Delivering Low-Cost, High-Quality Helpdesk Service Using the. Automated Service Agent for Windows. Vista. Situation

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1 Situation The Global Help team handles approximately 1 million service calls per year. Dealing with a static budget and an increasing volume of calls, the Global Help team wanted to meet quality service levels for all support requests without incurring additional costs. Solution The Global Help team implemented a Web based, interactive solution called Ask Fasthelp based on the Microsoft Automated Service Agent for Windows Vista. Ask Fasthelp combines the low cost of online support with delivery of immediate and high-value responses associated with customer support. Benefits Fast and accurate responses to common issues with uniform solutions for every session Ability of conversational language functionality to understand and respond to queries regardless of grammar or sentence structure Reliable, consistent, and actionable answers to users Rapid breakeven and ROI No infrastructure investment requirements Audit and reporting capability to finetune responses based on data from actual sessions Use of existing Helpdesk knowledge base and future knowledge from common Helpdesk tickets by updating the Ask Fasthelp knowledge base Products & Technologies Microsoft Automated Service Agent for Windows Vista Windows Internet Explorer Delivering Low-Cost, High-Quality Helpdesk Service Using the Automated Service Agent for Windows Vista Published: March 2008 To deflect service requests from service calls, the Global Help team deployed the Ask Fasthelp application for internal Microsoft users. Ask Fasthelp relies on the Microsoft Automated Service Agent for Windows Vista (ASA), which is powered by Microsoft conversational language technology, to provide users with an interactive, virtual customer service representative (CSR) who talks to customers via a text-based chat interface. Microsoft Information Technology (Microsoft IT) estimates that Ask Fasthelp will reduce the call volume to the Service Desk by 5 percent, resulting in annual cost savings of at least U.S. $1.5 million. Situation The Global Help team, like any enterprise IT support team, faces many options and decisions for how to combine people, technology, and processes in order to deliver results. With people, the Global Help team makes decisions such as centralizing or decentralizing management and outsourcing or using in-house staff. With technology, the Global Help team chooses the combination of various tools and technologies such as searchable frequently asked questions (FAQ), , online chat, and live phone support to resolve user issues. With processes, the Global Help team relies on established frameworks such as the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) to create repeatable procedures that enable people to use technology to provide excellent support service. Through past experience and improvement efforts, the Global Help team established a multitier support structure, implemented tools and technologies, and followed recommended best practices, as explained later. However, in doing so, the Global Help team attained a support structure that, despite using some less expensive support methods such as searchable FAQ and , heavily relied on costly, live phone support to ensure quality. For the 2008 fiscal year, the Global Help team was tasked with providing high-quality service for an increasing number of service requests without incurring additional costs. Because it had already repeatedly analyzed and improved call center processes in the past, and because it had made a heavy investment in people and infrastructure, the Global Help team turned to technology as a possible means to realize the goal of high-quality, low-cost service. The Global Help team understood that meeting the service quality demands of Helpdesk

2 requests required finding a way to use technology to reduce the number of Helpdesk requests that needed live phone support. Reducing the number of service calls proved challenging for the Global Help team because the technology used had to be at least as effective as live phone support, yet cost significantly less. Compounding the challenge was the complexity of the Microsoft environment and special user needs. For example, Microsoft users are technologically savvy, use an average of two computers per employee, administer their own systems, and install pre-release alpha and beta software. The Global Help team considered many possible technological solutions including FAQ, interactive voice response (IVR), and chat with various associated costs and service quality, as shown in Figure 1, realizing that service quality increases with service cost. More Time/Higher Cost $7.00-$33.00 per session Live Phone $3.00-$10.00 per session Online Chat Cost Search-based Help $1.50-$8.00 per session IVR $.04 per session Attended $.50 per session Low-cost, high-quality Microsoft ASA FAQ $.01 per session Service Quality Figure 1. Helpdesk technologies with associated quality costs Before choosing a solution that would reduce service call volume, the Global Help team considered the existing Helpdesk landscape to understand potential risks. The Global Help team supports 115,000 users in 100 countries for all IT issues covering more than 600 products and applications. In all, users call the Helpdesk over 1 million times per year. To handle this call volume, the Microsoft IT support environment consists of three tiers. When a user initially contacts the Helpdesk, the support request follows an established process of escalation. The Global Help team represents Tier 1 and Tier 2, named the Service Desk and Desk-side Support, respectively, as shown in Figure 2. Agent Page 2

