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Great Post Philippe. I don’t think there’s a reader out there that hasn’t experienced something similar.
Do the math(insert your mobile device X 1K+ employees X their time value) and you begin to get a sense of the sheer impact to an organization these devices can have by relying on a carrier help desk with a high turnover rate.
A managed service off loads all that cost and risk plus ensures smooth operations for critical employees. You can’t rely on a carrier help desk to know your business. You can rely on trusted professionals who are there to support you and your business 24×7.
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Like I mentioned, I shudder to think about the total opportunity cost of situations like this…and to your point, I am sure I am not the only one to experience such things.
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I agree with your view on support. It is common knowledge that for most companies, it costs more to support a MAC vs. PC. It is going to be interesting to hear some numbers on the smartphone Vs. PC. Your situation only broached a small piece of what’s ahead. Think about that compounded with multiple carriers, multiple device platform, and device types. Yuck! Support staffs are going to go crazy unless they start supporting smartphones with the same processes and staff as the more mature older brothers.
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Well said. Required reading for anyone who gets what’s required to deliver modern customer service. IT must be as or more agile than the business users it supports. As they get more sophisticated and as smartphones become the primary computing device the frustration of those three hours spent waiting becomes even less tolerable.
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3 Trackbacks
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Alltop Mobile, toweetoo. toweetoo said: Why You Need a Mobile Help Desk http://goo.gl/fb/VlMH2 [...]
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mobile Data Services, The EMF.org. The EMF.org said: Philippe Winthrop commented on the blog post Why You Need a Mobile Help Desk http://goo.gl/fb/2KLGs #TheEMF [...]
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by The EMF.org, Dan Turchin. Dan Turchin said: This should never happen. Great post by @biz_mobility from #TheEMF: Why you need a mobile help desk. http://bit.ly/cSKocE [...]
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Why You Need a Mobile Help Desk
I got a new mobile device a couple of weeks ago. It doesn’t matter what it is, that’s not the point. As soon as I put my SIM card into the device, I started having problems with the voicemail system.
Specifically, it was the visual voicemail. Having used an iPhone for some time, I got hooked to that feature. However, with my new device, it wasn’t working. A couple of weeks ago, I had gone to one of the carrier’s retail stores to “properly” activate the device and see if I could resolve the problem. Very quickly, they were able to figure out what the problem was and made a couple of suggestions as to how to address the problem of lack of visual voicemail. Unfortunately, that didn’t work.
Fast forward a couple of weeks to today. With (among other things) the launch of the new EMF web site, I obviously had not had the time to deal with this little annoyance. With a small window of downtime this afternoon, I called my carrier to see if I could quickly resolve this matter.
So here’s the short version of what happened. I spent 30 minutes on the phone – speaking to three levels of tech support at the carrier…now mind you, I already knew what the problem was, but I had to explain it to every different customer service representative. After that didn’t fix the problem, the Tier 3 tech support person transferred me to the support desk of the handset manufacturer. I spent the next hour doing the things they suggested I do. That didn’t solve the problem.
The support staff at the handset manufacturer then sent me back to my carrier (have you heard this story before?) where I had to explain AGAIN what the problem was. Unfortunately, the support rep I was talking to at the carrier obviously had no business providing support to anyone owning a smartphone. Add another 30 minutes to the conversation, when I finally got to speak to a woman named…we’ll call her “Heather.” I was, admittedly, beyond frustrated at this point, but “Heather” was very professional about the situation. She took my number and said she would call me back when she had a solution to the problem.
After another hour passes, “Heather” calls me back and tells me how she had spoken with her “higher ups” as well as have a conference call with representatives from the handset manufacturer. “Heather’s” team had finally concluded what I had told them 3 hours ago…it was a problem on the carrier side. The problem will (allegedly) be resolved in the next 72 hours.
Just like when I had a personal experience that showed me the value of a mobile (service) management solution, I can now tell you that organizations need to have a wireless help desk solution in place. Here’s why (with a slight rant).
Why should I have taken this long road (now you understand the analogy of the image)? Why should I have had to spend the better part of THREE HOURS on the phone with tech support dealing with this? With all the people that had to get involved with this issue, I don’t want to begin to think about the opportunity cost of the collective time spent on this pain in the neck problem. It’s voicemail for goodness sake!!! Why did it take three hours for the problem to still remain unresolved? I spent my time trying to fix something this afternoon as opposed to being productive for my company. (For the record, it was always the carrier’s fault).
So what if this were to happen within your company? Would you want your revenue generating employees spending almost half a day on something like this, as opposed to being productive? I’m thinking…no. This is why your organization needs either to have its own dedicated staff to interface with the carriers (leveraging mobile help desk solutions to automate the process) or alternatively work with a third party service provider that can do this heavy lifting for you so that your revenue generating employees can focus on what they do best….generate revenue for your company.
Speaking of revenue generation….time for me to get back to my real job….