Call for Questions on IT Governance

Dear visitors and readers (just remember to subscribe), 

next May the 14th, we will celebrate a ServiceManagers.org Expert Talk on IT Governance with Suresh GP.

Suresh is a seasoned Business Consultant and Author of several articles on the matter, including two in ServiceManagers.org:

IT Governance - 5 Myths to Break this New-Year (a top influencer article in ServiceManagers.org)
Take Control of ABC to make your Governance initiatives succesfull!

He will be responding all the questions sent by all of you on an interview that days latter it will be published in ServiceManagers.org. 

Please, tweet your questions on IT Governance to #sureshtalk

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Bye Bye APMG, Hello Capita

Recently the UK Cabinet Office announced that the British company Capita Plc. won the Best Practice Portfolio Bid and will replace APMG as The Accreditor for the next 3 years (starting from January 2014). 

The Best Practice Portfolio includes the PRINCE2® and ITIL® frameworks, which are widely used in the private sector. It generates revenue for the public purse through accreditation of exam institutes and training organisations, exam sales and publications. 

Capita is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. In 2012 Capita Plc. had a turnover of almost €4 billion, a pre-tax profit of almost €350 million and more than 45,000 employees.

The UK Cabinet Office and Capita will establish a new company (NewCo) in a Joint Venture partnership, owning the Intellectual Property Rights of Best Practice Portfolio Bid including ITIL® and Prince2®. 

APMG will remain as a certification company, that is, as an EI (Examination Institute).

Cabinet Office has clarified that there will be minimum disruption to the current ecosystem which markets and delivers the products and the accompanying training and examinations.

You can read the official communication here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-deal-will-market-government-professional-qualifications 

Finally, as an auditor, I must say that the official site does not contain all appropriate trademark and copyright statements in the PRINCE2® and ITIL® references :)

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Don't let Mistakes Grow

Steve Jobs: Live Each Day As If It Was Your Last.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, some day you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. ~Stanford University, 2005

A quarterback can give a great game. But if he screws up in the last touchdown, the public and press are going to blame him for losing the entire thing.

Mistakes can make a lot of noise. In the Communications Era, 1 mistake equals 101 good experiences. Regardless of how many times you did it well, the point is how did you manage the low percentage of bad experiences with your Customers. 

We can't stand upon our past acheivements. People will judge you harshly for your lastest fumble. Just as in football, the most recent mistake will haunt you in business. This is just human nature.

The Latin phrase Carpe Diem means to “Seize the day” which means to use what you have now without relying on what may or may not happen in the future. This expression is further demonstrated by Steve Jobs in the following video:

In a similar fashion this can be applied in business. But in addition to not counting on the future, one must not count on the victories of the past. We have to live in the present. Yesterday’s great game doesn’t give someone a green light to see how many screw ups will be tolerated. Never assume that one can ride past achievements to the finish line. Following the wisdom of Murphy’s Law, It is more likely that something will go wrong. And no amount of trophies decorating your wall will save you from the pitfalls of the present. Most people will be quick to point out faults when they are unhappy, and slow to shed light upon the good that has been done.

Right now the problem you have with an unhappy Customer is small. But if you don’t take care to solve it quickly, it will grow. Don't let a problem that is now a hill become a mountain.

Mistakes are going to happen. The important thing is to minimize the damage that can come from these mistakes. Put 100% of your effort towards solving today's concerns.

What is your best advice to deal with unhappy Customers?

Author: Angel Berniz & Thomas Wells (All Rights Reserved by the authors).

Source: Original Text (based upon first hand knowledge).
Image:  nyul - Fotolia.com
Help us to improve it: how-to, discussion.

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When your Boss sides with the Customer

Sometimes Service Managers are involved in situations where they are having discussions with their Customers, explaining some facts or points about the Service they are delivering. Probably the easiest thing for the Service Manager would be to accept the Customer’s complaints, without worrying if they are right or not, and simply give in for free to what they are asking. But if we did this that way, the Customer would think that no matter what he asks, he is going to get it for free. The truth is that Services have a scope, and not always we can give in for free what the Customer asks.

