There’s no need to wait in line at the local Blockbuster; you can watch Netflix on demand. You can order your groceries online and have them delivered, print a boarding pass at the airport kiosk (no humans necessary!), and have your dry-cleaning delivered with just a click. Even GPS systems, which were once a luxury in cars, are becoming a standard. Have we lost our sense of direction? No, we like having a faster, more convenient way of getting there.

The workplace is no different. Chances are your office cafeteria has swipe cards, self-service, and grab-and-go options. If you’re in sales or marketing, your company may have invested in a pricey CRM solution to boost your productivity. If you’re in accounting, or any department really, it’s the same: get more done in less time.

“Whichever solution he chooses, he’s right where he started – lost in a sea of #REF!s.”

Time is money, indeed. It’s an old saying, but in the current financial climate, stakeholders, company owners and managers really mean it. So, why then, when it comes to delivering convenient, efficient support for desktop and mobile device applications is it not a priority for IT leaders?

Consider the following example: Employee X just switched positions within a company, and he is now responsible for his division’s quarterly sales reports. When he tries to update the existing spreadsheet with current figures, his formulas return errors. He’s stuck, and he has no idea how to begin to troubleshoot.

He can ask a colleague to help, which will waste the time of two employees. He can scan Excel’s often-useless help menu. Or he can call a help desk tech who spends all day resetting passwords and rebooting servers.

Whichever solution he chooses, he’s right where he started – lost in a sea of #REF!s, and far from a solution that is efficient and convenient. And not only is he stymied, his company is losing money on his diminished productivity.

If he had access to on-demand, expert support for his desktop applications, the same applications he and the rest of his colleagues rely on every day to stay productive, this dilemma would be a minor interruption, with minimal impact on his productivity. (Stephanie Maurer)

FIND MORE INFO IN: Small Business | BlackBerry + Mobile Devices | Office 2007 Migration | PC Helps eTraining | Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps

Windows 7 is upon us. New operating system, new Office suite. Let the games begin.

According to a leading industry source, about 50 percent of enterprise-sized IT infrastructures are running mixed Microsoft Office end-user environments. That’s a whole lot of wasted investment.

Then there are companies who waited for that whole Vista debacle to blow over. They kept XP and Office 2003, with the aim of upgrading when Windows 7 was released.

Windows 7 is upon us. New operating system, new Office suite. Let the games begin.

We have compiled a list of the most common Office 2007 user questions and issues, and it was recently published by IT World. You can read it here. Take notes, and happy migrating.

PC Helps also recently published a white paper on the subject, titled “The Myths and Realities of an Office 2007 and Windows 7 Migration.” Download it for free http://www.pchelps.com/html/o2007mythsrealitiesroi.asp

MORE INFO IN: Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps

When half your knowledge workers are using one version and the rest another, that’s a whole lot of lost functionality — and wasted time.

The recession and Office 2007’s immense learning curve are partly to blame, but, ultimately, it’s you, the IT leader, who must take responsibility for diminished return on investment. There’s still time to finish your migration; here are six reasons why you should:

1. ROI: You purchased X number of licenses and only have migrated half. You do the math: You purchased the upgrade for a reason — to take advantage of new and easier to find productivity features.

2. The dreaded Office 2007 learning curve: As evident in the hundreds of expletive-laced Tweets about Office 2007, the new user interface is a downright shock to many knowledge workers. Where’s the file menu? How do you save a document? What is this Ribbon? If you finish your migration, you will not have to face these questions again when you decide to upgrade to the next version (which also has a Ribbon interface).

3. New features: As stated in Reason No. 1, you purchased the upgrade for a reason — to increase worker productivity from the new and improved features (for example, Excel 2007 includes new formulas such as IFERROR, and more columns and rows).

4. The Ribbon is here to stay: Despite the existence of third-party add-ins that make 2007 look and act like 2003, installing them is counterproductive. The beta version of Office 2010 includes the Ribbon interface, and I suspect future versions will too. Embrace it.