3 Service Desk: 24x7 phone and chat support Desk-side Support: dispatch of onsite support during local business hours Figure 2. Helpdesk support landscape The Service Desk is staffed by more than 250 people across six locations, as explained in Table 1, and handles 64,000 contacts (0.6 contacts per user) per month. Desk-side Support is staffed by more than 275 people around the globe at most Microsoft locations and handles 22,000/.2 per client contacts per month. Of all service requests, 15 percent are resolved via Remote Assistance, and 65 percent of service requests receive instructions from guidance in the Helpdesk knowledge base. Table 1. Service Desk Locations and Support Details Location Languages supported Staff Percent of total volume handled Colorado Springs English Salt Lake City English Dublin French, German 15 8 Dalian Chinese 23 2 Tokyo Japanese 12 5 Bangalore English If the Service Desk cannot resolve a service request, the team forwards the service request to either Desk-side Support for hardware-related issues or the Tier 2 support team for a specific line-of-business (LOB) application, depending on the nature of the service request. If a service request cannot be resolved at either Tier 1 or Tier 2, it is forwarded to the specific technology area of each Microsoft IT Operations team associated with the product or service for the service request (messaging and collaboration, real-time communication, and so on). Combined, the IT Operations teams of each product or service represent Tier 3. The Global Help team must meet aggressive service levels at each tier, as shown in Table 2. Agent Page 3

4 Table 2. Global Help Team Service Level Quick Reference Service level Goal Actual Chat satisfaction 95% 97% Phone satisfaction 95% 97% Front-line operator resolution rate 95% 95% Dissatisfaction rate for Desk-side Support <5% 1.5% Dissatisfaction rate for Service Desk <4% 3.5% Service level Goal Estimated actual Chat time expectation 18 minutes 23 minutes Phone time expectation 15 minutes 23 minutes Phone speed to answer 75% within 60 seconds 80 seconds Additionally, the Global Help team pursues more detailed service levels that are relevant to each tier. The specific service level metric varies with the tier, such as: Service Desk The Service Desk handles incoming calls where prompt response time is important. As a result, it strives to meet these specific service levels: 85 percent of service requests resolved within 80 minutes 85 percent of service requests escalated to Tier 2/LOB within 60 minutes 80 percent of service requests resolved at the Service Desk Desk-side Support The support technicians in Desk-side support perform onsite services and strives to meet these specific service levels: 90 percent of software service requests resolved within 24 hours 85 percent of hardware service requests resolved within 48 hours As already mentioned, providing support for service requests via live phone is costly. In fact, the Global Help team estimates that at $20 per Service Desk call center contact and $75 per Desk-side Support topic, Microsoft IT spends more than $34 million per year for all support services. With the Microsoft employee base growing 10 to 15 percent per year while the Service Desk budget remains static, the Global Help team had to find a way to accommodate additional calls while maintaining costs and service levels. Solution At about the time the Global Help team looked into its options for reducing the amount of service calls, the ASA product group within Microsoft contacted the Global Help team in an effort to add knowledge from real-world Windows Vista service requests to its knowledge base. The Global Help team immediately saw an opportunity to use the ASA technologies as part of its Helpdesk tools portfolio and requested a demonstration from the ASA product group. After participating in the demonstration, the Global Help team calculated the resources, time, and cost required to implement the ASA solution. The initial breakeven calculations showed that the breakeven point was about 7,500 service requests per year, or 3 to 5 percent of overall call volume. The Global Help team saw the breakeven point as very Agent Page 4

