June 2017, issue 2, volume 19

Dive into the world of

managed service providers
In this issue:
Gaining insight into customer satisfaction The advantages of contract management
Make your IT organization more customer-focused with customer journey mapping
Editorial Contents June '17

On the cover:

In this magazine, we dive deeper

into the world of managed service
providers. On page 10, a TOPdesk UX
designer of our MSP team reveals all
about the developments in TOPdesk
software created specifically for
managed service providers.

Killing your darlings Read more on page 10

Have you ever written an article? Or even a book? Then its Feedback is an essential part
of the improvement process.
likely youve run into the term killing your darlings. Darlings
are those words, sentences, and even chapters that we are
often most proud of. We love them, and we want to keep
Rick Wijers, business process
them. Often to the point that we almost dont care if those improvement consultant, Ctac

bits are clear to readers or not.

04 News
The same goes for other projects. Sometimes you find out 06 Extreme insight into customer satisfaction
that your ideas are outdated. That something worked great Read more on page 6 How Ctac is learning from every customer interaction
for a while, but no longer meets your customers wishes. So
what do you do? Although painful, you start over. Yes, you 10 MSPs in focus
throw away something youre proud of. But guess what? It TOPdesks
 functional designer about developing software
helps you create the best version of your work yet. specifically for MSPs

And were about to do the same with TOPdesk Magazine.

13 Column
Dont worry, were not actually going to kill the magazine. Build or play
Were just going to move with our times and try something
new and better: going fully digital. Youll be able to read all
14 
The contracts signed and sealed. Now what?
your favourite articles on blog.topdesk.com. Getting to happy customers
16 Transparent services? CERM knows how
But before we get all teary eyed, lets talk about what you
can find in this magazine. Read all about Managed Service
Services in motion
Providers, TOPdesk CEO Wolter Smit talks about why building
Read more about customer journey mapping on page 21
21 From ticket to tour operator
is more fun when youre a child, and you can learn how to
How customer journey mapping makes for a more customer-

