Technical Support on the Web: Designing and Maintaining an Effective E-Support Site

Rating:
Summary: Ms. Czegel produces another winner for the support community
Review: Ms. Czegel has produced another 5-star winner with a badly needed book on providing technical support using web technology. This book is more focused on internal IT web-based support vs. product support for call centers. It does address product-based support for external customers, but not in the depth or detail that internal help desks are discussed. While help desks and call centers employ many of the same processes and tools, there is a world of difference between the challenges, goals and objectives of the two. One of the key advantages of using web-based support internally is initial troubleshooting tools, knowledge bases and other self-help aids can be made available to preempt support calls. Both IT and the business win if the user can resolve his or her problem without opening an issue. Another big advantage is when a ticket is open users can track the progress of getting their problem resolved. This goes a long way towards aligning IT services to business requirements and improving customer satisfaction.

As in her other books Ms. Czegel begins with an examination of business factors and a discussion of how web-based technical support has evolved quickly to what she calls a third-generation model. I like how she sums up the business factors with a compelling discussion of the business benefits, including an example cost-benefit analysis.

The second chapter gives a roadmap for site creation and management. It provide a comprehensive list of necessary tasks that can be used to develop a work breakdown structure and project plan. It segues into the next chapter on establishing the scope, and leads you through the foundation of defining your goals and business expectations. Scope includes possible services to provide through web-based support, and which services are the most cost-effective to provide. I liked the examples, provided in tables, that rank requirements and the resources required to satisfy them. Ms. Czegel next addresses staff selection, providing roles and responsibilities and the necessary skills to move to web-based support. This information is valuable to help desk professionals because there are major differences between traditional help desk requirements and those of web-based support organizations.

Functions, tools and implementations are covered in great detail and is must reading because web-based support brings with it specialized tools and requirements that will leverage a traditional help desk's tools to provide self-help to users. Because this book does touch on product support to external customers I felt that the lack of content management and change control tools was a notable gap. These are important to internal and external support, but are far more critical when you are dealing with external customers because out-of-date technical information or the wrong software for download can seriously detract from your company's image (or worse). If your focus is product support to external customers I recommend augmenting this book with Customer Service on the Internet by Jim Sterne.

Designing your site is briefly covered with good advice; however, the heart of this book is process and implementation, and site management. Ms. Czegel thoroughly covers all issues and gives valuable information using tables, checklists and examples. These two parts of the book are essential to implementing and managing an effective web-based support function. I especially liked the metrics and examples given.

Summary: web-based technical support is one of the most effective strategies to improve the level of support to customers using self-help and other preventative measures to reduce issues. It also gives users an ability to track their open issues, which improves their level of satisfaction as well as reducing follow-up calls to the help desk. This book provides a clear roadmap to defining a web-based support strategy, and its implementation and management. As far as I know there is no other book that addresses this subject for internal IT help desks, making it all the more valuable. If you are a help desk manager who is either exploring web-based technical support, or are in the process of implementing it this book with save you much grief because it lays out what needs to be done from business case development to daily operations. If you are currently supporting users with web technology the site management chapter will provide you with excellent advice on how to efficiently manage web-based support.

Rating:
Summary: Solid foundation. Strong on Business case and PM
Review: This book contains information that will be equally useful to call centers supporting customers and internal IT help desks that are exploring the benefits of web-based issue management via a corporate intranet. The previous reviewed has provided a comprehensive assessment of this book, so I'll address the highlights that I found to be useful:

(1) The business-case first approach that the author takes is straightforward and provides step-by-step procedures for determining the true business value of web-enabled technical support vs. traditional call centers. I especially liked the discussion of first, second and third generation site models because it gives you a target model and shows both the business and technical value of each. I also liked the way ROI factors and ratings were used to determine ROI potential. The factors are management, functions and tools, and the ratings are a simple Good or Poor. This is placed into context with a table that shows the combinations of factors and ratings and their associated potential and gives you a structured decision tool at a glance.

(2) Scope approach given in the book is complete in that it takes into account all stakeholder views (business, technical support and users/customers). This forces you to take a realistic look at goals and objectives and, using ROI information, begin making intelligent and informed trade-offs.

(3) Site creation map is consistent with good project management practices in that it uses a task and associated details approach. The details provided include deliverables and what the deliverables should contain. Project planners and managers will find this section particularly valuable.

(4) Support processes and procedures are well thought out and can be used as a benchmarking tool as well as planning and implementation guidelines.

(5) I like the way the section on site management is goal-driven and traceable back to ROI. If this approach is followed you will have processes that are designed for continuous improvement.

(6) The use of tables and lists throughout the book provides a wealth of information on nearly every topic.

There are a few areas that were weak: no mention of portal technology, which can be employed to create user-customizable features and incorporate advanced knowledge management functionality into a web-enabled support system. Also, there was no discussion of configuration control over content or legal issues that need to be considered when providing technical support to customers (as opposed to internal end users).

Overall this is an exceptionally valuable book that is among the best on the subject. Highly recommended to IT help desks and product technical support center managers.