NOTE: I’m relating this post to my current line of work—tech support—but it can be applicable to any type of business or industry.
Tech or IT support is a crucial part of any organization. They’re the face and the voice of the entire IT organization to the rest of the company. Without the professionals responsible to resolve IT-related issues, grant access to systems and applications, and provision IT hardware, any business will not survive.
In our digital age, what’s the point of having the best accountants, lawyers, doctors, and customer service professionals if your technology is not enabling them to do their jobs? In my opinion, there are three pillars that need to be the focus of every tech support leader.
The three pillars for highly effective tech support teams:
Quality Assurance
Automation
Upskilling and Cross-training
Quality Assurance (QA)
QA is an important part of any business, most especially in tech support. QA can be in a form of post-call/service surveys, recorded call audits, and live call monitoring. QA brings three things to a tech support team: manages risk, improves customer service, and continuous improvements.
QA manages risk by creating mechanisms to constantly observe technicians on the quality of their work—its accuracy and its adherence to policies and procedures. Tech support teams have a phone channel where customers can call if they need support. It’s then the phone technician’s job to try to resolve the issue as quickly and as accurately as possible.
At the same time, the technician also needs to determine if the issue is not a widespread situation that needs immediate attention. Missing these widespread situations can be costly to any organization. It can cost revenue lost, reputational damage, and, in the healthcare industry, it can cost someone’s life. QA needs to review how technicians interact with the customers, what questions are being asked, and what step are they taking to resolve the issue.
QA improves customer service by ensuring technicians are professional and courteous. While the QA specialist is looking at the technical aspects of the interaction, they’re also looking at the choice of words, the tone, and the overall demeanor of the technician. They would also put into account how the customer is reacting to the type of service they’re getting.
Automation
Automation brings a lot of benefits to many organizations. Done well, it mitigates risks, it frees up resources, and it improves customer experience. If you’re able to automate repetitive tasks, it drastically decreases the risks of making mistakes. Scripts can be written to make sure all the steps are done accurately and completely. You don’t need to rely on a person to remember to do things correctly every time.
Automation also frees up resources. Imagine if you can automate a task your team gets a lot. For a tech support team, a majority of calls may be around password resets and other access-related issues. They are quick calls, but they carry a large share of the traffic for a typical help desk. If you can automate these tasks, you can save so much time doing it—freeing up resources. With the extra resource, you can spend more time ‘playing offense,’ instead of reacting to things. You can get resources to improve processes, improve customer experience, and modernizing your products and services.
The main ingredient for an IT organization to ensure great customer experience is a quick and accurate resolution. If we can get those issues resolved quickly and painlessly, the ease of use of technology improves drastically. Yes, the customers will miss talking to your super smart and charming technicians, but we can save those interactions for bigger issues that require more attention.
Of course, automation has its disadvantages. For the most part, the disadvantages occur when leaders don’t direct a well-run and well-positioned automation system. If you automate everything, without putting into consideration the development of your staff, it’s like industrializing the workforce.
In the Industrial Age, we’ve reduced a person to a thing. Not a knowledge worker, but a manual worker. In the Industrial Age, the primary economic drivers are machines and capital—things.
In his book, “The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness,” author Steven R. Covey said, “Knowledge work leverages all of the other investments that an organization has already made. (Knowledge work) provides focus, creativity, and leverage in utilizing those investments to better achieve the organization’s objectives.”
Peter Drucker also compares the Industrial Worker Age with the Knowledge Worker Age: “The most valuable assets of a 20th-century company were its production equipment. The most valuable asset of a 21st-century institution, will be its knowledge workers and THEIR productivity.”
There needs to be a balance in automation. You can’t automate everything to the point where you don’t need your team members think. You need them to be free-thinkers and problems-solvers. Their success in this regard dictates the success of your organization.
Upskilling/Cross-Training
Upskilling and cross-training work hand-in-hand with the idea of knowledge workers. This pillar benefits the organization and the individuals that work in it. For an individual, upskilling/cross-training caters to their need for mastery and competency to remain motivated. Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan (D&R) did a research on this theory of motivation in the 1970s. This led to the concept of the “Self-Determination Theory.” (SDT)
According to SDT, to achieve the highest level of motivation and engagement, an environment needs to support the individual’s experience of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In order to cater the sense of competence, you’ll need to foster a learning environment.
Upskilling/cross-training helps individuals learn new skills and new roles within the organization. This is a great way for them to achieve competence and mastery. Professionals who achieve competence and mastery are highly engaged and highly motivated.
At the same time, upskilling and cross-training bring great benefit to any organization. For starters, it ensures coverage. If done well, your organization would not have to experience down times if you lose a team member. Someone else can easily takeover their duties if necessary. If one part of the business requires more resources, other areas can send trained individuals to provide support.
If you have teams that are upskilled and cross-trained, it would be easier for you to move resources around according to demands. This reduces the risk due to down times, and it positively affects customer experience.
Conclusion
A department head needs to find the right leaders and staff to be part their organization. In order to have highly effective teams, the department head needs to find ways to develop talent, nurture collaborations, and produce knowledge workers. The three pillars of highly effective teams—quality assurance, automation, and upskilling/cross-training—are crucial elements to have a successful organization. They ensure continuous improvement, optimization of resources, and the engagement of each team member.
Crowdsourcing FTW
Have you seen any form of the three pillars of highly effective team in your organization? Share some examples on how you implement QA, automation, and upskilling/cross-training in your organization. Can you share some benefits these pillars provide to your organization?