Project Title

Outsourcing Field Services to Third Party Vendor.
Platinum level white glove service for all employees.

Client/Company/Project type  

Macy’s

 

My Role   

Senior Support / Macintosh Software Management, and Assistant Manager I was transitioned to the 3 rd Party vendor, as a Senior Support Specialist with the similar responsiblities.

 

Project Summary

The project was to transition seamlessly all remaining field service support roles to an external 3 rd party vendor by region. Herald Square and Bloomingdale’s in NYC, were the last locations to go as they housed both store and non-store employees.

Store Support transitioned with little impact to the users as they were getting registers, printers, and WiFi issues resolved with dedicated on site support and faster responses from available technians. Office Support / Executives were handled differently, as they required more hands-on, on-site technicains,  and faster response times. This group involved multiple dedicated locations requiring onsite dedicated technicians. Solutions included a more consistent way of creating tickets, requesting support, a clear boundry of what was and wasn’t supported; in addition to faster part replacements and repair availbilty.

The Challenge

Providing white glove executive support with new vendor with different organizational philosophies, trying to establish best practices in a new support model.  End users required and expected the same level of support and responsiveness no matter what.

Challenges:  
1: Establishing an inventory of replaceable parts: Keyboards; mice; laptop batteries; desk phones; docking stations; power cords; laptops; monitors.

2: Apple products:  OS compabitlity with internal systems (not ready for current or lastest Operating system and mac hardware is not able to be rolled back to an older os.);Apple Power supplies, compabitlie Apple keyboards; Mice; cables and Monitors.

3: Transition from being able to open tickets on our own, to waiting for the internal tickets to transfer to the 3 rd party vendor system in order to help end users. This challenge included: errors with wrong device types; wrong contact information; wrong building information; and sync issues between the 2 systems. Techniaicns struggled learning how to work off android phones with the 3 rd party custom ticket system, while responding to end users quickly and efficiently, while also addressing their complaints and concerns.

Solution    

Solution 1: Completed training and assisted co-workers  as they were learning the new work flows.

Solution 2:  Taught end users how to create tickets properly and walked them through how the new system for support worked. We also provided quick and responsive support, often resolving issues before the tickets had made it through the automated system.

Solution 3: Replacement parts were vastly improved once the new storage system and ordering process was established. It took 1-2 days to receive parts and replace broken devices.

Solution 3: Apple hardware repairs are difficult and take longer, but have impvoed with apple care alternatives, while times for replacement laptops can be ordered or purchased.

 

Lessons learned: Use the apple care warranty, and found alternatives to use in place of apple branded accessories to save money and replace broken apple mice / keyboards, and dongles.

 

Ticket System- training needs to be completed with your own device so you can truly get the feel for how to work through a ticket, as well access to the desktop version of the same system. Used company phone to respond to teams, emails, and complete the hardware repair process..

Results  

Support transitioned and stores were seeing a much faster turn around with their needs and improved support.

Executive Support changed to meet SLA agreement  of 4 hour and overall contract has been rewritten 5 different times. Each version of the contract invovled support changes for custom internal applications; printers; conference rooms; c-suite support; and special events.