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One benefit of having an active User Community is that people can trade information, news and articles about issues that have an impact on other Community members. A perfect example of this is a recent post in the SmarterTools Community about a major issue with POP3 in Office 2016. In Microsoft's own community discussion they acknowledge the problem and offer a temporary workaround...

This is the last part of a small series of posts about lean customer service and the role of helpdesks in helping businesses move towards a leaner and more efficient customer service model. Part 1 of this series dealt with identifying and creating value in the customer service channel while Part 2 dealt with eliminating waste once the channel was created. This final post deals with the third lean concept...

In Part 1 of this series, I touched on the short history of the Lean Movement in manufacturing and its entry into other industries and leadership theory. I also went into the first of three general concepts surrounding the Lean Movement and how it relates to customer service, or more precisely, how to use a helpdesk to conform to the "lean" ideals. That first concept was identifying and creating value. This blog post discusses the second concept...

The initial foundation of the whole "lean" movement was popularized in the 1980's with a joint venture between General Motors and Toyota. The joint venture was a way for both companies to use a former GM plant located in Fremont, California, to manufacture vehicles. The resulting relationship allowed Toyota to gain their first U.S. factory while GM spent time learning Toyota's efficient manufacturing process. The efficiency that GM gained is really the crux of the entire "lean" movement...