique that compares the costs and benefits of two or more potential solutions to determine an optimum solution

• A cost benefit analysis can be simple or quite complex

• Because of the time and skill required, the cost of performing a complex cost benefit analysis can be considerable

• Companies typically offer guidelines that determine the level of detail required

• Guidelines consider factors such as the size, cost, and impact of the proposed solution


Conducting a Cost Benefit Analysis (continued)

• In its simplest form, a cost benefit analysis uses only financial costs and financial benefits

• Financial costs may be:

– One time (nonrecurring)

– Ongoing (recurring)

• A more sophisticated approach to cost benefit analysis attempts to place a financial value on intangible costs and benefits

• Some companies assign a numeric value to intangible benefits

• Intangible benefits are important and must be taken into consideration



• The end result of a cost benefit analysis is the identification of the best solution to a business problem, given two or more proposed solutions

• It answers the questions:

– Which of the proposed solutions is the best solution?

– Is the proposed solution worth the cost?

• The key to whether a solution is worth the cost lies in the goals of the organization

• Each company must decide what benefits (tangible and intangible) are worth to their organization


Calculating Return on Investment

• Return on investment (ROI) - A technique that measures the total financial benefit derived from an investment—such as a new technology project—and then compares it with the total cost of the project

ROI = Net Benefits / Project Investment

• A simple ROI uses only financial costs and benefits

• Calculating ROI can be much more complex as benefits can also be intangible

• Intangible benefits are important and must be taken into consideration

• ROI typically states the return on investment in percentage terms.

ROI% = Net Benefits / Project Investment X 100


Calculating Return on Investment (continued)



• Some companies determine the time it takes to recover an investment when calculating ROI

• Payback period - The period of time over which the benefits of an investment are received Payback Period = Project Investment / Net Benefits X 12 Months

• Some companies establish guidelines relative to the use of payback period when making purchasing decisions– If the payback period is less than six months, purchase the

product immediately

– If the payback period is greater than six months, consider the purchase in light of other budget expenditures

– If the payback period is greater than one year, consider the purchase in a future budget



• ROI can be a complex and time-consuming calculation and is therefore typically reserved for larger technology investments

• In its simplest form, however, ROI is a useful way to communicate the worth of even a small investment

• ROI answers the questions:– What do I get back (in return) for the money I am being asked

to spend (invest)?

– Is the return worth the investment?

• Calculating ROI becomes easier as you develop the skills needed to identify and communicate costs and benefits in financial terms


Chapter Summary

• Whether a person works for a small or large corporation, some business skills are useful and increasingly required

• Basic business skills can be learned on-the-job, through self-study, or in the classroom– Listening, communicating, writing

• These and other skills are relatively universal and can be used regardless of a person’s chosen profession– Customer service, process management, problem solving,

project management, conflict management, time management

• Skills such as financial management and human resource management are also important and become more important as people advance in their careers


Chapter Summary (continued)

• People working in a help desk hear day-in and day-out from customers who are having trouble using technology

• They have a unique opportunity to support the goals of business by using what they learn to:– Eliminate or minimize the impact of problems

– Identify improvement opportunities

• To do this, technical professionals must learn to use:– Data to identify and quantify improvement opportunities

– Techniques such as trend and root cause analysis



• Presentations are an important form of communication in today’s business world

• They are inevitable if you want to communicate your ideas and, more importantly, have those ideas accepted and acted upon

• Making a presentation is not an exact science, but there are proven steps that can be taken to ensure success

• The more often you present and the more varied the setting, subject matter, and audience, the more comfortable you will be



• Advanced business skills are increasingly critical skills for more senior technical professionals– Managing projects

– Conducting a cost benefit analysis

– Calculating return on investment (ROI)

• The need for these skills may vary from company to company

• A basic understanding of these concepts will enable you to make the most of learning and growth opportunities

• To acquire these skills, some study, even self-study, is needed along with experience



• The business world has changed and technical professionals must change as well

• By acquiring and using business skills, technical professionals can:– Expand their opportunities

– Have more control over their career

• Rather than always being told what to do and how to do it, technical professionals with business skills can:– Propose new and better solutions

– Participate fully in bringing their ideas to life

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