keep customers happy with contract management.
focused IT organization
Happy reading! 24 Integrating with your customers service
management tool
Acacia Kooij & Nicola van de Velde
28 tips + tricks
4 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNE 2017
Stay up-to-date
To stay up-to-date with the latest
TOPdesk news and service
management developments,
follow us via these channels.
TOPdesk Newsletter
@TOPdesk @TOPdesk _UK
facebook.com/TOPdesk
linkedin.com/company/topdesk
community.topdesk.com
@TOPdesk
Tara Swords
I WON! Thank you @TOPdesk
This new tablet will be used daily!!!
@StNicholasAdult @OCSB_LT
@CanConnectEd
itSMF UK
Useful blog via @TOPdesk on #ITIL
success tips. Wed also add start
small, dont adopt everything
just because
https://itsm.tools/2017/04/19/6-tips-
successful-itil-adoption/
News
Calendar
Worcade TOPdesk attends Microsoft Inspire event
05
OCT
BE
Working with TOPdesk Support via Worcade TOPdesk will attend Microsoft Inspire from 9 to 13 July in Washington D.C., USA.
TOPdesk on Tour
Microsoft Inspire is the new name for the renowned Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference,
Antwerp
Would you like to stay up-to-date on your calls with TOPdesk Support from your own TOPdesk which attracts around 15,000 participants each year. At this event, Microsoft shares
environment? TOPdesk Support is now connected to the collaboration platform Worcade, helping information about their strategy. This helps partners anticipate new developments in order to
you collaborate seamlessly with TOPdesk Support from your own TOPdesk environment. offer their customers better services.
You can start a conversation with support@TOPdesk.com from a call in your own TOPdesk Microsoft Inspire offers plenty of opportunity for networking, including TOPdesk. Are you
invironment. You choose which information you share with Support. A new call is automatically visiting the Microsoft Inspire event? And would you like to learn more about current service
created in TOPdesk Supports environment, which links to the same Worcade conversation. This management topics like shared service management, shift left and KCS? Be sure to schedule
way, you always have the latest details about call, and you dont have to copy data back and forth. an appointment with one of our consultants.
Worcade is available in all version of the new TOPdesk. Want to get to work with Worcade? Visit the Microsoft Inspire website for more information and to sign up for this event.
Visit www.worcade.com.
20 22 UK
JUN JUN
A new start for TOPdesk Magazine
New TOPdesk 5 release with Chrome fix The Facilities Show
ExCeL Centre, London
After a print run of 12 years. TOPdesk Magazine is turning over a new leaf. From this month
On 13 April, TOPdesk released a new software version: TOPdesk 5.7.SR7. This service release onwards, TOPdesk is going fully digital. TOPdesk is proud of this more environmentally friendly
contains a fix for Chrome issues and replaces TOPdesk 5.7.SR6. way of publishing, and excited about the advantages of digitizing for our readers.
05
JUL
07
JUL
TOPdesk version 5.7.SR6 was released three weeks ago. However, customers using Chrome 57 What can you expect? On blog.topdesk.com, readers can experience a variety of topics in the
UCISA SSG17
for TOPdesk were experiencing problems. TOPdesk stepped in quickly, resulting in the release of Bristol world of service management. Stay informed about the latest TOPdesk news on blog.topdesk.
version 5.7.SR7 which contains a fix for the Chrome issues. This newest version replaces the SR6 com/updates. Here you will also find monthly tips and tricks. Looking for larger articles,
version and is similar with regards to functionality. ebooks and customer cases? Visit resources.topdesk.com.
Did you recently update to version 5.7.SR6? We advise you to update to version 5.7.SR7. TOPdesk 19
JUL
customers can download this version in knowledge item KI 8766. You can find the release
SDI Showcase
documentation on our extranet. The known errors of this version are described in knowledge
Manchester
item KI 4795.
13
JUL
US
Microsoft Inspire
Washington D.C.
6 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNE 2017
Bert Huijsen, director cloud services and customer care
and Rick Wijers, business process improvement consultant
Ctac implements and manages its own
Extreme insight into
hi-tech cash register solution for omnichannel
retailing, XV Retail Suite, and Microsoft and
SAP systems on any cloud. The company serves
customer satisfaction
hundreds of customers from different size
companies and in different lines of business:
from retail and wholesale to manufacturing
and real estate. Bert Huijsen has been director
of cloud services and customer care at Ctac
How Ctac is learning from every customer interaction since 2014. His primary task? Making sure all
customers are happy with the services Ctac
offers them.
Ctacs service desk handles dozens of calls from customers every day. These interactions Getting closer to the customer
Managed service providers cant survive
greatly influence customer satisfaction for this IT service provider specialized in cloud
if their customers arent happy. We focus
integration. How does Ctac measure the key performance indicator of customer everything we do on making life better for the
satisfaction? And what knowledge do they gain from customer satisfaction statistics? customer, says Huijsen. He has a clear vision.
We want to be as close to the customer as
Text: Niek Steenhuis Photography: Aad Hogendoorn we can be. So, what we say to our customer is:
where do you want to be in five years, well use
our expertise to help you get there. Enabling
your Ambition is our guiding principle.
If you really want to collaborate with the
customer, you need extreme insight into