5. Document compatibility: When you save 2007 documents in earlier formats, they lose some functionality. When half your knowledge workers are using one version and the rest another, that’s a whole lot of lost functionality — and wasted time.

6. User frustration: See Reasons 2-5.

Time to finish what you started.♦

MORE INFO IN: Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps

Myth No. 1: You can make Office 2007 look and act like Office 2003.

“Two words: no menus. Two more: no toolbars.”

Scads of third-party applications have cropped up that promise to make Office 2007 look and act like 2003. Some are effective; most miss the point. Holding on to the old interface will only serve to diminish your Office 2007 migration return on investment.

Myth No. 2: Migration support needs disappear completely after a few weeks.

No, no, no. Microsoft designed the new interface to make it easier for users to find features that were available in older versions, but were buried in an elaborate menu structure. It’s working, too. Months into a rollout, your employees will be finding tools they never knew existed – and they will need help learning how to use them. To expect IT generalists to know how to use long-hidden features is downright unreasonable.

Myth No. 3: Migrating to Office 2007 is like every other migration.

Two words: no menus. Two more: no toolbars.

Many users will not even be able to open files without training and help. Office 2007 is a complete overhaul of the user interface. In previous upgrades, knowledge of how to get to features in the previous version got users where they wanted to go 95 percent of the time. With 2007, it’s zero percent.

Myth No. 4: Handling a migration without outside help will give my staff a chance to shine.

Don’t turn your IT staff into scapegoats. The scale of end-user need when Office 2007 hits a desktop guarantees your IT department will be overwhelmed.

Myth No. 5: I have smart employees. They’ll have no problem figuring out how to use Office 2007 on their own.

An employee does not call the general help desk when he can get the answer from a colleague who sits near him. If none of his colleagues know how to use Office 2007, and he calls a generalist at the help desk, how much expertise will he find there?

FIND MORE INFO IN: Office 2007 Migration Checklist + Tools | Migration Case Study | PC Helps eTraining |Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps

Lesson 1: Icebergs and Undergrounds

In the common view of desktop application support, calls typically account for less than 5 percent of help desk volume. Very often, the percentage is even less than 1 percent. The visible portion of the “iceberg” is quite small.

But, like an iceberg, what you see on the surface (that is, what most CIOs see when reviewing help desk metrics) is merely a fraction of what truly exists. The reality is that the demand is there; it’s just being absorbed by the organization in other forms:

• Peer support (Joe asks Mary for help)
• Abandoned support (Joe gets stuck and walks away from the task altogether)
• Rework (Joe can’t figure out how to make the software do what he needs so he re-tools his work to get around the problem)
• Self-help (Joe wastes time consulting the software help feature, scouring the Internet for help, reviewing manuals, etc.)

The productivity impact of these “underground” support channels averages three hours per solution at a cost of $48 to $196 per solution (depending on salary). And this doesn’t even account for the additional cost of the peer’s time (e.g., Mary in the example above). In comparison, the average solution with a best-of-breeds software application support provider is less than $25.
The true level of demand typically ranges from 5 percent to 15 percent of all help desk call volume, assuming all troubled end-users are reaching out to the help desk instead of consulting their underground channels. When a company is migrating to a new software suite or version, or rolling out additional mobile devices, the surge in demand for support can reach 40 percent or more of help desk volume.

Lesson 2: Contrasting Models

There is a significant contrast between supporting desktop applications under the standard help desk model versus employing a best-of-breeds approach for “how-to” support.
The standard help desk model employs a tiered support structure where only a relatively small percentage of issues (around 20 percent) are resolved on the first call, another roughly 35 percent require a few days to turn around, and the remaining 45 percent either take longer than a few days, or sometimes never find resolution.
This model staffs agents for things like break/fix, network connectivity issues, and hardware and software installs. They are, by design, generalists that have little knowledge on desktop applications and mobile devices (“jack of all trades, master of none,” to borrow a phrase). Additionally, the typical help desk is built on the premise of “lean staffing,” meaning nominal off-hours coverage, fewer bodies than required to meet peak calling periods, and frequent “leave a message” instances for troubled end-users.

