Symantec Enterprise Support

Every customer contact is important, but Symantec believes that the postsales support relationship with their customers is especially important. Because most customer support experiences happen without direct contact with a Symantec employee, improving the customer Customer support experience requires systematic and structural changes.

Bradford Smith leads the customer support experience effort for Symantec. "Every part of the organization was investing to do the right thing for the customer," Smith remembers. But because everyone was focused on their own piece of thee puzzle, we weren't getting the results we expected. We needed to create a coordinated plan we could execute together."

Symantec faces two support challenges:
1. They have a rapidly-growing customer base and product portfolio that strains the traditional support model
2. They needed to improve the support customer service while controlling costs.

What they did

• Facilitated a workshop that brought together more than 50 stakeholders in the support customer experience
• Used value networks and customer-centered design to prioritize scenarios from the customer perspective
• Redirected dozens of "inflight" different initiatives into a small number of strategic tasks  

The Results

• A common framework for figuring out what to do and why
• Recognition of the true scope and dynamics of the support experience
• A model to optimize the support network
• Cross-functional buy-in on the highest priorities for the support user experience
• A manageable number of high-value strategic initiatives

The group implemented Allee's value network analysis under the guidance of facilitator David Kay. Learn more about how by reading the full story on the Consortium for Service Innovation website.