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Getting acquainted with a new service desk

A new service desk can be a source of stress for both the service desk employees and their other colleagues. Procedures change: service desk employees have to change the way they process incoming reports, colleagues must report problems via an internet portal, and so forth. This article presents four examples of TOPdesk customers who have introduced new service desks to their organizations in a playful manner.
TEXT: HENRIEKE KORTEN

A positive twist
Service desk employees of the Benelux Bureau for Intellectual Property in The Hague were used to simply picking up the phone and noting down what the caller had to report. Henritte Soonius, head of the department, admits that not all of the 22 employees were thrilled about following the new telephone script that was introduced along with the new service desk. Soonius: Some of them were concerned that it would be difficult to listen to the caller, follow the script on the computer screen and carefully register the incident all at the same time. With these concerns in mind, she organized an Information Day on 6 December 2007, in collaboration with her colleague Rudolf Wiersinga and TOPdesk consultant Jolanda Simonis. Since this was the day after the Dutch Sinterklaas

holiday, not only did she treat the service desk employees to extensive information, but also to a chocolate letter (a traditional Sinterklaas treat). You can get rid of a lot of concerns by providing the right information. The choco-

also paid close attention when a new system was introduced one year ago. Pepijn de Smet, their network engineer, understood the need for change. Before the transition, things did not run very smoothly and there was little

You can get rid of a lot of concerns by providing the right information.

late letter was a nice extrasomething to give a positive twist to the new situation.

A clean slate
The IT department of the Terneuzen municipality in the Netherlands

confidence in a good outcome. TOPdesk was already in use, but last year the system was set up differently and the back office was reorganized. We started over with a clean slate. In order to introduce the new system

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to service desk employees and other users in an interesting way, Pepijn and the Communications department designed a bag with the imprint fanTASticfast and clear help (TAS stands for TOPdesk Application Server and tas is also the Dutch word for bag). These bags contained information packages. The bag and the accompanying information were a big hit. It made the transition more attractive.

From memos to registration


The Hilverzorg Foundation, an organization concerned with care for the elderly, had been working with TOPdesks IT help desk software for a few months when their nursing home started using the facilities management software in October 2006. Employees in the technical department were

recording incidents on notepads, or even on their arms. They were extremely busy, but not very efficient, according to Piet Groeneveld from Hilverzorg. On 16 October, Hilverzorg organized a campaign aimed at acquainting all employees with TOPdesk. The reception area was decorated and project employees handed out business cards with the telephone number of the new front office. It turned out very well. People came to ask questions about what was going on and we could immediately inform them.

Cultural change
Consulting agency Eiffel in Arnhem, the Netherlands has seen substantial growth in their 15 year existence. And as the company grew, so did the number of questions about automation. Since there was no service desk, the questions

were directed to the IT department. This was costing the employees so much time that they often did not have time to take care of their own tasks. It was time for a change and that change was TOPdesk. To let everyone know that they should begin reporting incidents to the new service desk, the service desk employees wore special T-shirts and hung up posters. According to Marlies Bruggink-Smeding, the project leader of the implementation, this really helped to alert everyone to the new procedure. It required a cultural change; the IT employees had to consistently give a firm no to the people who continued to come to them to report incidents. Sometimes a reminder was sent via mail. But the T-shirts and posters left a good impression.

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