In sharp contrast, a best-of-breeds sourcing partner does not employ a tiered support structure, leading to 90 percent or more of issues being resolved on the first call, and virtually no issue outstanding beyond 24 hours (excluding certain time-intensive development projects). Unlike the typical help desk model, a best-of-breeds sourcing partner employs certified software specialists on the front lines that focus exclusive attention, day in and day out, on desktop application and mobile device support. In this model, response time is critical, listening to music in queue is offensive, and leaving a voicemail is completely unacceptable.

Additional contrast stems from that exclusive focus. A best-of-breeds sourcing partner solves the real problem, not merely the symptoms described by the end-user, in addition to identifying related topics, delivering multiple solutions on the same call, and recommending future courses of action for training. The specialist, by virtue of experience and expertise, can solve today’s issue and reduce tomorrow’s need for similar support. That translates into dramatically enhanced ROI for an organization’s investment in software and mobile devices.

Lesson 3: Apples & Oranges, and How Much They Really Cost

The typical perception of specialized desktop application support is that it is expensive compared to average help desk metrics. The reasoning follows a general pattern: Our average call lasts X minutes and costs Y dollars. The average call to a niche, “how-to” support provider is expensive when compared to our internal cost per call for help desk assistance.
But that’s comparing apples to oranges.

For starters, comparing “costs per call” completely misses the key distinction between a “call” and a “solution.” While a typical help desk call may focus on an isolated, solitary issue and the associated solution such as “connecting to the web,” desktop application support generally requires the delivery of multiple solutions on a single call.

A customer calling in about Excel, for example, may need help fixing a formula, formatting cells, and modifying a pivot table before the support session can be successfully ended. The end result is a much lower cost-per-solution delivered – and one that no doubt required a much higher level of experience and expertise to address.

So, while typical calls to a help desk may cost an average $80 per solution, a specialized partner can deliver solutions for a fraction of this cost.

Aside from getting the terms right, it is also inaccurate to compare the average help desk call with the average “how-to” solution. A help desk handles a disproportionately high number of quick-fix issues (such as password resets, which can average 30 percent or more of all help desk service requests).

Such quick-fix calls skew the average length and cost of a help desk call. If that same help desk examined average minutes spent on just one subset of its data – namely, desktop application and mobile device issues – the numbers tell a very different story.

Lesson 4: A Breakfast Analogy

Training and support are not the same. Training complements support, like milk complements Cheerios, but training is not a viable substitute for support. Still, many IT managers will reason that, since all employees go through training when they are hired and perhaps even periodically thereafter, there is no need for desktop application support. This is flawed for two primary reasons.

First, while training is effective at addressing common and repeated needs, it is highly ineffective – and inefficient – at meeting specialized needs at unpredictable times, which is the very nature of a desktop application support issue. For example, if my company is switching from Lotus Notes to Outlook, it is smart to offer upfront training to teach employees how to attach files, use distribution lists, make calendar entries, etc. – tasks everyone needs to know how to do from the start. But if I cannot figure out why my net present value calculation in Excel is yielding a negative number for the interest rate, training is of no help to me, even if I was the star pupil at every class the company offered.

Beyond that, even a well-trained knowledge worker is highly likely to forget what he/she learned when the time comes to use a key feature or apply a technique within the application or device. Think about the student who studies, aces the exam, and, two months later, cannot remember a lick of what he learned.

Lesson 5: Full-Circle

The presence or absence of quality desktop application and mobile device support feeds a recurring cycle of events.