5 achievable, even in as little as one month. Among other things, the ASA solution impressed the Global Help team because it provided the following possibilities: After we saw the ROI numbers from using even conservative estimates, it was an easy decision to implement Ask Fasthelp. Looking back on it after several months of operation, it was the right decision. Jeremy Eubanks Group Manager Microsoft Corporation Minimal resource commitment Because Ask Fasthelp is a hosted solution provided by the ASA product group, it requires no software development or support, and no hardware purchase or support. For integrating Ask Fasthelp with existing content repositories, such as FAQ and knowledge bases, the ASA product group provides the Global Help team with an administrative interface for simple operations. In this Software as a Service (SAAS) model, the Global Help team can quickly determine financial calculations, such as return on investment (ROI) and the breakeven point, because the ASA product group provides ongoing support and maintenance as part of the service agreement for a fixed price. User self-service Ask Fasthelp represents the next generation of self-service for users, combining the best traits of attended service such as live phone support with the best traits of traditional self-service tools such as FAQ and knowledge base article search. Similar to other self-service tools, Ask Fasthelp is available to users 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (24/7) and can serve a virtually infinite number of customers at once. Yet, Ask Fasthelp is different from traditional self-service tools because it also answers questions, offers to take actions when appropriate, and engages customers in a chat to solve problems interactively. Knowledge base and process re-use during design and deployment The Global Help team uses an internal trouble ticket and knowledge base system. When members of the team resolve trouble tickets, they often link to a knowledge base article so that the user can follow prescribed resolution instructions and obtain additional information. As of this writing, the Global Help team has developed more than 8,000 knowledge base articles, which represents a significant investment in the article database content and the process used to develop and update articles. With Ask Fasthelp, Microsoft IT can take advantage of this existing content and re-use it in the Ask Fasthelp database. Branding customization The ASA product group delivers Ask Fasthelp as code integrated in a Web page. The Global Help team wanted to ensure that the Web page fit with the overall colors, layout, and general branding of Microsoft IT. Therefore, the team planned to create a custom Web Part that integrated the Ask Fasthelp code from the ASA product group and preserved Microsoft IT branding. Conversational language interaction Powered by Microsoft technologies, Ask Fasthelp is easy to use and has conversational language functionalities that can discern the meaning and intent of user queries, regardless of grammar or sentence structure. The conversational language technology enables users to get precise, actionable answers and not pages of search results. Like human CSRs, Ask Fasthelp encourages users to express questions and problems in their own words. Scalable and flexible operations The Global Help team appreciated the management and administration features in Ask Fasthelp. Specifically, using the administrative interface to add, update, and modify the articles in the Ask Fasthelp knowledge base is convenient. Reporting and analysis Ask Fasthelp includes the capability to analyze performance and report on usage. For example, the Global Help team can view individual sessions to try to determine effectiveness, or it can run a report on session trends. Agent Page 5

6 Ask Fasthelp Design Considerations Hosted solutions, such as Ask Fasthelp, pose different design considerations than in-house solutions. For example, there are no hardware sizing or security considerations because those are part of the hosted service. Yet, some aspects still apply, such as project management, risk mitigation, and staffing needs. Before the Global Help team could implement the ASA solution, it considered the following aspects: It has been very rewarding to roll out Ask Fasthelp and see more and more users benefit from the convenience, timeliness, and accuracy of its support capabilities. Karrie Mathison Global Helpdesk Editor Microsoft Corporation Initial and ongoing staffing needs From the onset of the project, the Global Help team appointed one person, Karrie Mathison, to act as the coordinator and project owner who would work with the ASA product group to oversee the implementation of the solution and manage the project. Karrie began by securing funding for the project. When the need arose to enter knowledge base articles into the Ask Fasthelp administrative interface, Karrie used contingent staff for data entry. The Global Help team estimates that one to two full-time resources are necessary to run the initial pilot and later maintain knowledge base articles and perform reporting and analysis. Customization The Global Help team wanted to customize the interface that users see and make it conform to the appearance and functionality of other Microsoft IT tools and Web pages. The Global Help team performed several customizations. First, the team designed a general layout for Ask Fasthelp that included a header, footer, and body area. Next, the team created the cascading style sheet that conformed to the Microsoft IT style, including colors, fonts, and spacing. Finally, the team created the logo and page content. Knowledge base article selection The Global Help team considered both the technology category of articles to include and the articles within the categories. The Global Help team wanted to first address the technologies that involved the highest service call volumes, which were Windows Vista, Microsoft Office, and general networking. Accordingly, the team made plans to deploy each category, giving Windows Vista content the highest priority. The team also began to select which knowledge base articles should be included in the initial Windows Vista knowledge base. Using data from both the Service Desk and Deskside Support, the team analyzed the most common knowledge base articles used for resolving service requests. The most common categories were Windows Vista (9.23 percent of all service requests); networking (6.61 percent); Microsoft Office Outlook / (5.53 percent); password reset/local area network (5.53 percent); Connection Manager (4.64 percent); incoming call (4.09 percent); and smart card (3.00 percent). The team discovered that 200 knowledge base articles out of 8,000 were used to resolve 60 percent of the service requests. Accordingly, the team selected these 200 articles as the initial knowledge base for Ask Fasthelp. Before entering the article content, the team edited the content to ensure quality. Ask Fasthelp Implementation Considering the straightforward nature of the design considerations, the Global Help team systematically implemented Ask Fasthelp and began running a pilot only three months after starting the project. To implement Ask Fasthelp, Karrie worked closely with the ASA product group and coordinated activities for the Global Help team to ensure progress. The implementation steps corresponded to what was necessary for the Global Help team to deploy the solution, including the following: Agent Page 6

