Executive Insight: Merging Enterprise Support Organizations
by David Hare

David Hare is the Group vice president of support services with PeopleSoft, Inc. and a member of the SSPA Advisory Board. He is a 30-year veteran in the high tech services industry and has extensive experience in designing and optimizing all facets of international service organizations. His experience includes growing highly profitable service operations with industry-leading customer satisfaction. Prior to PeopleSoft, Hare provided executive leadership in customer support, consulting, and education, at Redback Networks and Aspect Communication. As vice president of Support Services at Baan, he developed the processes and methodology for creating highly effective multi-lingual support centers.

He has led and managed PeopleSoft’s support services through the merger of PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards and recently shared some of his experiences and advice with the SSPA.

SSPA: How big is the support organization for the combined PeopleSoft company today?

Hare: The size of the support organization is over 1,000 people. We have different subsets of people: those in technical support answering technical questions; those on the business lines where customers can come in and change licensing, user accounts, and other non-technical issues; and those that service our tiered services accounts. We also have a field force that serves as the interface between our sales organization and our support services organization.

SSPA: When customers call in for support, do they call a specific organization or have the two support organizations been integrated?

Hare: We consolidated the toll-free numbers so customers call one number regardless of the product the customer uses. We’re putting the finishing touches on the implementation of PeopleSoft CRM for both organizations so information is available to everyone and no matter who customers call, they’re routed to the appropriate specialist. We’re also cross-training analysts at a number of locations.

SSPA: What were the biggest challenges your support organization faced as the companies merged?

Hare: The biggest challenges were largely technological. J.D. Edwards had millions of rows of data on the history of their customers that was and is still valuable. We had to merge that data with the data we had in a completely different format and system. The data mapping exercise took months to complete.

SSPA: What advice would you offer to others who have to manage the merging of two support organizations?

Hare: I’d tell them just because you are the acquirer, does not mean you have all the best practices. We also went to the more than 300 joint customers and asked them what those best practices were. They influenced which processes we adopted and implemented. We also had to standardize the terminology we use internally so we have common terminology that allows us to communicate more effectively.

When the companies merged, there was no intent to reduce the size of the support staff. The intent was to get the best practices from both organizations and implement them across the global organization. The cultures of the support organizations were similar which made it easier to blend the two and implement those best practices.

SSPA: As you consolidate the systems and define and implement best practices, what are you measuring to determine success?

Hare: We’re already seeing improved customer satisfaction scores in a number of areas. We’re also seeing improved employee morale. We brought in some support automation tools and technologies to let analysts provide a higher level of customer satisfaction, which in turn improves employee morale.

SSPA: How did you manage the anxiety of the staff during the period of change?

Hare: We’ve seen very little attrition, in single digits, and it hasn’t really been an issue. Our philosophy to keep attrition low is to communicate, communicate, communicate… and then when you’re done, communicate some more.

We also purposely combined some of the teams and forced them to re-think the organizational structure and the way we do things, and work together more effectively. That cross-training helped develop team concepts and a more effective support group.

SSPA: With the expanded product line, there would seem to be more opportunities to use support as a sales channel. What have you done, if anything, to make that happen?

Hare: It’s easier for us since our CRM system has a built-in leads function so as our customer interactions lead to discussions about other products, upgrades, consulting time, training, etc. we push a button and the information goes directly to the sales desk. Most of our calls are for technical support so it’s largely a reactive process. The last thing customer’s want when their systems are down is a sales pitch.

Having all the information in one CRM system also helps us close all the loops. For example, in our SCP certification, we got a lot of points for the follow up on this lead process. The process gets feedback to the analyst that initiated the action and the follow up is added to the case so any analyst working with the customer knows what’s going on.

SSPA: Why did you join the SSPA Advisory Board and what does PeopleSoft get from their membership in SSPA?

Hare: We get a lot from our membership, particularly our first- and second-level managers who get a lot of industry-wide information that validates what they do. They get a lot of best practices information from the association and from networking with other members. We’re also able to see problems and solutions from companies that aren’t enterprise software vendors that help us get better at what we do.

I joined the SSPA Advisory Board because I’ve been in technical support both performing it myself or in a leadership position for 22 years and I know a lot of people in the industry. A lot of people come to me and ask for advice and I end up helping a few people, but not as well as I’d like. So, this year I made it a priority to help a few organizations further the efforts of industry leading world-class enterprise software support and SSPA was one of leading organizations in this area.