When support is poor, end-user satisfaction is low. This leads to a low number of calls to the help desk on “how-to” questions and an increase in the need for support, as evidenced by end-users seeking help from peers or other time-consuming sources. This gap in support costs companies an average of three hours of lost productivity per “how-to” issue (see Lesson 1: The Iceberg). But an organization will never see this gap by merely looking at its help desk stats. It is hidden from plain view.

On the contrary, when the gap is bridged with top-notch support, end-user satisfaction increases, as does the number of calls for desktop application and mobile device support. It seems paradoxical, but consider this: When the availability of quality, prompt support becomes known and is then reinforced by experience, the demand shifts from peer support to the newly enhanced help desk. Bridging this gap brings an immediate productivity gain (i.e., winning back the three hours per solution) and a future productivity gain.

An IT manager may ask: Why would I go looking for additional calls? After all, I’m trying to decrease help desk call volume. The real question should be: Why would I allow my company to continue wasting $48 to $196 per “how-to” solution when an alternative model could yield the same solutions for $25?

Have you asked yourself that question? (Jen Darr, Stephanie Maurer)

FIND MORE INFO IN: Download the Full White Paper | Related Case Study | PC Helps eTraining |Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps

In an e-mail response, a reader pointed out an even greater obstacle, something he called the infuriation factor.

“The reason I don’t call our help desk is because it is outsourced to desks outside the U.S.,” he wrote. “The ‘Help’ can’t speak English adequately enough to understand or communicate effectively. A problem which should only take five or 10 minutes to resolve sometimes takes as long as an hour and a half.”

He has a point, and it’s a biggie, for sure.

“Desktop application support is often treated as an afterthought, or a small piece of a gargantuan, all-in-one outsourcing deal.”

Most of us have had a frustrating help desk experience or two, where we were placed on hold, forced to listen to tinny ’80s Lite rock, only to be “helped” – eventually – by someone whose English was so-so, and who was proficient only in gatekeeping.

I’m not by any means xenophobic, and I’m not offended if an ATM asks if I’d like to bank in Spanish, Hindi or English, but the point of desktop application support – or any support – is to clear up conundrums. That’s hard to accomplish if the people involved cannot communicate with each other. It’s even more difficult if the help desk employs a tiered structure and bounces callers around until they get a technician who can actually help.

The language issue is a symptom of a larger outsourcing problem. That is, that because the need for desktop application support isn’t easily quantifiable, and because it’s difficult to prove return on investment with such services, it’s is often treated as an afterthought, or a small piece of a gargantuan, all-in-one outsourcing deal. This not only sullies the help desk’s image, it also tarnishes the IT department’s reputation overall.

Recent industry publications have suggested that multimillion dollar outsourcing deals are the stuff of history, and that companies have begun opting for nimbler, best-of-breed help desk outsourcers. Still, the challenges remain: how to change the help desk’s reputation, how to prove its value, and how to keep an eye on the budget. (Jen Darr)

Is your IT department all-in-one or best-of-breed? Tell us in comments or send us an e-mail.

MORE INFO IN: 5 Lessons to Learn Before Outsourcing | Hidden Demand | Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps

After more than an hour of trial and error, she couldn’t find the feature she used in previous versions, so she devised a workaround with the space bar to nudge and align.

She asked two of her fellow teachers for help. They couldn’t figure it out either, and they too were using the spacebar fix.

Her opinion of Office 2007 after this experience?

“It sucks. I hate it.”

Teacher A spent more than an hour coming up with her Band-aid workaround. But her solution isn’t a solution at all: She now spends more time on each presentation nudging and aligning.

If she would have called her school district help desk, a consultant would have solved her problem in less than half the time. She could have passed along the information to her colleagues, saving them each an hour. She may have even learned how to use tools that are new to the version.

When asked why she didn’t call the help desk, she said she didn’t think the question was important enough. Besides, she added, she didn’t have time to waste on the phone.

Her opinion of Office 2007 after this experience? “It sucks. I hate it.”

This is typical in workplaces. Even at companies where quality desktop application support is offered, employees hesitate to utilize the service.