customer satisfaction. Huijsen: We already
took care of this for projects and consultancy
services. At least once a year, each consultant
asks his or her customers what they think
of him or her. And weve added a Customer
Improvement Program (CIP) to our contracts.
Once or twice a year we have a session with
the customer where we look at their strategy
and how Ctac can support that strategy.
While Ctac takes care of management for
its customers, there was no proper insight into
customer satisfaction. Huijsen: We process
a lot of calls every day and of course we strive
to solve them within the existing SLAs. But
that doesnt give us any information about
customer satisfaction. Its perfectly possible to
TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNE 2017 7
comply with all service level agreements while
both you and your customer arent satisfied.
Automatic registration
In 2015 Ctac takes the first step towards
making their processes more measurable,
helping them map customer satisfaction for
calls. Rick Wijers is closely involved in the
change as process improvement consultant.
We started looking for an efficient and
simple way to record customer satisfaction for
each call. TOPdesk provided the software they
needed. The organization was already using
TOPdesk to structure calls and malfunctions.
Our TOPdesk consultant told us that TOPdesk
provides an easy way for customers to rate the
way their calls are dealt with. When we heard
this, the decision was easy.
8 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNI 2017
Feedback as part of the process
Wijers: We want to make it easy for the
customer to give feedback. So, we made
feedback part of the process for closing
calls. When one of our operators puts a
call on finished for process, the customer
automatically receives an email. The email
contains a link to a form where the customer
can indicate whether their call has in fact
been resolved. Before they press the button
to confirm, the customer rates, on a scale of
1 to 4, how happy they are with the way their
call was dealt with. The customer can leave
written feedback as well. And if the call hasnt
been resolved? The customer can indicate why
they dont feel their call has been resolved
and the call is returned to the consultant who
worked on it.
Three birds with one stone
This feedback method lets Ctac kill three birds
with one stone: they collect the customers
feedback for each call, its easier for the
customer to click on a rating rather than write
an email, and the process has monitoring for
calls that are resolved but havent been closed.
Consultants used to send an email to the
customer when they believed a call had been
resolved, Huijsen explains. Sometimes the
consultant would forget this step, but more
often the customer would forget to respond.
There was a build-up of calls that didnt get
closed even though the work was done. Now
weve automated the whole process. If the
customer doesnt respond to the first email,
we send a reminder after three days, and
another one after six days. After nine days,
the call is closed automatically.
Benefits to the organization
The new approach has clear benefits for all
parties, Wijers adds. For customers, all it
takes to close a call is to pick a rating, give
additional feedback if they want, and confirm
TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNI 2017 9
with a click. Our service desk no longer has Huijsen and Wijers are optimistic for the
to spend time checking whether calls have future of customer satisfaction at Ctac. We
been closed. And potential friction between want to streamline our processes as much
the service desk and consultants is prevented as possible. The only way to know youre
because they dont have to send emails or call successful is if your customer says you are.
back-and-forth about the status of a call. Were meeting our SLAs, but does that mean
we reach our goals? Having the right process
Goal-oriented improvements
in TOPdesk is a big step towards making sure
we do. And were working hard on increasing
We are taking steps
Ctac uses the feedback they get for different customer satisfaction. After all, happy towards providing better
purposes. Huijsen: All calls are stored in customers is what its all about.
a database so we can use them to create services to our customers.
reports. To help us find out the scores for each
team, for example. If a customer provides
additional feedback, we always send the
feedback to their consultant. If a customer
gives a low rating, we always give them a
call. We dont want to debate their rating. We
simply want to know why theyre dissatisfied
and we want the customer to know we listen
to them and use their feedback to improve.
This way, we take steps towards providing
better services to our customers.
From collecting to improving
Ctac tested the system internally for six
weeks before rolling it out to ten customers.
The system is now widely used and Huijsen
and Wijers are satisfied. The first challenged
we faced in this transformation was how to
collect data. But we made it work. Now were
working on the next step: we discuss the data
in meetings, we have screens showing how
teams are performing, and our customer care
managers use the input for meetings with
individual customers, says Huijsen
Wijers adds: The more insight and data we
get for customer satisfaction, the more we
can improve our processes. We can compare
priorities and teams to see what we can learn
from each other. The input from customers
is also important to our problem manager.
With more input the problem manager can
identify more problems that would otherwise
go unnoticed.
10 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNE 2017 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNE 2017 11

