The Role of Collaboration Tools in Problem Solving Experience of Global Technical Support Center

Abstract

Support and maintenance services rely on organization's capabilities of delivering expertise, tools and spare parts to the customer's location effectively and economically. To tackle the problems of delivering the expertise, a multilevel support organization is often utilized. This article presents a study of problem solving experience in a global technical support center. The study aimed to identify the core building blocks of problem solving experience of individual workers and the role the collaboration tools played in the problem solving experiences. During the study, 11 interlinked themes responsible for the key characteristics of problem solving experience in a global technical support center were identified. The problem solving experiences emerged from situational relations between workers' expertise and the problem solving themes as well as between the problem solving themes. Improving the user experience of the collaboration tools would mean changing the situational relationships and thus the whole problem solving experience.