7 1. Web site deployment From the inception of the project, the Global Help team started to implement the design specifications for Ask Fasthelp. In accordance with the general goal to preserve Microsoft IT branding, the Global Help team designed a logo, used the approved color scheme (as shown in Figure 3), and obtained sign-off approval on the design. 2. Data entry in to the content knowledge base The Global Help team used contingent staff resources for entering the initial 200 articles into the Ask Fasthelp knowledge base and for entering additional articles. As of this writing, the Global Help team has included more than 700 articles in the Ask Fasthelp knowledge base. 3. Promotion User adoption was an important implementation consideration for the Global Help team because deflecting calls away from service centers required user knowledge of Ask Fasthelp availability. The Global Help team pursues many promotion strategies to drive adoption, such as demographics research, direct internal marketing, targeted campaigns to decision makers, creation and distribution of marketing collateral, participation in fairs and road shows, and site visits. Ask Fasthelp Operation Figure 3. Ask Fasthelp user interface After implementing Ask Fasthelp, the Global Help team required little effort to operate the tool. The typical operations tasks of supporting, tracking incidents, performing root cause analysis, generating and acting upon requests for change (RFCs), and so on do not apply to Agent Page 7

8 Ask Fasthelp because it is a managed service with no owned infrastructure. Nevertheless, some operational considerations exist with Ask Fasthelp. The primary operational task with Ask Fasthelp concerns the knowledge base articles their management and improvement. After loading the initial knowledge base for Windows Vista, the Global Help team still planned to deploy articles for Microsoft Office, networking, and other future categories. Entering the additional articles required contingent staff that edited and performed data entry. After all the articles are part of the knowledge base, the operational tasks deal with reporting, analysis, and process improvement. Karrie continues to be the manager of the Ask Fasthelp project, and performs operations tasks such as daily auditing of sessions to discover successful resolution metrics, running reports to identify trends, and modifying articles based on audit results to achieve improvement in resolution rates. The Global Help team expects operations tasks to persist in the future. As new categories are added, the articles must be entered and edited. And as users go through sessions and use articles, the sessions will be audited to analyze performance, identify opportunities for improvement, and implement changes based on these findings. Best Practices and Lessons Learned In the course of running the initial pilot and implementing Ask Fasthelp, the Global Help team developed several best practices. Because the ASA product group provides Ask Fasthelp as a service, the best practices focus more on project management and operations than deployment. Among other things, the Global Help team uses the following best practices: Prepare before implementation The Global Help team credits its success with the Ask Fasthelp project in part to the preparation that it performed before starting the implementation phase. By considering the customization required and selecting the project team, the Global Help team ensured that the people and processes were in place to implement the Ask Fasthelp technology. Run a pilot It is a Microsoft IT best practice to always run an initial pilot before rolling out a solution to the full production environment, and Ask Fasthelp was no exception. By running a pilot, the Global Help team both familiarized itself with the operations and administration necessary for Ask Fasthelp and quickly remedied issues without affecting many users. Perform daily audits As already mentioned, Ask Fasthelp includes reporting and analysis functionality. The Global Help team runs daily audits of service request sessions and examines them to identify improvement opportunities. Edit knowledge base articles before loading them The Global Help team set an early goal to make sure that answers from Ask Fasthelp would be concise and relevant. To achieve this goal, the team edited the knowledge base articles before loading them into Ask Fasthelp. Based on audit results, the Global Help team sometimes tweaks article content to ensure high service quality and prompt resolution of service requests. Benefits By implementing Ask Fasthelp, the Global Help team realized many business and technical benefits for its bottom line, users, and processes. Some benefits, such as cost savings and service request deflection from call centers, are dynamic the Global Help team expects Agent Page 8