MSPs in focus
TOPdesks functional designer about developing
software specifically for MSPs
Organizations are focusing more and more on their core business. Others tasks, such
as services, are being outsourced to Managed Service Providers. TOPdesk recognizes
the importance of MSPs in todays business. How does TOPdesk show this? Discover
the latest developments that help boost your service delivery.
Text: Acacia Kooij Illustration: Frank van Klink

The best service delivery
What is the primary task of managed service providers? Service
delivery. This is different to other TOPdesk customers, who often
use service management software for internal support. If TOPdesks
software doesnt meet the MSPs service needs, MSPs wont be able
to perform their core tasks as well. As a result, MSPs contact TOPdesk
directly. Understandable? Certainly. After all, they want to offer the
best service possible.
record specific agreements and customer wishes in TOPdesk. How did
one of our MSP customers respond? We can now easily record our
services and ensure that every service desk employee always links the
right service. The service desk employees know exactly what they need
to do.
Reports
Why are reports important to managed service providers?

It starts with the basics Showing added value

The most important goal of managed service providers is customer
satisfaction. A happy customer is loyal and wont switch suppliers
as quickly. Which role does TOPdesk play in improving customer
satisfaction? It starts with facilitating a stable basic service delivery.
Which steps does TOPdesk take to get the basics right?
Service Level Management
If youre a managed service provider, how do you improve the
collaboration with your customers? Make sure your customers and
service employees know exactly which agreements are in the contract.
Your customers will know what to expect of you, and your service desk
employees know how to support the customer.
At TOPdesk weve been working hard to make it easier to record
service levels within SLM. With the newest functionalities you can easily
When an MSP does a good job, everything goes smoothly and the
customer wont notice anything. Customers only notice when
something goes wrongs. Reports make your added value visible.
Identifying bottlenecks in the process
Good services start with smooth processes. The data from your reports
help you discover what is going well and what isnt. Is it you or your
supplier? Based on this analysis you can improve your processes.
TOPdesk is currently working hard to signal bottlenecks faster. Were
working on reports that show you how long it takes before a call is
picked up. Youll be able to see how long it takes before the end user
responds, or whether a supplier is doing their job.

