Need your technicians to become more technical?

Want your employees invested in internal career paths?

Looking to please your customers and supervisors as well?

Dell Support Services in Australia and New Zealand has a single solution for those time-worn workplace challenges: CompTIA A+.

A new program initiated last year in the regional support centre down under is expected to step up results and morale of an already high-performing group by requiring the foundational certification.

"One thing I like about CompTIA A+ is that if you don't know about hardware, network or storage, it gives you that starting block to go and get any other certification," said Steven Geha, technical support manager for Dell's ProSupport team in Australia and New Zealand.

Equipping Employees with the Right Knowledge

The Dell ProSupport team includes technicians dedicated to various sectors, including desktop, laptop and storage support, though Geha noted the bulk of the issues involve hardware fixes.

"With CompTIA A+, the foundation is there to know how to troubleshoot and know about all the components," he said. "What you study and everything you are taught are things that we use every day."

Geha painted the program goals with broad, "big picture" strokes.

"The benefits I'm looking for are in team morale to set everyone on a target and keep them working for Dell," he said.

And having the flexibility to shift between areas of focus on the team is beneficial for technicians' career paths, he added.

Geha said he expects his agents to become more technical, which, in turn, will help make sure customers are more satisfied and "issues are being resolved the first time."

Increasing Customer Satisfaction

Geha said that recently Dell customer satisfaction scores hit the highest he's seen in his five years with the company.

Nevertheless, he's set higher team goals "and I'm hoping CompTIA will help us achieve that."

He's also targeted the training program for significant improvement in another key Dell metric, RDR — or Repeat Dispatch Ratio — which measures the firm's ability to resolve an issue the first time.

"If we bring that down, it will save the company money and make the customers happy," he said.

Oh, and one other big-picture item.

"Once we get our team certified, we don't bring anybody on board without a minimum of CompTIA A+," he said. "That's our goal."