Published: March 23 2011, 11:06 AM | 3 Comment(s)
by Rich Graves

I recently had the chance to cash in some Marriott hotel points to stay at the Amelia Island Florida Ritz Carlton for a special occasion. It was a fantastic trip with several luxuries and beautiful scenery but what stood out was the exceptional service. It goes without saying that this level of service comes at a price but the value to me as the customer was well worth it. There were several factors that came to mind when tying my experience back to the world of IT service management that I think are valuable to consider in your organization.

• Urgency - The staff's urgency to address all requests was what I found most impressive. Every time I picked up the phone or asked the staff for something they assumed all my requests were urgent. The refrigerator in our room wasn't working properly and when I called about it the person on the phone said they would send up a technician immediately and if it wasn't fixed to our liking they would replace it. They were respectful of my time, understood the problem and what the appropriate resolution would be. How they addressed it wasn't my concern. It was about immediate first call resolution and minimizing my time on the phone.
• Authority- This is often one of the biggest issues when it comes to call center and internal IT analysts. They either aren't empowered with authority or don't believe they have authority. The lack of authority requires technicians to transfer calls or contact managers and ultimately delays resolving the issue/incident and poor customer satisfaction. From the Ritz staff I never heard "let me check with my manager."
• Ownership- Each person I dealt with owned the issue. When I asked for directions to the restaurant, the staff member personally walked me there. When I called about the broken refrigerator, I wasn't transferred to housekeeping or facilities. I was told they'd get me a working refrigerator right away. Successful first-call resolution means the first point of contact needs to identify the problem and understand the satisfactory end result, then be held accountable for ensuring the issue is resolved, even if it requires involving others to fix it.
• Consistency- The level of service was consistent across the different staff members I dealt with. The lack of consistency is often a pain point for end users when dealing with first level IT service desk teams. This is often due to different areas or levels of expertise amongst a team. An investment in regular technical and customer service training as well as a strong knowledge base can improve consistency across the team and empower your analysts.
• "The customer is always right, even when they're wrong"- This is one of my favorite quotes. I heard it many years ago when watching a program on the staff at a high end New York hotel. Great customer service employees are trained not to cast blame or judgment about a request. It's not about pointing the finger at what the customer did to get themselves in the problem to begin with. It's about understanding the problem and providing a solution. Service desk analysts should not judge a user but rather educate them and get the user back up and running.

Any study in customer service will certainly bring Ritz Carlton up as a reference case but I think from an ITSM perspective we need to think about how our end users expect to be treated. And what level of service we can afford to provide as an organization. Exceptional service comes with a price but the value it gives users may far outweigh the cost. Create your own business case to examine the "right" level of service for your end users or customers. What is your goal as an organization and what level of service do your employees/customers expect? Is your team trained and empowered to focus on urgency, authority, ownership and consistency?

In the end IT should focus on is getting users back to work quickly and remember that every end user is working on generating revenue for the business.