I am a huge proponent of surveys, especially those that solicit honest and open feedback from customers and that apply those solicitations to continually improve service. Anyone who uses Service Desk 7.1 is well aware of the lackluster survey mechanism inherent in the out-of-the-box product. With a few modifications, though, you can actually transform the survey into something great.
The foundation for designing the Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) Webpart was driven by my need to encourage Service Desk analysts—those responsible for resolving incidents and service requests—to make customer service their number one priority. The CSI Webpart is thus a visual representation of service performance as gauged by the customer. The intent here is two-fold: first, absolute transparency with customer satisfaction and second, a mechanism to facilitate service performance discussions with an analyst and his manager.
Without further ado, here is what the CSI Webpart looks like when rendered in ProcessManager.
Generating survey results on a just-in-time basis was not necessary as we currently average a less than 1 percent survey response rate. Instead, I was more concerned with causing performance issues by having the CSI Webpart constantly recalculating satisfaction scores. By default, the workflow caches survey results and recalculates the average CSI score every 8 hours.
High-Level Overview of How It Works
- Application Properties. There are two application properties that control the survey beginning and ending dates.
SurveyBeginDate (DateTime). The beginning date of the survey program. Allows you to change the program midstream and adjust the CSI calculation accordingly (i.e., helpful if you change the survey questions half way through the year).
SurveyEndDate (DateTime). The ending date of the survey program.
- Service Catalog Form. A service catalog item for the CSI form workflow project. Workflow projects can be added to the ProcessManager portal through the Admin > Service Catalog Settings menu. For more information on how to do this, check out the ServiceDesk 7.1 SP2 Customization Guide, pages 72-75 specifically.
- Forms (Web) Workflow and Integration Project. One simple workflow to create the average CSI scores for all Service Desk analysts, cache the results, and display them on a basic web form. And one integration library that is called to retrieve the CSI scores.
WP.Sparrow.AnalystCSI (Forms Web).
WP.Sparrow.CSILib (Integration).
DECLARE @cacheStamp AS DATETIME SET @cacheStamp = GETDATE()
SELECT ServiceDeskIncidentManagement0.resolved_by_user_id AS 'AnalystGuid' ,COUNT(1) AS 'SurveyCount' ,ROUND(AVG(CAST(ServiceDeskSurveyData1.score AS FLOAT)), 2) AS 'CSI' ,@cacheStamp AS 'CSICacheStamp'
FROM ReportProcess as Process with (NOLOCK) INNER JOIN ServiceDeskIncidentManagement as ServiceDeskIncidentManagement0 with (NOLOCK) on ((ServiceDeskIncidentManagement0.process_id = Process.ReportProcessID)) INNER JOIN ReportProcessRelationship as ReportProcessRelationship1 with (NOLOCK) on ((ReportProcessRelationship1.ParentProcessID = Process.ReportProcessID)) INNER JOIN ServiceDeskSurveyData as ServiceDeskSurveyData1 with (NOLOCK) on ((ServiceDeskSurveyData1.process_id = ReportProcessRelationship1.ChildProcessID))
WHERE ServiceDeskSurveyData1.Score > 0 AND ProcessEnded BETWEEN @startDate AND @endDate
GROUP BY ServiceDeskIncidentManagement0.resolved_by_user_id |
Setting Yourself Up for Success
Modifying the Survey Form
I didn’t just implement the new CSI Webpart. Instead, I redesigned the survey form to make the questions more relevant and the formatting a little easier on the eyes. Here is what the survey now looks like.
Some of the most notable changes include adding the process title to the form, adding the resolver and resolution text (so the contact can review the issue and resolution), changing the questions to make them more relevant for our service model, and adding emoticons to minimize misdirected solicitations (i.e., we had a lot of people getting confused by thinking “1” is good and “5” is bad).
Modifying the Survey Email Template
I also modified the survey email template to emphasize the “Take Survey” link. More specifically, I updated the formatting to make the link look more like a button and I moved the link to the top of the email (putting more emphasis on the survey).
Communicating Your Changes to Analysts and Customers
In order for the whole campaign to be successful, my next step is to communicate the new feature to our Service Desk analysts. This includes communicating the new customer service program, the new questions, and the calculated results that appear on the new CSI Webpart.
A survey is only as good as the feedback received. All these changes are great if people actually take the survey. I intend on communicating to the business the importance of taking the surveys after each resolved incident or service request. My hope is to increase the number of survey solicitations to something statistically meaningful.
And finally, I need to review the customer satisfaction campaign with management to ensure they are having regular discussions with their analysts on the recorded survey results and customer satisfaction scores.
Developers Comments
The CSI web form and integration library are attached to this post. Feel free to download and install in your environment, making changes where necessary.
Design Notes
- The Form Project and Integration Library were designed in a ServiceDesk 7.1 SP2 environment, Workflow engine 7.1.1600.14