In 1995, I was also involved in the restructuring of what was now the Digital Products support organization. I proposed restructuring the call center into a three level escalation system. The first level answered the phone, provided basic info and was the call center. The second level were more experienced support technicians, who could solve most technical questions. The call center would direct customers with issues, to the experienced techs for that product. If they couldn't solve it, it was escalated to the third level. The third level was basically our team, Marketing Technical Support, the top experts on the various digital products.
I proposed that we needed a lab centrally located within the support area, where configurations of computers and equipment could be assembled to recreate any customer issue. I also pushed for having a number of other experts in the lab. I was the MacOS & Thermal Printer expert, there were a couple of PC experts, including Craig, who I'd worked with before. Networking and interface experts as well. The InterOperability Lab is what I named the lab. And, because I didn't want to manage the people, and take time away from my trouble shooting, I hired a manager for that job, as well. I was the manager of the lab environs itself.
We usually got to the bottom of every problem or conflict, and resolved them with the help of the various experts. The team was top notch. A couple of other things I pushed for, one was a central faxible database of product literature & tips, and one single repository for all the techical papers. As it was, each group had a different sytem. Surprising the amount of duplication of effort within Kodak.
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