But the problem comes when the Service Managers maintains discussions with the Customer for some variable amount of time, and then, in front of all involved, his boss comes and gives in for free to the demands of the customer.

Of course, the boss chooses the easiest path. This action could have been premeditated, I mean agreed upon before hand. But I am not talking about this scenario. I'm talking about the Service Manager being caught by surprise by the actions of his boss with the Customer.

But the problem is that this establishes a negative precedent for their relationships. More precisely, the future relationship between the Customer and his Service Manager has been diminished, but also the future relationship between the Service Manager and his boss has been damaged.

Lastly, and most importantly, his boss has taken this negative action in public. Remember that congratulations must always be given in public, but reproaches must be given always in private. It would be better that the boss had said to the Service Manager in private that they should reconsider the Customer’s complaints, and suggest to the Service Manager to communicate to their Customer that they had decided to give him what he was asking.

But contradicting the Service Manager should never be done in public.

Have you ever been contradicted in public by your Boss?

Author: Angel Berniz (All Rights Reserved by the author)
Source: Original Text (based upon first hand knowledge)
Image: © Andres Rodriguez - Fotolia.com
Help us to improve it: how-to, discussion

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The customer-first culture and good customer service

Are you providing good customer service?

Customer service has proliferated from the service sectors to almost all industries in the global market place. Businesses have been increasingly embracing it into their corporate missions. Some have even become legendary, but still there are others who struggle to deliver good service. As the old saying goes, knowing is one thing and doing is another. A business cannot delivery good customer service consistently if it does not have customer-first culture in its corporate DNA. So a possibly better question to ask is: Does your corporation have the customer-first culture?

LEGO’s recent customer service splendor

In January 2013, Seven-year-old Luka Apps had spent his Christmas money on a LEGO minifigure just to have it fallen out of his pocket in a shop and lost it. Luka wrote LEGO a letter explaining the situation, and promised never to take it to a shop again if LEGO could be so kind to send him a replacement. LEGO swiftly sent Luka a soothing and encouraging letter back together with his minifigure replacement. LEGO also included in the package an additional minifigure for him to play along with. The story was soon blown all over the world and has given LEGO tremendous positive publicity. LEGO became the high priest of customer care through this episode.

US Airways customer service blunder

Also in January 2013, the author was waiting to board a US Airways flight in the Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) to Houston. He’s assigned a zone 4 boarding sequence. It was a full flight, and the US Airways boarding personnel at the gate somehow determined after zone 3 passengers had passed the gate that everyone had to check in their carry-on. They did that by simply handing each passenger passing the gate a baggage claim tag and told each to snap it on. Granted that seasoned travelers immediately figured out what that meant, but doing that matter-of-factly was bad customer service. An apology for the inconvenience should have been the minimum. Think about those passengers who had people waiting at the Houston airport to pick them up. The author was not happy about it, and so were a lot of others who received the same treatment. What happened right after the door was closed was just sarcastic. The flight attendant announced the airline’s welcome, and mumbled the well scripted standard message that the passengers should not hesitate to ask if there’s anything that they could do to make the flight more enjoyable. This episode had not exploded into bad publicity out of proportion, but without the right customer-first culture, incidents that could generate a slew of bad publicity are bound to happen.

Customer-first culture has to be in the business’s DNA

Just saying that the business cares about customers does not make it so. A customer service organization without the customer-first culture will frequently provide customer lip service like what US Airways did, not customer service. To build customer-first culture into their DNA, businesses need to make delivering unsurpassed customer experience one of their corporate missions. If they do not have the proper customer-first culture in place, then they will need to establish a change management process to develop a program to nurture one. 