One reason is to avoid embarrassment. Many workers have learned their computer skills informally on the job, so they are reluctant to call the help desk for what they perceive is a “stupid” question.

Another reason, and chief among them, is an assumed time investment. Most people have had a frustrating help desk experience or two, where they were placed on hold, forced to listen to tinny, instrumental versions of Cat Stevens hits, only to be “helped” — eventually — by someone who is familiar with everything but proficient in nothing.

So instead, they tap the office software “expert” for help, pulling her away from her job and wasting twice the company effort. Or they fruitlessly scan Microsoft Help files and search the web.

The result is a whopping waste of investment in software. The point of an upgrade is to give users new, usually improved and expanded capabilities. If employees do not have access to training and support, they will naturally come to the conclusion that Office 2007 sucks. That sucks for your bottom line. (Jen Darr)

MORE INFO IN: Office 2007 migration checklist | contact PC Helps

According to a leading industry source, more than 50 percent of enterprise-sized IT infrastructures are running mixed Microsoft Office end-user environments. The reasons are many: the recent “econolypse” spurred IT leaders to cut budgets and lay off workers, leaving Office 2007 deployments incomplete; IT management underestimated the amount of work that a migration required, and they reacted by halting phased rollouts; and some CIOs and other IT leaders who were not mandated to deploy the new version to the entire company doled it out in a “drip” fashion.

The result is an enterprise that looks something like this: Half of your employees use Office 2007, and the rest are still running Office 2003. All you’ve heard from the former are “Where’s the file menu?” and “How do I save a document?” From the latter, you’ve likely endured endless grumbling about their frustration with Office 2003-incompatible files created by colleagues.

It’s not just user aggravation you have to worry about either. Running two versions invites compatibility issues, minimizes the return on your Office 2007 investment, and keeps your internal help desk semi-knowledgeable about the software.

We’ve compiled a kit that will show you how to cost-effectively finish your Office 2007 migration while minimizing the end-user and help desk learning curve, increase productivity and more accurately project call volume. You can view it here.

MORE INFO IN: Office 2007 Migration Case Study | Office 2007 Migration Assurance Program | Migration Readiness Checklist | Migration Competitive Analysis | Contact PC Helps

Click to download your free Windows 7 and Office 2007 Migration Readiness Kit.

Part One, The Big Picture:

Expert support and training before, during, and after deployment is the key to a successful migration. You will need to tackle the steep learning curve and minimize downtime so your employees can regain the confidence and knowledge necessary to remain productive.

Some questions to keep in mind: If the average end-user was completing 30 tasks per day prior to migrating, what will it take to bring them back up to that level once Windows 7 and Office 2007 are deployed?

• Technical support and training for employees before, during, and after migration.
• Live, expert support and training, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• Focused project timelines to coordinate deployment, support and training.
• Awareness campaigns that let employees know where to get software help.

Do you have enough internal bandwidth and full-time employees to learn, teach, deploy and support this migration? If not, you will need the following:

• Assistance fielding immediate migration questions, which allows your internal IT staff to attend to deployment procedures and day-to-day support calls outside the Microsoft package. This allows you to maintain call flow and eliminate call abandonment and employee frustration.
• Ongoing call analysis and solution-based reporting to identify target training needs.
• Office 2007 training options, including custom, interactive, group, individual and on-demand training, plus a self-help knowledgebase.
• With a usage-based migration program, you will not need to hire additional full-time employees, a consulting group, or outside trainers.

If you are surprised by the work that goes into a migration, you should be.