12 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNE 2017
Self-service portal
The help desk is not always open. And your customer doesnt
always feel like calling. How can you still offer your services? Let end
Reports make your
users solve problems themselves by giving customers a self-service
portal. TOPdesk helps you create a customized self-service portal for each
customer. The look-and-feel is easily adjusted to match your customers
corporate identity. And you can also adjust functionalities to meet your
added value visible.
customers needs.
How does this work in practice? Imagine if you manage the IT
infrastructure for a school. This school also has customers: teachers and
students. One of the students has a question about a test. What does the
student do? He or she logs a request in the self-service portal with the
corporate identity of school A. But the self-service portal doesnt belong
to school A. It belongs to the managed service provider. The end user is
helped, and has no idea which invisible service provider is hidden behind
the look and feel of the school. Mission accomplished.
Column
Wolter Smit, directeur TOPdesk
Build or play?
My kids love Lego. Especially my eldest son. Kapla is another
favourite. Kapla are uniform pieces of wood that you can stack
to build incredible pieces of architecture.
My son loves building things. Just starting off with a vague idea and
a big stack of blocks and then creating something. And the vague
idea changes multiple times throughout the building process. Does
it matter? No. Any problems he encounters he solves simply by
building more.
The strange thing is he almost never plays with what hes built. The
game is in the act of building itself. Avoid finishing something at all
costs. If its finished, its not fun anymore.
I wont be surprised if my sons path is going to lead him into a tech
job. Lots of tech people I know used to play the same way when
they were kids. Later theyd move on to carpentry, soldering or, of
course, programming. Anything as long as theres something to
build or tinker with. As long as theres a project.
When tech people get to pick their own tools for improving the way
they work, its tempting to pick a big pile of bricks and blocks you
could do anything with. You get to build things from that pile. And
Its tempting to pick a big
building is fun. You can make whatever you want. pile of bricks and blocks you
But what we often fail to take into account is that for children, could do anything with.
building is free. You do it in your free time, for fun. In real life,
building and tinkering with software takes a lot of time and,
because of that, it costs a lot of money. You need time from
developers, or you need to fly in an expensive consultant. So find something your customers can use right away, without
spending too much time on the configuration. Its not just about
Besides, youre never finished. Theres always something you could saving costs on building. You also get the results you want faster.
build, improve or change. But then you also have to keep spending.
The goal of your changes should be that you can play with your My son also likes to shoot toy darts with his friends. He doesnt
improved set-up as soon as possible. The sooner your employees build his weapon out of Lego. He prefers a tool from the toy shop:
and customers can start making their work more fun and more a Nerf gun. He can use it right out of the box and it shoots his darts
productive, the better. 20 meters far.
14 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNE 2017 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNE 2017 15

Andr Kevenaar
is a TOPdesk who focuses on aligning TOPdesk to the
processes of contract and procurement departments.

The contract is signed

and sealed. Now what?
Getting to happy customers

You signed the contract. Your customer signed the contract. You are their new managed
service provider. Now lets get that contract into the filing cabinet. When we think about what
a contract is, we tend to think of an important piece of paper best stored away in a drawer
or scanned into a computer system: passive contract management. But you can do so much
more with your contract, so whats more important than passive contract management?
Active contract management. How do you follow through on what you signed for?
Text: Fijke Roelofsen

Imagine this: due to a technical malfunction, none of your customers
employees can send any emails. You and this customer agreed in your
contract that you solve email malfunctions within four hours. In this
case, thats the most important agreement in your contract. Why?
Because it ensures the quality of your everyday service delivery.
Contract management, why do you need it?
As a managed service provider you take on the role of supplier for
your customers. Whats typical of MSPs? You have lots of different
customers. And you have a different contract with each customer.
When a customer calls, the service desk operator has to know what
agreements you have. Do they have to drop everything and solve this
issue, or do they have a few days to fix it? So how do you make that
information available in an easy way?
Consider how many services you offer, and how many service
levels you have. For instance, try creating three levels: gold, silver and
bronze. A bronze subscription means you solve problems within three
days, while a customer with a gold subscription can expect a solution
within one hour. Make your services and service levels as clear as
possible for your customer. That way your customer can get a clear
idea of what services they can get from you, which service levels you
offer and what the costs are.
Is your customer looking for processing times you dont offer in
your existing service levels? Create bespoke work that ticks all their
boxes. But do keep in mind that keeping track of bespoke work and its
prices takes a lot of time.
Diagnose the problem
Imagine a call comes in on Tuesday about a malfunctioning printer.
You can determine how much time you have based on whether your
customer has a gold, silver or bronze subscription. When you contact
the customer, you may not have a solution just yet. So what do you do?
Diagnose the problem and provide a clear indication of how long
it will take to solve. Your customer wants to know whether there will
be extra costs and whether youre complying with the agreements in
your contract.
Occasionally it may happen that you cant solve a problem within
the time agreed upon in the contract. If that happens, tell the customer
youre aware of the agreements, but unfortunately are unable to
adhere to them in this case. This way you create clear expectations for
your customer.
Evaluate the current situation
Whether you meet with your customer every month or just once a
year, make sure you can always account for your performance. How
many calls have you solved? And were you always able to provide the
service levels that come with the gold subscription?
Make sure your customers always know which services they buy
from you and what theyre paying you for them. Also keep track of how
youre adhering to agreements and report that information back to
your customer. Is everything in order? Then youve laid the foundation
for excellent services. Youre on your way to happy customers.
16 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNE 2017 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNE 2017 17

