Customer Support Management

Assessment item 4

Support Standards & Solutions

Interact2 Journal

Task

Journal Entry. The Journal function in Interact2 must be used. External journal sites are not permitted. If your country geo-blocks the Interact2 website or your circumstance prevents you from accessing the Internet (eg. due to a disability or if you are in a correctional centre), please contact your lecturer immediately. If it is an office/organisation firewall preventing access, you must find an alternative Internet access point to complete this task.

Warning: Entering or editing data in this journal entry after 2359 hours on 22 September will result in a deduction of marks.

Question 1 (2 marks)
Elaborate on any two features in the good/efficient management of a help desk that you have learnt from Chapter 6 (Help Desk Operation) from the textbook. 
Supplement it with any literature [500 words]

Question 2 (15 marks)

You have been asked to deliver a short presentation (no more than 5 minutes). 
In your audience, there will be senior management as well as help desk team leaders. You decide how many slides you need. Anything after the 5-minute mark will not count. Prepare the appropriate Powerpoint slides or MP4 and submit it as an attachment to the journal. [If you are submitting very close to the deadline, kindly assure you allow sufficient time for your file to upload as an attachment.]

The help desk section of WombatPhone, a new mobile phone company is getting from bad to worse. From agents who are rude to your customers, to agents who provide wrong or misleading information. The help desk needs a revamp. You have been appointed by senior management to improve support services and maintain standards by outlining a plan for improving/maintaining a level of expertise or support standards. You are required to prepare a presentation for senior management. Substantiate it with literature (findings, articles, etc).

[An example would be better communication with customers’ plans. Tell help desk agents why this is important, how they can improve themselves and how/why you intend to train and then measure their achievement. Substantiate it with relevant articles. Explain this need to your senior management so that they will fund your initiatives.]

The following report card may be useful.
Select any three items of your choice (you can use the communication example above as one if you wish) and present two others. 
You do not have to restrict yourself to these items as long as you have literature support.

Step A – Start your assignment with an entry to the same journal under Q2 with the following note to the marker: I will be presenting via Option x.
[indicate A, B or C – read details about each option below.]
No other item of writing is required in the journal. Do not forget to attach your file.
You cannot provide a link to your file that is on an external source (eg. Dropbox)

Option A: Present through an MP4: Recording using Powerpoint, slides with audio narration.
Final file format: MP4. Only one single file is to be attached to the journal.

Accounting Standards and Theory

Option B: Live Presentation through Adobe Connect (for Online Students) during Online
Meeting Time (Wed 27 Sept 2017 – at a time slot to be issued between 7.30-8.30 pm Sydney time) Final file format: PPT or PPTX to be attached to journal.
If you are an Online student and are unable to attend an Online Meeting due to personal schedules, please pick Option At.
If you intend to seek an extension for the assignment, this option may not be available to you. please check with your lecturer.

Option C: Live Presentation in class on Friday 29 Sept 2017 at a time slot to be given. On-campus students do not have the choice of Option B but may select Option A. Study Centre and other CSU campus students are to check with their lecturers on presentation times. Final file format: PPT or PPTX to be attached to the journal.

An essay or written report will not be required.

All options have the same presentation time of 5 minutes.
The final slide will contain the Reference List but this need not be read out.

Presentation Formatting Requirements (2 marks):
see the Presentation section below

Rationale

The tasks in this assignment relate to Learning Outcome 5:

– be able to critically assess the main issues related to support standards and suggest solutions to rectify issues in the customer support area.

Presentation

After you “Create Journal Entry”, please click “Post Entry”
You are given full editing rights even after you post – even the ability to delete that Post. It will also enable the lecturer/marker to provide you with assistance before the deadline. If you “Save Entry as Draft”, only you can see it and in the past, many students forget to click on “Post Entry” which means you have not submitted your assignment at all when the deadline has passed.
ALERT: Some students prefer to cut and paste from a word processor, and depending on their settings, this may cause formatting problems later.

Journal Presentation Formatting Requirements:
1. Journal space on Interact2 presentation text width between 85-95 characters including spaces.
2. Font types and sizes are consistent (use Arial 12pt) throughout and paragraphs are well formed.
3. Submit answers to all work in one journal entry.
4. No attachments to journal entry allowed EXCEPT for Question 2.

Other Presentation Requirements:
(* applicable to Question 1 only)

*1. Avoid using dot points, bulleted points, and numbered points in your work. Lists do not display your understanding of the subject matter and may even appear disjointed to the reader/marker.
*2. Meet word limits in each question (allowance of +/- 5%). TA table of contents is not required and the Reference list is not included in the word count.
3. Use either UK spelling or USA spelling but do not mix both.
4. All work presented should be carefully proofed so that spelling and typographical errors are corrected.
5. No language used should be sexist.
6. If acronyms and jargon are used, please explain them in the first instance, then use the abbreviated form in the rest of the report.
7. Appendices are not to be used.
8. Use of headings and sub-headings can be used for clarity.
*9. It is important to get the balance right between the citing of referenced material and your interpretation and ideas. When using your thoughts and ideas, you can signal the reader by using words and phrases such as ‘it can be argued that…”, “it is evident that…” and “it seems as though…”
*10. Writing in the third person is expected in all pieces of work.
11. Do not submit multiple copies (or versions) of your work. If you do, the marker will only pick the one with the lowest mark awarded. You have full editing rights, kindly remove all unnecessary material before the date due.
12. All date/time mentioned and used is in Australian Eastern Standard Time (or Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time) or Sydney time.

Requirements

This assignment requires the Online student to learn how to use Powerpoint 2013 with audio. And saving it in MP4 format (which is within the application). The subject does not teach you how to create slides or present them with audio.
Older versions of Powerpoint may not have this feature. It is the student’s responsibility to have a copy of this Powerpoint version (or a later version with this feature).