Between them these will allow a problem to be handled at the front or second line by people, and resolved in part by hardware, software and information. One benefit of Year 2000 is that it is forcing organisations to compile an inventory of their IT systems for the first time ever. Although Year 2000 offers many problems, it also provides the opportunity to get IT right for the first time in a generation. Those responsible for customer service may not share that sentiment, but as with any potential or actual negative situation, the millennium gives us many challenges and opportunities for positive change. To recap, you must measure and remeasure and develop a support strategy, before aiming higher and developing corporate-level programmes.
Measurement is useful in itself, but it also provides a good argument for broader change.
To be effective, you and your staff will have to be in control, not only of day to day events but of future times of chaos or change. Effectiveness should be inherent not only in the operational aspects of the help desk, but at the forward-planning, strategic level as well. Once control is achieved, you can move on to the fourth 'state of maturity', integration, when the ideal customer service culture you have developed is spread into all other relevant and key parts of the organisation. Finally, if you want to take service to its highest level of recognition, you can spend time developing the final state of maturity, optimisation, perhaps enrolling the help of the board of directors and many employees in developing a collective ideal, or vision, for the organisation. Such a step can see an organisation being totally reformed from the bottom up and top down, as was the case at the UK retailer Tesco, after a survey of retail manager performance in showed it trailing its main competitors.