Transparent
services? CERM
knows how
Over 200 narrow web label printers worldwide have
their business processes running on ERP software created
by CERM. Good support is vital for these organizations.
Thats why the helpdesk went digital. What are the
benefits of the switch from operator to IT service
management software?
Text: Leo Kranenburg Photography: Aad Hogendoorn

See this bottle? Geert van Damme puts two
cups of coffee and a bottle of mineral water
on the meeting table and joins us. One of our
customers prints the labels on this bottles.
The same goes for disposable coffee cups,
labels and stickers on cleaning products,
grocery bags, envelops and milk cartons. We
develop, sell and implement ERP software for
narrow web label printers a niche market.
But at any time, every household has at least
twenty products in their home our customers
have worked on.
Problems require good services
Geert van Damme is managing director at
CERM. He has final responsibility for the
development, sale and implementation of
ERP software for narrow web label printers.
Our customers use our system to keep their
entire business process running from quote
to invoicing. This means that when theres
something wrong with our software, the
consequences could be major. Internally at our
customers this isnt a big problem. They are
often small companies, sometimes no more
than twenty employees. But their customers
are usually very large industrial concerns.

Geert van Damme, managing director

18 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNE 2017
Were talking about billion dollar companies.
And these companies have high demands for
the services provided by our customers. Good
services and quick problem solving are vital, so
our customer can always keep working, Van
Damme explains.
Increased work pressure at
the help desk
What used to happen when something
was wrong or when an organization had a
question? They would phone the secretariat.
But that became more and more work the
bigger we got, according to Van Damme. Our
operator would forward at least a hundred calls
a day to the helpdesk. And at the helpdesk, our
colleagues spent a lot time processing all these
calls, says Van Damme.
The way of working at the helpdesk also
needed some improving. Phone calls were
recorded in a self-built messaging module.
These records didnt include a corresponding
ticket number. Our employees couldnt see
the connection between different contact
moments. We didnt know if a conversation we
had yesterday with a customer corresponded
to an email we received a day later.
Not enough transparency
Van Damme: Our helpdesk wasnt
transparent enough. Yes, we helped the
customer quickly and did a good job. But this
was only seen by the customers we talked to.
The ones receiving the invoice didnt get that
insight and started to wonder more and more
what we did in exchange for those invoices
and if the amounts we asked were fair.
Improving helpdesk processes
We arrived at a point where we couldnt
give account to our customers, but also
not to ourselves. The solution? Improving
the processes at the helpdesk. In 2015
Van Damme implemented TOPdesk in the
organization step-by-step. In the first phase,
a handful of employees started working
with the tool. The next step? The entire
organization. CERM also introduces TOPdesk
at their customer in phases. Van Damme:
The advantage for CERM as managed service
provider is that we can add customers to
TOPdesk in phases. Its not like an inventory
list that you need to have in one system or the
other. You can start small to see what works
and what doesnt. Weve used an instruction
video and a short workshop for the first
customer who joined and added people until
all our customer were using TOPdesk.
100% justifiable invoices
We can now also show our customers who
is calling, how often they call and which
questions they ask. This makes it possible
to fully justify our invoices towards our
Instead of four days,
invoicing now only takes
about four hours per month.
customers. For each call, we can, depending
on the status, check if it can be closed and if
everything is filled in correctly. If this is the
case, the call is automatically forwarded to our
finance department. This saves us an enormous
amount of time. Instead of four days, it now
only takes about four hours per month.
Customers see the advantage
At first, customers werent unanimously
enthusiastic about the new way of working.
The more official you make things; the less
satisfied customers are. Whether its reserving
a company car or introducing new helpdesk
software. This was also the case for us.
Customers are used to picking up the phone
TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNE 2017 19
and talking to someone right away. Now they
first need to log a call in a self-service portal.
But now all employees at CERMs customers
are used to the self-service portal and they
see the advantage. They can quickly see the
status of their call and they appreciate the
automatic alerts for status changes. Employees
are without exception very satisfied about
our new approach, especially because of the
transparency. They can now see which calls are
logged and how theyre processed. This gives
them input for their own improvements.
Do more with fewer people
And thats what its all about, says Van
Damme. We offer good services to
our customers, but this became almost
unaffordable because we spent a lot of time
on it. Thanks to the clear structure of the
helpdesk, we can do more with fewer people.
And we can effectively work on improving our
services and those of our customers.
 20 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNE 2017
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TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNE 2017 21
Wes Heemskerk
is consultant at TOPdesk and expert in customer experience.
From ticket to tour operator
How customer journey mapping makes for a more
