Goals

Accurate and up-to-date information for students and Subject Matter Experts

Meet the TRADOC support standards for timely and consistent assistance

Improve SME productivity

Empower students to help themsleves

Achievements

Nearly 300 Subject Matter Experts or agents in multiple contact centers

80,000 answers viewed

Response times dropped to less than one day

 

 

The US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) is responsible for training all US Army forces; everything from weapons or artillery instruction to distance learning courses and professional development. TRADOC trains approximately 500,000 soldiers and civilians using traditional methods, such as in-person classes at two schools and centers at 16 Army installations, as well as virtual training approximate 350,000 a year via online courses. The Army Training Help Desk (ATHD) supports these training efforts with more than 300 subject matter experts (SMEs) or agents throughout TRADOC schools and centers.

Victory Starts Here

The TRADOC slogan, Victory Starts Here, is really more than just a slogan; it's a responsibility. The US Army builds tough, mentally adaptive, well-educated soldiers, and ATHD supports the training required to keep these soldiers on their toes. The students they support are scattered all over the globe, and training is mandatory for those who want to move up in the ranks. Soldiers in the Reserves also use distance learning courseware to maintain their military skill set. The goal in supporting all of this training is to give students an easy, convenient, and consistent experience, and one place to go for support.

If students run into a problem, ATHD is the single point of entry to get it resolved. They are available 24x7 by phone, web, and email. An Army officer, training the Afghani national police, contacted athd recently to request combat simulation training materials that included a building mock up, instructions on how to assemble and hold weapons, and details on how to survey a building for criminals and weapons. This training material is critical to life or death in a combat zone. ATHD routed the incident to the correct SME, and the he received the material he requested. He didn't have to worry about who to call, knowing that ATHD is a one-stop-shop for all training needs.

The Enemy: Unruly Information

The Army needed to improve their processes, create a centralized content repository, and automate workflow to improve the way they responded to student inquiries. They needed a robust multi-channel customer management solution that would empower students to help themselves, but also gave agents the customer management solution tools they needed to improve both the turn-around time and the quality of responses to questions posed by their students. Plus, they were required to adhere to new service level mandates. The mandates include:

• 1 hour for automated response
• Four business days for incident resolution/closure
• Unresolved incidents escalated to managers on 3,6,9 days
• The status of all assigned incidents tracked until resolved

 

The knowledge base provides a way for students to get their own answers quickly. Answers that once took 15 minutes and were delivered over the phone by an agent sifting through papers and post-its are now available online, through the knowledge base. This was a great improvement over the old way of doing things—and it showed. In fact, satisfaction jumped to 75 percent. The Army's SMEs, armed with consistent and automated processes, improved response time to 24 hours or less and resolution to less than two days. They also like the way information can be updated promptly, so as relevant things happen, they can quickly post updates to their knowledge base.