The change management process to creating customer-first culture 

This change management process should be top down starting with the executives. The executives who were the advocates need to persuade all other executives to buy in and embrace this customer-first initiative, and to determine executive sponsors who will organize and sponsor a program management organization (PMO) to develop a customer service excellence culture and implementation plan. Finally the PMO can develop their plan using the
ADKAR[1] (Adware, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement) methodology as a framework to work this desired culture into the corporation’s DNA. Only when the customer-first culture is ingrained will the business’s customer service department be able to provide great or legendary services consistently.

[1]: ADKAR is a popular change management methodology. There are plenty of books and articles about ADKAR available online and in bookstores everywhere.

Author: Chi-Pong Wong (All Rights Reserved by the author)

Source: Original Text (based upon first hand knowledge)
Image: © Andres Rodriguez - Fotolia.com
Help us to improve it: how-to, discussion

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Disgruntled customers are SACRED

Business should vehemently avoid angering their customers

In the digital era of information overflow particularly after the social networking explosion, praise and criticism travel equally fast and wide. 

To survive and prosper, business has to promote their brand, establish positive images, and to feverishly guard their brand from tarnish. One incident

of angering a client could stir up a blizzard of bad publicity and damage their brand. Is this an exaggeration? Here’s one case on Wikipedia:

United Breaks Guitars is a protest song by Canadian musician Dave Carroll and his band, Sons of Maxwell. It chronicles a real-life experience of how his guitar was broken during a trip on United Airlines in 2008, and the subsequent reaction from the airline. The song became an immediate YouTube and iTunes hit upon its release in July 2009 and a public relations embarrassment for the airline.

There have been over 12 million visits on youtube.com alone for this song. Dave subsequently wrote a few more sequels expanding on this episode and posted on the web which all have garnered huge followings.

Customer dissatisfaction could mean opportunity

Stories about negative customer experience abound, and some followed by happy ending. Business who has customer first mentality in their DNA tries to turn a bad customer experience into an opportunity to transform the disgruntled customer into a loyal patron as well as improving their processes and executions. Here’s an example.

Virgin Atlantic received a complaint letter from a passenger named Oliver Beale complaining about their meals. It captured the attention of the airline’s boss Richard Branson. Richard not only apologized, but also invited Oliver to their catering base to be part of their taster team to decide future food and drink. The complaint letter was named the best ever complaint letter in 2009. Virgin Atlantic not only successfully turned the disgruntled customer into a loyal patron but also took the opportunity to improve their meal quality and simultaneously won huge positive publicity.

Turning a disgruntled customer into a loyal patron and learning from it can be scripted

The skill to sense something big with profound influence maybe an innate ability of visionaries, but the ability to turning unhappy customers into loyal patrons and learning from the incidences can be induced by following appropriately scripted actions. If one dissects the Virgin Atlantic incident, or other incidents from other companies of the same nature, one would discover that the elements that constitute the foundation of their scripts are essentially the same. This script is what I called SACRED.

The SACRED process

The SACRED process defines a sequence of actions when executed successfully will turn a begrudging customer into a devoted one and will learn from the incidence. SACRED is coined from the first letter of the first word of the six actions in the script:

• Sympathize with the customer, listen to the grievance, and be understanding.
• Apologize to the customer for the bad experience, and particularly to the committed mistake or defect if applicable.
• Commit to the customer that an investigation will be under way, compensation will be considered, and a date when we will update the customer.
• Resolve the bad experience.
• Exceed the customer’s expectation by not only resolving the problem or compensating for the expense, but also offering more than just verbal appreciation by means of discounts, gift cards, warranty extension, or anything beyond the customer’s expectation.
• Deflect the bad experience from happening again in the future by working the solution into process or operation improvement.

Let’s review the Virgin Atlantic resolution. Virgin Atlantic sympathized with the passenger by truly listening to the complaint, it apologized with highest sincerity by delivering the apology from the top, it committed to resolve the meal quality issue, then it resolved the issue and deflected the bad experience from happening again by inviting the passenger to join their taster team to shape future food and drink, and indeed its action had exceeded Oliver’s expectation. Virgin Atlantic’s resolution is truly SACRED.

