Help Desk Calgary Newsletter
. April 2006
. Help Desk Calgary Newsletter
In this issue
  • Striving Toward GREATNESS by Shep Hyken, CSP
  • Going Global with Support by Phil Verghis
  • The Road to “Best in Class” Service by Alec Norrie

Upcoming Events

Calgary's April Luncheon

Speaker - Laurie Gloge

Date: Tuesday April 11th, 2006
Place: Bankers Hall Auditorium
Lower Level, 315 8th Avenue SW, Calgary, AB
Time: 11:30 - 12PM - Networking
12PM - 1PM - Luncheon

Click here for more information

June Peer to Peer

Scheduled for Wednesday, June 7th

Click here for more information

Help Desk Calgary - May Officer Elections

Call for nominations

It's not too late to consider running for office for our local chapter. This is a great way to meet and network with your peers, get more involved with your local chapter and spice up your resume!

If you would like to nominate yourself or a peer, email info@hdi-calgary.org :

Positions available:

President, VP Finance, Secretary, VP Communications

Proactive IT–Detecting Problems Before They Happen

New Advances in Technology

For today's IT infrastructure to thrive, your network and systems must be proactive. New advances in technology can help prevent outages, eliminate or mitigate the root causes of problems, and reach and maintain levels of performance and availability that are essential for an organization's success and growth. Tasks normally performed within IT and service desks continue to become automated, solving many problems before they occur.

SupportWorld Magazine

Strategy, best practice, people management, technology, tools and techniques are just a few of the topics covered in-depth by this one-of-a-kind HDI magazine for the support professionals. You'll also find informative community news, inspirational company profiles, event listings and more. Click here to view the January/February 2006 Edition.

HDI Training and Certification

Provided by Radar Solutions Group at the Coast Plaza from June 19th to 23rd, 2006

Customer Support Specialist 

Providing the highest level of customer service and support to your customers - whether they are internal or external - is the foundation of all successful service and support centers. HDI CSS-certification preparatory training reinforces the concept that each customer interaction is unique and offers an opportunity to enhance the relationship with that customer. This course includes valuable information and everyday solutions for addressing the attitudes, behaviors, and relationships between customers and the support team. 

Learn more about this certification

HDA Boot Camp 

HDI's HDA Boot Camp focuses on the essential help desk analyst skills, understanding help desk tools, problem-solving techniques, and the skills needed to provide the highest levels of customer service and support. The course will outline the support center environment's processes, procedures, and basic tools and technologies. 

HDI Help Desk Analyst Certification ensures its recipients have:

- Developed the skills and competencies necessary to provide the highest level of customer service and support.

- Developed the skills and competencies required to succeed as a Help Desk Analyst.

- Developed an understanding of the call center environment's processes, procedures, and basic tools and technologies.

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Quick Links...

 

Welcome to the monthly Help Desk Calgary newsletter. This newsletter is distributed to provide news and information about events sponsored by Help Desk Calgary and Help Desk Institute. You are receiving this newsletter either because you opted-in from the registration page on our website, or you are a current member.

Striving Toward GREATNESS by Shep Hyken, CSP

As we strive toward greatness in the area of customer service and relations, here are a few simple strategies to deliver an even higher level of service. It all goes back to managing your Moments of Truth—each and every contact you have with a customer—and creating Moments of Magic.

Read more about Striving Toward GREATNESS in the in the March/April edition of Support World Magazine

Going Global with Support by Phil Verghis

In this second of two articles, global support guru Phil Verghis continues walking you through a simplified series of steps a support executive might take as he or she examines issues to consider when locating a support center in the Asia Pacific region. In the first article, Phil explained the kinds of information you need to gather as you make a decision about expanding support far across the globe.

Read more about going global with support in the March/April edition of SupportWorld Magazine

 

The Road to “Best in Class” Service by Alec Norrie

Never have the issues facing IT support and service organizations been more challenging.

Increasing demand from the user community is one of the consequences of the increasing complexity of the systems we have to support. That complexity is, however, a challenge in itself, in that we must keep our knowledge and diagnostic skills abreast with it. Coupled with this are what some organizations consider as the rising costs of support, while at the same time the company faces pressure on margins or revenue.  

Read more about The Road to “Best in Class” Service in the in the March/April edition of SupportWorld Magazine

ITIL Spurs New Generation of Service Desk Technicians by Marv Waschke

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), developed in the late 1980s by the United Kingdom's Office of Government Commerce, has not only gained widespread adoption as an integrated set of accepted best practices for companies seeking improved IT processes that better align their IT services to meet their business needs, but it has also given birth to a new generation of service desk technicians.

The old service desk technician, like the Swiss army knife, was reliable, diversified, indispensable, but seldom had just the right tool for the job. Not so with the newer generation. Prior to ITIL, service desks tended to be unstructured. Employees called the help desk whenever they had a problem or issue, and the response level was determined by how convincingly (or not) the employee persuaded the service desk technician that his or her issue was critical. A service desk technician then assigned a grade from level one to three— depending on the outcome of the call—with three being most critical. In many instances, only a call from the CEO would warrant getting an issue assigned a level three.

ITIL organizes the service desk very differently, and consequently has different expectations for service desk technicians. ITIL divides the old service desk tasks into two buckets: Incident Management and Problem Management. Change Management is a practice that often falls under non-ITIL service desks with a completely different set of goals.

Read more about ITIL in the in the March/April edition of SupportWorld Magazine

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Mark your calendar!

Ron Muns - CEO and Founder HDI, Leading IT Service & Support

Coming to the June 21st Luncheon

Measuring and Improving Customer Satisfaction

As you are well aware, ours is an industry that depends on customer satisfaction for survival. During this informative talk, Ron will define Customer Satisfaction and discuss several crucial points:

  • What it takes to improve customer satisfaction

  • Why high scores are imperative

  • How customer satisfaction fits in with the HDI Balanced Score Card Service Model

  • Critical keys to improving customer satisfaction

Click here to read more

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Jay Rifenbary, HDI Sponsored Speaker

Coming to the October luncheon on October 18, 2006.

Jay Rifenbary is president of the Rifenbary Training & Development Center, and author of the International Best Seller, "No Excuse! - Key Principles for Balancing Life and Achieving Success", recently awarded "Book of the Year" by the North American Book Dealers Exchange. Click here to read more about Jay Rifenbary

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Katherine Spencer Lee will be at the September luncheon on Wednesday September 20th, 2006.

Topic: Employee Retention

Date: Wednesday September 20th, 2006

Place: Bankers Hall Auditorium
Lower Level, 315 8th Avenue SW, Calgary, AB

Time: 11:30 - 12PM - Networking
12PM - 1PM - Luncheon

. email: info@hdi-calgary.org
voice: 403-663-3322 X 331
web: http://www.hdi-calgary.org
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