customer-focused IT organization
You work at a service provider and your goal is to provide excellent services. You receive
daily feedback from customers on your services. There is room for improvement, but
where do you start? Your first step: a customer journey.
Text: Niek Steenhuis Illustration: Martin de Rooij
As a managed service provider, you can no longer hide behind KPIs on The most common customer journey in IT service management is
the technical performance of your services. Reaching all your SLAs is a customer who wants a solution for a disruption. But having just
no guarantee for high customer satisfaction. This is the same in the one customer journey is not enough. There are many more customer
world of IT, its all about customer experience. How do I measure this journeys that matter. Think of every time your customer is looking for
experience? How do I translate my results into insights? And how do I an answer, requests a quote, places an order or passes on a change in his
use these insights to improve my services? contact details. And maybe the most important customer journey: a new
customer that comes aboard. Thats the first moment you as a service
provider can prove youre an excellent guide on customer journeys.
Discover the glitch in your services According to research, its good to focus your attention on the entire
You can do this with a customer journey. With a customer journey, you customer journey. Organizations that offer good services from start to
put yourself in your customers shoes. You create a profile of one or more finish have higher customer satisfaction, lower customer churn rate and
stereotypical customers and look at your services through their eyes. You happier customers. Providing good services all-round works better than
map all interactions and channels the customer uses to reach his goal. trying to exceed your customers expectations with additional features
This way, you discover which elements in the customer journey need or large discounts.
some attention. Once you know, you can improve on those elements.
h ttp://www.mckinsey.com/business- Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers -
functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/
from-touchpoints-to-journeys-seeing-the-
Matthew Dixon, Karen Freeman &
Nicholas Toman Harvard Business Review
world-as-customers-do july-august 2010
22 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNE 2017 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNE 2017 23

What does a customer journey look like for
service providers?
A customer journey comprises multiple contact moments often
more than you might think. When processing a call or order, there are
various interactions through different channels.
Think how often a customer searches for an answer to their question
via multiple channels. First, he checks the online knowledge base. No
luck. He creates a call via your online portal. The service desk requests
more information via an email. Your customer emails an incomplete
all, a customer doesnt care which department they talk to, they just
want their trip to be quick and comfortable.
From touchpoints to journeys
Interactions in a customer journey are sometimes also called
touchpoints. Most service providers are very focused on managing
Providing good services
individual touchpoints and try to improve customer experience based all-round works better
on these points. Service providers often ask feedback after the customer
contacted the service desk, for example. This helps customer satisfaction than trying to exceed your
What do your customer journeys look like?
Want to get started with customer journeys? Dont let the fact that you
havent collected enough customer feedback hold you back. Just make
a start.
Sit down some colleagues and choose a customer journey you think
needs improving. Create one or more profiles of stereotypical customers

answer; the service desk calls your customer and asks about the
problem. They email the customer a solution, but the solution doesnt
work. After some back and forth contact via chat, the question is
finally answered.
All these moments of interaction form the customer journey. In this
case the journey is your customer searches for an answer. Do you
think the customer labels this journey as a smooth ride?
You usually, but not exclusively, have contact with your customer
via the service desk and the online portal. Sales also plays a role in
requests for quotes and back office specialists might be in direct
contact with your customers as well. If you want to offer a smooth
customer journey, its important to map all departments involved. After
customers expectations
a lot, but theres more. and map a customer journey. This already gives a good indication of
In the end, your customers dont care about a specific touchpoint. the most important moments in your services. Later, you can test your
Customer contact with the services is in some cases nothing more than
one link in the larger customer journey. When your customer looks back
with additional features assumptions against the actual customer experience and use this to
further perfect your customer journey.
on the service provided, its all about the complete picture. What is the or large discounts.
experience of all touchpoints combined? Thats why its important to ask Want to know how to create a customer journey step by step? Read my
feedback at the end of the journey as well. blog at blog.topdesk.com
Sometimes improvements can be made in moments before you have
contact with your customer. Maybe your service desk is very good at
helping customers. However, if customers searched hours in vain for a
solution in your online knowledge base, they are probably not happy
about your services.
24 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNE 2017 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNE 2017 25