Part Two, the Readiness Checklist:
You want successful transition to Windows 7 and Office 2007, and early ROI. In order to meet those goals, you need to keep your employees informed and trained before, during and after deployment. With a plan in place, you will minimize or eliminate dips in productivity and give your workers confidence to use the tools they rely on every day. This is what you should expect from a migration partner:

Before

• Educate employees about what’s to come via e-mail, newsletters or the company intranet
• Create an employee education campaign, with live, expert training and support
• Offer instructor-led, Internet-based training
• Provide access to a self-service learning portal with hundreds of Windows 7 and Office 2007 audio & visual tutorials
• Train internal IT staff on basic, intermediate and advanced frequently asked questions
• Alter voice response unit (VRU) message to address specific migration calls

During

• Continue employee education campaign, with live, expert training and support
• Offer instructor-led, Internet-based training
• Provide access to a self-service learning portal with hundreds of audio & visual tutorials
• Provide immediate, expert support on Windows 7 and Office 2007 applications, 24 hours a day, seven days a week
• Deliver “type 2″ and related topic training to all employees during and following support calls
• Offer live, web-based training sessions covering specific applications: Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook; beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Select group, individual or customized sessions

After

• Continue employee education campaign, with live, expert training and support
• Continue to offer instructor-led, Internet-based training
• Provide access to a self-service learning portal with hundreds of audio & visual tutorials
• Solution-based call details, productivity measures
• Call analysis identifying targeted training needs
• Quality assurance program measuring user satisfaction, call complexity reporting and downtime analysis
• Monthly e-mail newsletter featuring tips, tricks and shortcuts

If you are surprised by the amount of work that goes into a migration, you should be. It’s not a simple upgrade. No need for concern, though — that’s the migration partner’s job.

There are awareness campaigns to launch before, questions to field during, and inevitable glitches to handle after. And that’s just a slice of what to expect.

Part Three, the Matrix:

At no other time is staffing more important than during a migration, when employees will be struggling with or even resistant to the challenges of change. There are education awareness campaigns to launch before, questions and install issues to field during, and inevitable glitches to handle after. And that’s just a slice of what to expect.

You have four basic choices in staffing for a migration: hiring additional full-time employee(s); bringing in temp workers; contracting with an all-in-one outsourcer; or hiring a best-of-breed company. (Of course there’s a fifth choice – migrating without a staffing plan – but we’ll skip that option. You should too.)

Here’s a look at the pros and cons of each:

In principle, hiring additional full-time employees keeps the control in your hands, but doesn’t make sense financially or logistically. You will need to train new employees on Windows 7 and the entire Office 2007 suite, pay benefits, and dole out extra expenses for an after-hours support skeleton crew.

Such a significant time and money investment (at about $85 per call) does not make sense when you consider that you have no guarantee the new FTEs and your existing IT staff will be able to cover a full-swing migration while maintaining their regular duties. What’s more, your new employees will be generalists, supporting only a dozen or so applications. The average peak hold time for this solution is nine minutes, and the call abandonment rate is 10 percent.

At an average of $96 a call, temps are pricier than their full-time counterparts, and don’t even deliver better service (15 percent abandonment rate). A temp solution offers generalist support and an average 15-minute hold time during peak hours. It does not provide training, advanced Office 2007 and Windows 7 support, or awareness campaigns.

Choosing a larger outsourcer seems like a smart option if you already contract with one for other services. At $59 on average per call, this option is cheaper than hiring temps and full-timers. Also, some all-in-ones offer training in conjunction with a migration. The downside: The staff is mostly generalists whose first language is not English. Some big outsourcers employ tiered-model desks as well. When you factor in the 10-minute peak hold time and 15 percent call abandonment rate, this option loses its luster.

The fourth option, a best-of-breed, is often written off as boutique-y and expensive, and even more so during an economic downturn. The offerings are definitely high-end: domestic Microsoft-certified consultants; support for more than 160 applications, including advanced-level Office 2007; training courses and awareness campaigns; after-hours support; no hold time; a call abandonment rate of .01 percent; and a 91 percent first-call resolution rate. The price is anything but expensive, however, at an average of $25 per call.

FIND MORE INFO IN: Office 2007 Migration Checklist + Tools | Migration Case Study (.pdf) | PC Helps eTraining | Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps