Quantifying the value of customer support

Fri Feb 15 22:15:49 UTC 2013

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

Can someone give an example on how i can calculate $ value from improving a
product/service usability and servicability? I am trying to categorize what
we offer :

1) Improve customer experience
2) Reduce service deployment time
3) Improve service availability

Regards
Kim

On Friday, February 15, 2013, Siegel, David wrote:

> There is no such thing as a generic business case that can be applied
> across all companies in an industry.  Every business is unique in its
> product definition and organization structure, but each question is also
> unique and therefore the analysis must be done every time.
>
> The way to begin is to ask this manager what he believes the possible
> outcomes are (downsize your group, eliminate your group, re-define your
> group, etc.) and then work with each of the key stakeholders that you have
> to estimate the impact of those outcomes.  For example, if 1st line
> operations indicates that eliminating your group would result in decreased
> customer satisfaction and missed SLA's, ask them to quantify it as much as
> possible and go to take the numbers back to your business people to have
> them estimate the impact on revenue.
>
> The analysis should be constructed and presented in standard finance terms
> (like NPV) so I would suggest that you make friends with someone in finance
> to assist you with the preparation.  You can also take a short two-day
> course like this
> http://executive.mit.edu/openenrollment/program/fundamentals_of_finance_for_the_technical_executive/16that will teach you how to build up these analysis yourself (I have taken
> the one referenced and I recommend it to all managers with budget
> responsibility).
>
> The outcome from these discussions often has surprising but positive
> outcomes for everyone...maintaining the status quo is not always the best
> possible outcome despite the biases we usually have when we begin the
> analysis.  :-)  If you work closely with all of your stakeholders, everyone
> will learn and benefit from the experience.
>
> Dave
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kasper Adel [mailto:karim.adel at gmail.com <javascript:;>]
> Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2013 2:16 PM
> To: Andrew Latham
> Cc: NANOG list
> Subject: Re: Quantifying the value of customer support
>
> I used to think that these kind of situations take place when a manager
> was never an engineer so he does not understand how things work but i was
> surprised when i faced these from managers with an intense engineering
> career so i gave up on trying to give conceptual excuses and want to just
> give them the dump tables and numbers that they are looking for.
>
> Kim
>
> On Thursday, February 14, 2013, Andrew Latham wrote:
>
> > On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 3:52 PM, Kasper Adel
> > <karim.adel at gmail.com <javascript:;><javascript:;>>
> > wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > We are a 2nd level of escalation in a service provider, trying to
> > > put a $ value on the support we give to our NOC and other
> > > implementation teams, when they email us about problems they face.
> > > But we are merely bits and bytes engineers that cant quantify and
> > > justify the value of what we do to the management team. I guess
> > > these smart suits want to see an excel sheet with a table of how
> > > much they save or gain by the support we do. We
> > respond
> > > to technical questions and simulate problems in a lab.
> > >
> > > Can anyone help me with an idea or any material i can reuse? Templates?
> > Has
> > > any one been in a similar situation.
> > >
> > > Thanks
> > > Kim
> >
> > Kasper/Karim/Kim
> >
> > Your job is customer retention.  Your value is maintaining all company
> > income.  Write the yearly revenue on a piece of paper and hand it to
> > them.
> >
> >
> > --
> > ~ Andrew "lathama" Latham lathama at gmail.com <javascript:;><javascript:;>
> > http://lathama.net ~
> >
>