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Don't Panic, Don't Be a Vogon, Know Your Audience, Keep Them Informed

By Jason Klakoff posted 03-14-2017 20:59

  
In the beginning of “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, the Vogons arrive in orbit around Earth in large spaceships.  The head Vogon broadcasts plans for a hyperspatial express route to the habitants of Earth advising that the planet is one of those scheduled for demolition.  Understandably, the inhabitants of Earth panic and protest this decision.  The head Vogon is surprised and states, “All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now.”

When someone on Earth finally finds the correct radio frequency sends the message to the Vogons that Alpha Centauri is a bit out of our reach, the head Vogon becomes annoyed and dismissive.  “What do you mean you’ve never been to Alpha Centauri?  For heaven’s sake mankind, it’s only four light years away you know. I’m sorry, but if you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs that’s your own lookout.”
 
Know your audience
I think we can agree this scenario is an example of unreasonable communication practices between the service provider and its customers.  For those of us who directly interface with customers (I currently provide technical and training support at a law firm), regular communication prior to upcoming initiatives is key, whether it involves hardware/software upgrades, security protections or data loss prevention.  Your customers need to know how this will affect them and hopefully improve their work environment. 

My work history in Information Technology includes industries such as law firms and insurance companies where I learned that constant outbound communication is not enough.  Emails are a great way to get your message out but it can’t be just one-way. No one enjoys having an overburdened Inbox in the morning but I stress to my coworkers, “Burden me with emails, not surprises”. Encouraging them to ask first greatly reduces the time I spend cleaning up problems, and my coworkers have learned to recognize things that can cause problems, ultimately impacting their ability to do their own jobs.

Another part of effective communication is to understand the perspective of your customers – how they perform their jobs and why they do so in their own fashion.  We specialize in Information Technology while our customers have specializations in other areas, usually not Information Technology. We must share the information they need to do their jobs or to answer their questions without providing details they aren’t interested in or won’t understand. For example, I am often asked if we can send confidential data to a client in a secure manner.  My answer: “We have cloud services in place that employ the most secure method”.  I do not tell them we moved our cloud services from SSL to TLS and why the latest version, TLS 1.2, is the most secure and the levels of encryption involved.  (They asked what time it is, not how to build a watch.)

For me, this falls under the category of Business Perspective as defined by the ITIL Foundations, as part of the Continual Service Improvement stage. The constant theme of the guide books is building a teamwork mentality where we align the Business Organization with Information Technology Operations.  In the past, Information Technology was regarded as the necessary but reluctant expenditure when the business world moved from paper to PDF.  With the inclusion of frameworks such as ITIL, Information Technology is now the strategic partner with Business that produces a better workflow, increased resources and financial savings.

As part of the teamwork mentality, I do not regard my role as just first level support for my customers. I also find success in the role of first level Business Relationship Manager.  Assuming this role, however, means you no longer can act and dress like Roy and Moss in the BBC show “The IT Crowd”. Dressing the part shows your customers you are a part of their team and respect their business relationships with their external customers.

Setting User Expectations
Setting user expectations is important and for good reason.  The main reason:  It makes your job easier.  I repeat:  It makes your job easier.  Ever commit to a software upgrade that either drastically changes the user interface or completely replaces the software all together without informing the user?  No, because you will hear about it repeatedly and hear about it loudly.

This is the “P” part of the Deming cycle:  PDCA or “Plan-Do-Check-Act” or “Plan-Do-Check-Adjust”.  The ITIL Service Lifecycle and ITIL Processes are based on this principle.  The beginning of the “P” phase starts once a technical need has been established.  The solution is researched and acquired, the RFCs reviewed and signed and testing has been completed.  With all of this in place, we turn our attention to communication with users. (Thomas Jefferson said, “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.”  In this case, I am looking for people who are well-informed to be trusted with their own laptops.)

When we are preparing to deploy the new solution, the manner and frequency of communication is dependent on the level of significance in how it will affect my customers.  Regardless, each email sent should follow the same format:
  1. Acknowledgement of the issue of the current software or hardware in place
  2. Identify the solution and why IT has selected it
  3. The benefit it will provide the customer (this should be stressed!)
  4. The timeframe of the deployment
  5. Any actions required by either tech support or the customer
  6. And my final and paramount rule: Keep it brief (*know your audience)
Out of the six points above, #3 and #6 are most important. As a first level Business Relationship Manager, I need to understand how the customer works; that tells me how best to communicate how the new solution will benefit them. That’s what my customers are most interested in; otherwise, the project has little value to them. In most cases, upper IT management will send notices to the entire law firm and I follow those up with complimentary emails to my customers reinforcing my availability for questions or comments on the upcoming project.  I may take the brunt of the complaints and barrage of teleological inquiries instead of the CTO, but documenting this feedback in a cohesive format is an effective way of communicating back to the implementation team.

But be brief
.  Use bullet points and make the points quickly and succinctly.  Re-read your email before sending and look for overly technical explanations.  A Tolstoy-sized email will result in your customer either immediately moving on to the next email or moving it to a folder to read later, which we both know will never happen. (And aren’t we all guilty of that?) If they don’t read the message, it has the same impact as never telling them at all, and we all know what that leads to.
 
 
 
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