Customer Support Work by Technical Service Managers at Verizon Business Judy Keeley April 22, 2009.
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Transcript of Customer Support Work by Technical Service Managers at Verizon Business Judy Keeley April 22, 2009.
Customer Support Work by Technical Service Managers at Verizon Business
Judy KeeleyApril 22, 2009
Background
Verizon Business
• IP, data, voice & wireless solutions
• Business & government customers
• Services 98% of Fortune 500
Technical Service Manager (TSM)
• Support business customers
• Each customer has dedicated TSM
Verizon Enterprise Center (VEC)
• Repairs (trouble tickets), network health, orders, invoices
• Web portal (VEC) & mobile portal (VEC Mobile)
Goal
Contextual Inquiry of Technical Support Managers’ customer support work at Verizon Business
• Learn about users: how do they do their work?• General• VEC Mobile
• Improve design of systems• Supports work• Easy to use
• Generalize from TSMs to customers• Increase revenues / decrease costs
Methodology
• 1 observation (5 hrs) of TSM working• 7 phone interviews• Casual observation at local office
Challenges
• TSMs extremely busy• Concurrently recruiting for usability testing• Mobile work observation not practical /
appropriate / welcome• Premature to observe VEC Mobile use
Findings: Work Environment
• Noisy office• Interrupt-driven• Multi-tasking• Fighting fires
“We are just so overwhelmed with work
every second of every day.”
Burden on memory → degraded performance
Findings: Computer-based Systems
Ticket management systems:
Internal Customer facing
2 desktop
1 mainframe
1 mobile
1 desktop
1 mobile
• Legacy systems• Redundancy• No integration• Codes for lookup
“I have no idea what the BIC code is. Unbelievable.
See how much trouble it is to do the littlest things?”
Findings: Relationships
Findings: Customer Support Work
Customers have Verizon Enterprise Center.Why do they need assistance from TSMs?
TSMs:• Provide missing information
• Private ticket comments• Access to internal systems
• Translate information into understandable, familiar language• “No Access”
• Liaison between technicians & customers
“A lot of times we’re just a go-between or babysitter.”
Findings: Mobile Support Work
• TSMs provide support 24x7• Home, traveling, customer meetings, vacation, golf
• Use mobile phones for email, voice calls, checking tickets• Some TSMs have old phones; all have Blackberries
Findings: VEC Mobile
• Typing laborious• Doesn’t display internal ticket
comments• Write identifiers on paper to enter
on mobile• Eager to use it – greater freedom;
reduced customer dependence
Design Implications
• TSMs’ stress & memory burden requires systems that are easy to use
• Streamline systems; reduce redundancy
• Ticket comments• TSMs can mark comments public• Auto-generated comments use customer-friendly language• Train technicians to write customer-appropriate comments
Design Implications (cont.)
VEC Mobile
• Internal ticket comments• Who are the users? TSMs vs. customers
• Display items of interest rather than make user search or enter codes• Recently viewed list• Flagged tickets
• Voice interface
Next Steps / Future Directions
• Present findings to team
• Apply design recommendations
• Additional studies• VEC Mobile
• After longer-term use• “Contrived” situations for mobile observation
• Customers