Transforming a hospitality global service desk

Timeline 12 weeks

My Role Experience strategist

Team Roles Engagement lead, 2 technology strategists, researcher, call center SME

The Background

The client, a multinational corporation, faced challenges in delivering efficient technology support to its internal employees. The GSD is an associate technology support desk, driven by ticket volume and ticket resolution. The agents and support operations are outsourced to a 360+ person Accenture team based in the Philippines and compensated by ticket. Current users experience long response and resolution times, nontraditional callback schedules, and clunky self-help and support ticket assistance. While the current GSD is a process driven experience, the processes- especially intake & routing and governance- are often inefficient, unclear, and burdensome.

The Challenge

Current users experience long response and resolution times, nontraditional callback schedules, and clunky self-help and support ticket assistance. While the current GSD is a process driven experience, the processes- especially intake & routing and governance- are often inefficient, unclear, and burdensome.

The Plan: Define, Design, Deliver

Our mission was twofold: first, to identify the problems within the existing GSD system, and second, to create a future state that addressed these issues effectively. We explored three distinct solutions: refining management processes, redesigning the portal interface, and transitioning the call center from the Philippines to an internal location.

Define

User & Stakeholder Interviews

Conducting user and stakeholder interviews on a global scale allowed me to gain invaluable insights into the product's performance and user experience across diverse regions and markets. Through these extensive interactions, we uncovered a wealth of key pain points that shed light on the challenges faced by our users and the concerns of our stakeholders. These interviews provided us with a comprehensive understanding of the unique needs and preferences of our global audience, empowering us to make informed decisions and design solutions that address these critical issues.

Current Journey Map

Current Service Blueprint

The Current State Analysis

Through mapping pain points, stakeholder interviews and reviewing data from the surveys we observed there are two reoccurring themes: time resolution and associate knowledge. As we expanded into these pain points, we realized that the customer (Marriott Associate) experience is directly impacted by the associate (GSD Employee, contracted by Accenture) experience. Each customer touch point has a complex system of decisions the associate is required to make in real time to progress through the user flow. These decisions play a pivotal role in whether a customer becomes a promoter or a detractor.

Design

Our vision: the future-state GSD puts the customer at the front of operations and agent ways of working.

The top-notch user experience stems from excellent agent experience, efficient operations, omnichannel user flows, and effective and long-term monitored and measured success. Incentives and performance are driven by quality and the voice of the customer. The modernized model scales to the demand of the volume and geography, and yet maintains an excellent service center.

Aspriation user story

I want the GSD to be easily accessible through multiple channels, such as phone or chat. When I reach out to the GSD, I want to be able to verify my identity and resolve my issue quickly and efficiently. I also want the representative to be knowledgeable and friendly, so that I feel comfortable and confident in the assistance provided. Although I may be routed to different teams behind the scenes, I feel there is a single, seamless voice and journey and that all the agents are owning and advocating for my ticket.

Furthermore, I want the representative to clearly explain the process of how they are solving my issue. I want to be able to resolve my issue quickly so I can continue working without interruption.

Overall, I want to have a positive and hassle-free experience when using the GSD. I believe that a user-friendly and responsive help desk will help me feel supported and valued as an employee and will ultimately lead to greater productivity and satisfaction in my work.

Future state experience map

We identified, prioritized, and summarized gaps

To realize the future state customer experience, we identified five (5) key gaps to solve for in the future state recommendation.

Low Customer Experience
Questionable Quality Assurance and Training
Minimal Governance
Ineffective& Inaccurate Metrics
Lack of Tech Modernization

Deliver

Rebrand the GSD and tell a refreshed story

An updated interface and refreshed communications to complement the elevated user experience. As enhancements are made behind the scenes to support a new customer experience, the user interface should be updated to reflect those same improvements. This should include:

-A unique brand name for Marriott IT support (e.g., mHelp)

-An updated ServiceNow Portal to reflect the new brand

-A personalized Virtual Agent to interact with (e.g., Ava)

Align the IT support teams under a single voice and communicate how to interact with the GSD and other services within the ticket lifecycle

-Define a brand voice for the GSD and other support teams, to include IT Field Teams

-Begin with onboarding – catching new employees from day one of their Marriott journey – to share the brand story, and inform customers of how the GSD supports them and where they can go for help

-Capitalize on existing movements to refocus on the user (“Be”)

-Reflect new Brand Story on ServiceNow Portal and through targeted communications