CRM takes different forms relative to where and to whom it is applied. Inside an enterprise, the idea of employee as customer can be new or down right counter-culture. I’ve heard voices from any number of organizations speak to a culture that is less centered on establishing relationships when it comes to employees. In 2.0 we’re taking new approaches to our work through evolving collaborative means. These means stand to offer scaling support to the organization-employee relationship. Enterprises have long established help processes, which serve mass efficiency over individuals. We have intentionally deflected connection with employees in an attempt to scale services across IT, HR, Finance, etc. If you reside inside of a large organization, think about what you might have experienced the last time you called your help desk. Did someone take your issue on and make it their own? Did it feel like you were calling the phone company?

Help is one of those thankless, dirty jobs that only the steeliest have the stomach for in its current configuration. I see it as a ripe opportunity to leverage 2.0 as a means to a measurable improvement for all involved. The benefit of change here does not end in happy employees alone. Increased productivity, reduced down time during issues, and reduced load on traditional help systems are possible if a plan is designed with humans in mind. If you are actively pursuing or supporting 2.0 in your organization be sure to consider how help impacts adoption. Few things turn off a user faster than the frustration of not knowing how to do something combined with an inability to get an answer quickly. Am I help desk bashing? Nope. I’m intimately aware of the supporting processes of help systems, their brittle complexities and fragility. They rely on fantastic communication flows, complex integrated systems and teams that don’t often actually integrate. They strain against scale and usually those who suffer most are the employee customers and front line help support (not necessarily in that order).  So, what are the options? How can you build trust, efficiency and success across a jaded help culture? Consider the cliché:  There’s no tier three support for YouTube. No help desk for Foursquare. Yet we use them. A lot. I observed a friend get cross when, after more than a dozen check-ins with no competitors, he was still not the mayor of a particular site on Foursquare. When he vented to his community on Twitter, he quickly got the answer to the problem. Of course you aren’t the mayor. You haven’t added an avatar picture. Duh. The clear response is second nature in online social circles outside the firewall. Not as much inside the firewall.  As 2.0 makes its way inside this is changing. But 2.0 tools and community won’t be the only way to get support. Scale alone makes community as a sole help support mechanism impossible for even the largest companies, but it is a vital element of a living help system. We need to plan our evolution to include community and reliable help information to grow beyond our dependence on a singular service desk. There needs to be a connection to the social intranet with a plan to support goals for real change. This dictates that architects and operators of current help systems look closely at employee opinion. That self-critical analysis, the hardest cultural change for many, needs to become norm. The sheer existence of social systems on the inside will make this easier to initiate, and initially harder for those delivering support. If you work at a large organization, consider the last time you heard someone praise the help desk. Negative messages on the intranet can be tough to take, but you can’t change what you can’t see. So, how can an organization build a bridge to better help? What about the existing investment in help systems? We’re not going to throw out what’s been deemed a working solution (though I tend to think working is a kind description). Simply adding a wiki to a help system isn't enough. There's a broader story to tell. I see a way forward in a concept I call the Help Stack, a framework for integrating social elements into existing help and community management systems. Where traditional help meets social, community, and SME help inside the firewall.

I’ve talked generally about the Help Stack in presentations in the past. I’ve spoken to the idea of layering these elements to build that bridge. Over the next few posts I’ll be fleshing out specifics around each element of the Help Stack. I'll be talking about potential challenges, the tools that support it, and roles needed to get the job done. So stick around. More on this soon.