9 them to increase in the future as user adoption increases. The benefits that the Global Help team realized include: Quantifiable benefits The Global Help team realized the following quantifiable benefits after implementing Ask Fasthelp: Breakeven The team initially projected its breakeven point at about 7,500 deflected calls, which it expected to achieve in three months. After implementing Ask Fasthelp, the team achieved its breakeven point in less than three months. The breakeven point was 3 to 5 percent of call volume. ROI Because the Global Help team is a cost center at Microsoft, not a profit center, the ROI calculation concerns not so much the additional net profit generated in comparison with the cost, but rather the net savings in comparison with the cost. The Global Help team expected Ask Fasthelp to save about $1.5 million annually with a 5 percent deflection rate. Call deflection The user-friendly interface in Ask Fasthelp enables employees to find the answers they need and get accurate help quickly with as little downtime as possible, allowing the Global Help team to refocus resources on higher-value calls. Nonquantifiable benefits The Global Help team also realized benefits that are more difficult to quantify, such as: Availability Ask Fasthelp is available 24/7 for true anytime self-help support availability. Improved end-user productivity The Global Help team deployed Windows Vista articles first in Ask Fasthelp, which helps users to fix common Vista support issues without losing productivity. Improved Windows Vista related Helpdesk operations Corporate Helpdesk agents that use the Windows Vista ASA can have faster call resolutions and improved accuracy by taking advantage of the Windows Vista ASA for inbound calls to the Helpdesk. Real-world validation In the course of designing, deploying, and operating Ask Fasthelp, both the ASA product group and the Global Help team recognized the business and technical benefits possible not only for Microsoft IT but to any enterprise customers. As a result, the ASA product group created the syndicated Windows Vista ASA and made it available to clients. The Windows Vista ASA uses the findings of the Global Help team to provide true turnkey implementation and operation proven in a real-world production environment for customers. Next Steps for Ask Fasthelp at Microsoft The Global Help team sees opportunities to make Ask Fasthelp even better. Now that the technology is in place, the team plans to evaluate and adjust processes and, if necessary, people in order to optimize Ask Fasthelp. Additionally, the team plans to integrate Ask Fasthelp with other tools and technologies to increase its effectiveness. Some of the changes considered for future improvements include: Callback functionality To provide a richer user experience, the Global Help team plans to implement callback functionality. When the Global Help team integrates callback functionality with Ask Fasthelp, users will experience a smarter ASA that provides the option to click a link or button and contact a live agent for additional assistance. Agent Page 9

10 Ask Fasthelp knowledge base entry part of Helpdesk knowledge base process With the initial implementation of Ask Fasthelp, Microsoft IT took existing Helpdesk knowledge base articles, determined the ones that were used most often, and made them part of the Ask Fasthelp database. In the future, the Global Help team wants to streamline this process by making entry into the Ask Fasthelp knowledge base part of the normal article creation process for Helpdesk staff. Conclusion At first, the Global Help team saw an opportunity with Ask Fasthelp to deflect service calls from call centers and provide users with one more self-help tool. However, Ask Fasthelp has become much more than that. The design and deployment process took only three months; it produced a ready solution for Windows Vista questions at first, and it will include many other categories of questions in the future. Ask Fasthelp has a great flexibility for later customization, such as integrating callback functionality. Overall, Ask Fasthelp has exceeded the Global Help team's expectations. The team expects Ask Fasthelp to continue to provide a positive ROI in the years to come. For More Information For more information about Microsoft products or services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada information Centre at (800) Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information via the World Wide Web, go to: Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This document is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft, Internet Explorer, Outlook, Windows, and Windows Vista are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. Agent Page 10