A few questions to get us rolling:

1. “Service quality in the IT World”Is it better to be helpful or right?Presented by:David SchmidtSr. ConsultantSuccess Sciences813-989-9900dschmidt@success-sciences.com

2. A few questions to get us rolling: • What is the function of every business in the free world? • What is the difference between the function and the goal of a business?

3. Follow the logic: • If the primary function of every business is to acquire and maintain customers it follows that it is also the primary function of EVERY EMPLOYEE in every business. • Some fulfill the function directly (service & sales people). Everyone else does it indirectly.

4. Two Schools of Thinking Drive Behavior in Organizations.-Operationally Focused-Customer Focused

5. What is likely to happen if your department is out of balance in its operational thinking and customer centric thinking?(The right BALANCE is key)

6. Assumption - The primary function of every employee in your enterprise is to acquire and maintain customers. • Every behavior they exhibit during the business day that supports this position is positive behavior,even if it violates company policy. • Every behavior they exhibit that is contrary to that position is negative behavior,even if it is within company policy. This is controversial so we may need to discuss the boundaries.

7. Let’s explore:What is likely to happen if a Help Desk team is out of balance in its operational thinking and customer centric thinking?

8. Likely reactions: • Jack’s first law of service quality can kick in • “I never pay people to make me unhappy”. • Conflict and distractions from the mission • Shadow IT • Movement / pressure to outsource • When any form of this happens its clear that IT isn’t going to get a lot of love.

9. Question: From your perspective… What do your customers think of your department?

10. Reasons Why IT Doesn’t Get Enough Love: The Customer View 10. They are the source of much of my stress! (My pencil never crashed, got a virus or ran out of memory). 9. “No” seems to be their favorite word – which isn’t helpful. 8. At times they just don’t add enough value compared to the hassle. (Which adds to the problem of them costing too much in the first place.)

11. Reasons Why IT Doesn’t Get Enough Love: The Customer View 7. Even when they have the solution its often painful to get the help we want or get it in a way that is easiest for us – which isn’t helpful. (Jack really wants toast and they had the ability to give it to him…) 6. They don’t usually demonstrate the willingness (maybe ability) to manage our expectations. Which by itself would be very helpful. 5. They are often too slow to meet our needs. (“Analysis paralysis?”)Which isn’t helpful.

12. Reasons Why IT Doesn’t Get Enough Love: The Customer View 4. They have different definitions of what good is and what value is. (They have different definitions about a lot of things with their secret language.) 3. They often don’t understand where the pain is in our business (that funds them and their very existence). Which doesn’t help. 2. They can get too focused on the perfection of the technology fix to be helpful for us and our purposes. 1. They often come off as superior to those with less technical competence (sometimes impolite). Which isn’t helpful.

13. Lesson from observing Nick:Learn how to work with customers in a way that would lead to them choosing you if they had a choice.

14. “It’s not enough for a professional to be right: A trusted advisor’s job is to be helpful”~ David Maister

15. Ask yourself:1) If my customers had the opportunity to retain my team as a resource or use a viable alternative, which would they choose?2) Would they confidently refer me to someone else? (Particularly a relationship they really valued?)

16. How often are you proactively engaging your customers in conversation about their changing needs?

17. How often is often enough?

18. We Hardly Talk Anymore 13% Weekly 29% Hardly Ever 23% Monthly How often does your business unit have discussions with IT about changing business technology needs? 10% Yearly 25% Quarterly ©Information Week online poll of 1,185 IT and business professionals

19. Recommendation related to TODAY:Find 3 specific goals to commit to as a result of what we are exploring in this session. Pit Stop Develop or enhance skills, adopt new practices,…

20. 3 Recommendations: • Adopt a new value - “We work on the relationships as much as the technology”. • Work for Trusted Advisor status. • Work for customers to be willing to choose you if they were given other viable options.

21. A few steps to “rebalance” and get more customer focused, helpful behavior from your team.

22. Rebalance: • Establish the belief that technical competence is “table stakes” for playing on the team. • Use the quiz – you, your team, your customers then compare for gaps. *

23. Quiz Questions for IT Leaders and their teams • Exactly who are your (team’s) customers? • How specifically do you create value for them?* • What are their key expectations?* • What opportunities does your team have to make it easier for customers, add value and be helpful to them? • What specifically gets in the way of your team consistently delivering optimal service quality and value now? *How do you really know?

24. Interest • Flexibility • Problem Solving • Recovery What are your customers Key expectations? Trusted Advisors know and manage expectations.

25. Let’s simplify how to do this.

26. You just need to remember Gumby.

27. Gumby is not just a green slab of clay. What are his qualities?

28. He gets a lot of love because: Gumby is:: • Flexible • Helpful • Reliable • Relationship builder • Your customers want you to hire, train and retain more Gumby like people in IT. (Including leaders) • Though he bends he is hard to break.

29. To increase the probability of this working I suggest two things: • Create the conditions for accountability. • Understand and leverage how meaning really gets created in your organization.

30. High-Accountability Organizations Positive Consequences Expectations Credible Expectations Clear Negative Consequences Create the conditions for performance (success) for your people.

31. You get what you inspect, not what you expect. ~Retired Captain Jerry Blesch, US Navy

32. Are your measurements primarily operationally focused or do you balance with customer focused metrics? What metrics does your team see and hear about most?

33. High-Accountability Organizations Positive Consequences Expectations Credible Expectations Clear Negative Consequences The right use of the right metrics will help make expectations clear.

34. Bumping Into It Strategy • Make weekly awards for "little" acts of heroism. • Open every meeting with a service story. Put service stories on page one of your dept. newsletter or blog. • Do weekly half-hour session on breakthroughs and breakdowns (“prouds and sorries”). • Post service & satisfaction metrics all over the place. • Distribute all good and bad customer feedback to everyone. • Plaster pictures of customers all over your work area. • Invite customers to visit and/or bring customers to your workplace / dept. as often as possible. Adapted from The Pursuit of Wow by Tom Peters

35. Meaning is created by Leaders • Big (visible) decisions • Day to day behavior • What REALLY gets rewarded in the organization • Informal leader communication • Formal leader communication

36. Home Stretch7 Guidelines to help you be more effective leaders and “helpful” to the people you serve.

37. The 7 Principles • Business is a Series of Relationships. Our success results from making those relationships work. • Everything that happens in an organization happens in or because of a conversation. • The conversation IS the relationship. • High performers choose to be responsible for the quality of their conversations and the results they produce. • High performers simply do the things less successful people won’t, don’t or can’t. • Your greatest opportunity for leverage in any situation is thinking in advance. • “You are what you repeatedly do”.