Author: Chi-Pong Wong (All Rights Reserved by the author)

Source: Original Text (based upon first hand knowledge)
Image: © Andres Rodriguez - Fotolia.com
Help us to improve it: how-to, discussion

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What is the Real Scope of ISO/IEC 20000?

I am sometimes asked whether the scope of the international standard for service management, ISO/IEC 20000, is only IT services or all services.

As the Convener of the working group within ISO responsible for the ISO/IEC 20000 series (JTC1/SC7/WG25), I can confirm that because ISO/IEC 20000-1 is a requirements standard used by auditors and by organizations wishing to demonstrate conformity and achieve certification, it must be interpreted as written. Clause 1.2 states: " All requirements in this part of ISO/IEC 20000 are generic and are intended to be applicable to all service providers, regardless of type, size and the nature of the services delivered."

I can also confirm that we were very careful when writing ISO/IEC 20000-1 not to use the term “IT” within the body of the standard, specifically for this reason. ISO/IEC 20000-1 is requirements for a service management system (SMS), not an IT service management system. The services supported by the SMS can be any type of services, often several different types. What an auditor/assessor cares about is whether the service provider meets the requirements of 20000-1.

Say an organization wanted to provide financial services to external customers. The SMS could be used to help them design, build, test, implement and improve those financial services. If they wanted to provide health services via the internet, so customers could accurately track their medications, get health information or make Dr. appointments, they could use the SMS to deliver/manage those services. If the organization provided insurance services, or was a city council or a utility, a hotel or a travel agent they could use the SMS.

The SMS is primarily used by service providers who manage technology enabled services, including telecommunications, cloud, broadband utility providers, managed services, many financial services and internal IT services. This is due to the need to tightly control change/risk/cost/delivery/potential failure for these services and because 20000-1 includes requirements that are essential for technology enabled services. A significant percentage of all services offered by service providers are technology enabled – these days it can actually be difficult to find examples of services that are not! In 2013, technology is considered a component of the capabilities required to deliver business outcomes, along with people, process and organizational structure. It is often not practical or efficient to be managed in isolation.

Regardless of the services offered, the management system required to manage them should be consistent. This is why every organization with an SMS can have different customers and offer different services and it still works. The policies, resources and activities required to design, build, test, operate and improve services are very often the same, regardless of what those services are – it can increase efficiency, effectiveness and quality of service delivery and service management to align your organization’s SMS to support your IT services, technology enabled business services, telecommunications services, cloud services etc. The SMS is the engine of the car - the organization needs to decide where to drive and the engine gets the car where it needs to go. Sometimes in order to get where it is going the organization needs to focus not only on services but also security, or health and safety, or environment, or quality, or some combination. This becomes an integrated management system, rather than lots of engines in the same car.

So the big question everybody asks once they understand this is “Why does the title of ISO/IEC 20000-1 include Information Technology?” The answer is that every single standard from the JTC1 part of ISO gets this title automatically – it is on the template. ISO/IEC 27001 is a good example. The full title of that standard is: ISO/IEC 27001:2005 – Information technology – Security techniques – Information security management systems – Requirements. However, ISO/IEC 27001 is not just for IT security management, but enterprise wide security management. Can you imagine if access management were limited to only IT related access? There goes your corporate information! The scope of ISO/IEC 27001 includes physical locks on a door – that is not IT. ISO/IEC 20000-1 is the same in this regard - it is requirements for an SMS, not an IT SMS. Management systems are intended to bring organizations together so they can work more effectively, not segregate them further. 

ISO/IEC 20000-3:2012, Guidance on scope definition and applicability of ISO/IEC 20000-1 provides further information to assist organizations and individuals with scoping their SMS and includes scenarios.

Author: Erin Casteel (All Rights Reserved by the author)

Source: Original Text (based upon first hand knowledge)
Image: © Andres Rodriguez - Fotolia.com
Help us to improve it: how-to, discussion

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