HP Client Earned Top Honors In HDI Nordic 2009 Competition
Superior results in the areas of processes, people and performance earned HP client Wärtsilä top honors in the HDI Nordic 2009 Help Desk of the Year competition. The award was announced on September 10 at the HDI Nordic Connection 2009 Conference in Helsinki, Finland. Earning this award recognizes the commitment of Wärtsilä and HP to implement best practices and the highest quality standards to achieve true business value in the service desk area.
HDI Nordic Oy, an HDI Gold Partner, selected Wärtsilä from entries representing private and public-sector organizations of all sizes operating in Finland. Wärtsilä is a global leader in complete lifecycle power solutions for the marine and energy markets. By emphasizing technological innovation and total efficiency, Wärtsilä maximizes the environmental and economic performance of its customers’ vessels and power plants.
HP has provided information technology (IT) outsourcing services to Wärtsilä since 2004.
From Going Live To Going the Extra Mile
About the Wärtsilä Service Desk in Bangalore
- Handles approximately 11,000 tickets per month with 70 employees
- Receives on average 0.6 complaints per thousand, compared to an industry average of 2 per thousand
- Has a current customer satisfaction level of 96 percent
- Operates 24/7, providing services to more than 70 countries
- Had a 30-second response time of between 94 percent and 97 percent for the first half of 2009 – well above the 80 percent target
- Has team attrition of less than 5 percent
- Increased volume from 5,000 to 7,000 by adding 14 new services after going live
- Is a reference account for HP Service Desk services
- Has raised its ratings on the Wärtsilä internal information management survey by several points since go-live – from 2.5 to 4.9 on a scale of 6
The global Service Desk initially was in Dublin but was transitioned to Bangalore to increase user satisfaction and to meet the client’s requirements for quality standards and processes. The move to Bangalore took place in early 2007, and the Service Desk went live mid-March 2007. Gradually, the Wärtsilä team achieved 100 percent service-level compliance. Within six months, Wärtsilä was an HP reference account.
Wärtsilä and HP agree on what makes the relationship work.
“Our success with our client Wärtsilä can be attributed to our people and the cooperative partnership between Wärtsilä and HP,” explains Jari Mylly, HP account executive. “Our teams work closely together and meet face to face several times a year. There is equal participation from each side.
“We also have the flexibility to change processes or resources as required to provide the best customer service. This has a positive impact on our Service Desk employees, who work with the end users. Everyone works together to succeed,” Mylly says.
Sanna Pekari, general manager for user support for Wärtsilä, praises the exceptional commitment of the team that staffs the Service Desk.
“Our information management organization works closely with the Service Desk people – they’re more like an internal team operated by HP. This creates a great sense of cooperation, accountability and ownership,” Pekari says. “The HP people who work in our Service Desk daily make the difference. They have a service-oriented mentality and go the extra mile to help customers and resolve their issues.”
The Wärtsilä Service Desk team’s skills and commitment have been put to the test. Over the past two and a half years, Wärtsilä’s growth through acquisition significantly increased complexity, the size of its employee base and, as a result, its ticket volume. The ability of the Service Desk to handle greatly increased call volume while simultaneously improving customer service is a testament to the HP training process and the skills of its employees.
“Our winning this award helps position us in this area in comparison to other companies in Finland,“ Pekari says. “We now know that we have strong competencies in this area.”
Focus On Processes, People and Performance
In assessing candidates for its Help Desk of the Year award, HDI Nordic evaluated entrants in the areas of management, policies and strategy, personnel management, partnerships and resources, processes, staff satisfaction, customer satisfaction and performance. The competition auditors noted that the HP Wärtsilä Service Desk particularly stood out from the other entries in the areas of processes, people and performance.
The Wärtsilä Service Desk uses a pre-emptive management process in which metrics are more stringent to ensure HP delivers above expectations – and the team is accomplishing that impressively. Instead of the average rate of two complaints per thousand, the Wärtsilä Service Desk reports an average of 0.6 complaints per thousand. By using gained knowledge and repeatable solutions, the Wärtsilä Service Desk currently solves more than 90 percent of cases on the first contact – significantly higher than its service level agreement of 75 percent. Its customer satisfaction levels have been above 90 percent for more than a year and are currently at 96 percent.
“In spite of consistently strong metrics, Wärtsilä and HP are focused on continuously improving our processes and work together to find better ways of working,” says Mylly. “For example, we are working jointly on a self-help platform to help end users get answers quickly from the support home page. We will work with Wärtsilä to identify their end users’ most frequently asked questions and create the best responses. This will greatly enhance productivity and reduce calls to the Service Desk.
“The Help Desk of the Year award symbolizes our commitment to providing clients with the business outcomes that matter to them,” says Mylly. “We are proud of what we have achieved with Wärtsilä and look forward to continuing to demonstrate teamwork, service excellence and innovation to support them in their ongoing growth and industry leadership.”
HD Nordic is a Gold Partner of HDI, previously known as the Help Desk Institute. HDI is the world’s largest membership, training and certification association for technical support professionals. HDI Gold Partners work in coordination with HDI to achieve its mission of leading and promoting the IT help desk and service management profession on a global scale.