Patrick Mackaaij
is a marketeer at team Worcade.

Integrating with your

customers service time your customer dont keep you up to date on personnel changes.
Logging in to your customers TOPdesk environment isnt a solution either
also describes what you need to do when you have communicated
more than one support email address to your customers.

management tool
it would just shift the problem.
In Worcade, the conversation participants automatically collaborate.
No need to log into the customers environment or vice versa.
2. Link your TOPdesk environment to Worcade
In TOPdesk, go to Functional Settings > Worcade and click Connect
to Worcade.

How do you communicate via Worcade? 3. Set up a mailbox for Worcade

Do you support other organizations? Theres a big chance that your customers have their
own service management tool. Link your TOPdesk environment to Worcade. You and your
customer can easily share information while still working in your own tool.
What is Worcade?
Worcade is a collaboration platform for service professionals. From
customer to manufacturer: everyone works together in Worcade, no
matter their tool or location of choice. This has three benefits.
All communication in one place
Your customer communicates with multiple suppliers via different
channels, like phone, email and service management tools. Your
customer doesnt have a central portal for all his information and no
real overview of all these channels. Maybe you meet your customer in
the middle and log into his service management tool. But this means
that you dont have an overview of your activities.
With Worcade you communicate through a single channel and have
all information in one place. You work via TOPdesk and the customer
has its own service management tool.
Automatic information transfer
Searching information, copying, pasting, emailing sharing data
with your customer requires some handiwork. Worcade eliminates
this. When your customer sends you a message via Worcade, a call is
automatically logged or updated in TOPdesk.
Does your customer also work with TOPdesk? Then sharing
information is done with a single click. Your customer sends requests,
actions or attachments in a call directly from their environment
to yours.
Manage your login details
Are you giving your customer access to your TOPdesk environment?
Understandable, but not ideal. Your customer needs to keep track of extra
login details and it costs you more time to keep your books. You need to
keep track of which contact persons need access, because most of the
Your customer can initiate a Worcade conversation by sending an
email to the email address provided by you. These messages are
automatically processed in TOPdesk.
For new conversations, TOPdesk creates a call card on the name of
the original caller. The Worcade conversation is directly linked to
the new call.
 For messages about current calls, TOPdesk updates the existing
call card.
How do I link TOPdesk to Worcade?
Worcade is available for free for all versions of the new TOPdesk. In just
three steps you can link your TOPdesk environment to Worcade.
1. Configure a TOPdesk mail import
Create a mailbox on your server Worcade can send emails to.
Do you already have a mailbox that is linked to TOPdesk and you
would like to use for this? Perfect, move on to step 2.
No mailbox linked to TOPdesk yet? Or do you want to use a new email
address? Configure a new mail import for TOPdesk according to the
step-by-step plan on this webpage: https://worca.de/zo3yv. This plan
The email address you choose for Worcade can be set up in TOPdesk via
Functional Settings > Worcade > Mail import email address.
For a good overview of the link you can create an alias for Worcade, for
example worcade_support@yourorganizationname.com. This way, you
can automatically process email messages with rules on your mail server.
What does my customer need to do?
Does your customer also work with TOPdesk? Then the only thing your
customer needs to do is enable Worcade in their TOPdesk environment
via Functional Settings > Worcade > Connect to Worcade. After enabling,
they can start a conversation with your organization from each call card.
Does your customer use a different service management tool then
TOPdesk? They can link the tool to the platform via the public API
from Worcade.
Your customer doesnt have a service management tool? Then they
can work in Worcade.
What to do with my knowledge base and forms?
With Worcade you offer your customers an easily accessible
communication channel. At the moment, this communication does not
include any knowledge base and forms used in your organization. How
can you solve this if you do need that information?
26 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - MARCH 2017
If you have a well-maintained TOPdesk knowledge base, you want your
customers to search this system before they log a new call. Nothing needs
to change there. Ask your customers to first consult your knowledge base
before they log a call through Worcade.
Do you intensively use forms to collect important information to
quickly process a call? Then you need to consider if and when you want
to use Worcade. Do you want to make customer contact as accessible
as possible? Then you can use Worcade. Do you think its important
that a customer fills in all information for a call in one go? Then its
probably better to use forms. In this case, you can still use Worcade to
communicate with your suppliers.
Staying up-to-date
Worcade is continuously growing and developing. Stay up-to-date and
subscribe to our newsletter: https://worca.de/5c0x8.
SUPPORT YOUR
Editorial
Download this issue and more at www.scribd.com/TOPdesk
EMPLOYEES IN
The TOPdesk Magazine covers subjects that are topical in
USING YOUR
the world of professional service desks in IT, facilities and
other service providing organizations. TOPdesk Magazine SELFSERVICEDESK
is intended for managers, service desk employees, facilities
organizations and electronic city councils anyone who
To get the most out of this software, it is important to motivate
is involved with supporting clients on a daily basis. This
and help your employees. Use the professional and effective
concerns both the processes and the technology behind
communication of Agency DDC.
these services.
Through professional communication, Agency DDC (TOPdesk
TOPdesk Magazine is a TOPdesk publication, official solution partner) will increase the number of successful
+44 (0) 207 803 4200, editorial@topdesk.com ServiceDesk users.
Editors-in-chief and copy editors: Acacia Kooij, Nicola van Visit www.agencyddc.com/changecommunication/ssd
to learn more about DDC services. Or contact one of our
de Velde
communication advisors at +31(0) 88 012 02 50.
Translators: Fijke Roelofsen, Laura van Rosenberg, Nicola van
de Velde
Contributors: Meta de Best, Willem Bottema, Geert van
Damme, Wes Heemskerk, Bert Huijsen, Andr Kevenaar,
Patrick Mackaaij, Wolter Smit, Rick Wijers
Layout: Denise van Rijst, Pascal van der Stel
Illustration: Frank van Klink, Martin de Rooij
Photography: Aad Hoogendoorn, Menno van der Bijl
A print run of 10,000
Quarterly magazine
Languages: Dutch, English
Copyright 2017 TOPdesk. Although this publication has
been produced with the utmost care and attention, the
writers cannot be held responsible in any way for any
damages that may occur due to errors and / or deficiencies
in this publication.
Official TOPdesk partners: 3Fifty, AskRoger!, Bomgar, DDC,
Delta-N, Gartner, IBIS Software, Mavim, Nexthink, OGD,
Okta, Partners in Technology, Plandatis, RES Software,
Servitect, Scope4mation, Snow Software, Testersuite,
The Backbone, TimeTell, Tools4ever, Victa
PA R T N E R I N E F F E C T I V E C O M M U N I C AT I O N . W W W. AG E N C Y D D C . C O M
28 TOPDESK MAGAZINE - JUNE 2017
tips + tricks
Setting up flexible opening hours per call
Do you strive to provide perfect services? Dont leave your
customer stranded in front of a closed door. Record the
opening hours of your sewrvice desk on a service window
card in TOPdesk. This way, you create a service window in
which calls are processed. When you indicate a duration in
a call, TOPdesk takes this service window into account when
determining the target date.
Did you agree with your customers to process certain calls
outside regular opening hours? In the latest TOPdesk you can
easily offer a different service window in a service per priority.
This means that a call with high priority can be processed
outside office hours, but that normal calls are only processed
within office hours.
Via the Contract Management and SLM module you can easily
change the service window per priority:
1. Go to Modules > Contract Management and SLM >
Service levels
2. Open a Service Level card
3. Fill in the Priority matrix
4. Indicate a service window for each filled-in priority
www.topdesk.com
Staying up-to-date on status
of search indexes
Quickly want to find a card, like a call or operator, in TOPdesk?
Use the TOPdesk search function. You can find this option in
de quick search bar under the magnifying glass icon.
TOPdesk generates automatic search indexes to ensure the
search function works correctly. Is this not the case? Then
the search function is unavailable. You can see this when
the search field turns red and has a red border.
Do you as operator want to know when the search indexes
are generated incorrectly? Fill in your email address and
automatically receive an email when a search index can
not be generated.
1. Go to Technical Settings > Search > General: Search index
2. Fill in your email address under Email address for
failing index
3. Save the settings
To send an email, you need to have set up an SMTP server
for TOPdesk.
Do you have a SaaS solution? Then TOPdesk monitors if the
search indexes are performed correctly for you. You dont
(and cant) set up an email address.