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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