Hi, tell us a bit about yourself.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m Mike, I\u2019m the vice president of IT at Scope Services<\/a> here in St Joseph, Michigan, USA. I have been here for approximately a year and a half. Prior to this I came from Whirlpool, where I was an IT manager overseeing the IT aspect of Whirlpool\u2019s engineering department. Before that I was in the United States Navy for 20 years, where I was involved in a plethora of different things. That is pretty much me in a nutshell!<\/p>\n\n\n\n A typical day for us is, untypical. We communicate with our clients, discussing field activities or issues they\u2019re having with our work order management solution, or with their handhelds. One of my divisions is a production and development team, who works closely with the project team to satisfy requirements for the client. Another person on my team, deals with the infrastructure and operational support; so handheld support, helpdesk tickets, etc. That\u2019s from a corporate standpoint to a client facing standpoint. The last group I have is a security team who works on our cyber security such as SOC2 Certification or a government NIST audit, so they\u2019re continuously monitoring our system and ensuring that we\u2019re secure. I work on securing new clients and working on selling Scope Services, I look at innovation and growth for the IT community, shifting or transforming us from a static waterfall type mentality into an Agile, DevOps, DevSecOps type culture. So, all of that is in on my notebook every day!<\/p>\n\n\n\n We currently use the Clevest solution and were actually Clevest\u2019s first customer! We have been using the Clevest software for a very long time and we have a long history with the Clevest arm of IFS. What makes the relationship great is that we are one of the few customers that has advanced privileges, we are what I would refer to us as a lighthouse program. We look at the application\u2019s strategic goals, its strategic direction and we highlight any issues before the product is put out to market. Now as we grow with the IFS community, we are continuously looking for the next best offering for us, we want to take advantage of current and future state innovations, technology improvements and so forth. Our path will follow or will include IFS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Great service to me means that we anticipate problems and fix them before they\u2019re noticed or they\u2019re impactful. If there is an issue, we get it fixed quickly, complying with SLAs, complying with customer needs so the issue is fixed before the customer even knows it. Most importantly we provide customers with a service that makes their jobs easy. In my role as a support function, I want to make jobs for field technicians easy, and almost make IT, the work order management solution, all the processes that go on to make the job happen, I want to make that transparent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Service for us is the primary way that we make a profit, we want our clients to come back to us. When you hire Scope, service is what they are hiring; they need to know about the quality of our service, and the people that they are receiving our service from. There is an efficiency and a work ethic behind all this that stands with our name. Scope Services has a good reputation for this, we communicate with our clients, we want to be their partner, and that\u2019s what service at Scope breaks down to. It\u2019s providing this service, we don\u2019t want to be a \u2018well you\u2019re just a subcontractor\u2019, no, we want to be part of our client\u2019s strategic solution, we want to assist with the vision and the mission of their company, we want to partner with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To me our moment of service happens on day one. When we turn the switch \u2018ON\u2019 when a project is operational. \u2018Are we there?\u2019 \u2018Is the system working?\u2019 \u2018Do we have the right people hired and equipped with the tools and processes that they need?\u2019 \u2018Are we able to represent our client to the consumer?\u2019 Because that\u2019s really what it is all about, Scope Services becomes the face of the client to the consumer, and so we need to know we are ready for that. That\u2019s where that moment of service is; when there\u2019s not a single hiccup on day one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Absolutely, I\u2019ve experienced many. Like picking up your phone and going on Amazon, which I did last night at about 2:00 o\u2019clock in the morning as I had to figure out how to get rid of a mouse in my house! It\u2019s that service. It\u2019s not even thinking about going shopping. It\u2019s going to a fitter for golf and walking in and they are more concerned about you as a person and what you need rather than trying to sell. The other day I had a sales rep at my house to replace a door, and though we did not end up going through with the sale, I enjoyed the conversation. He was understanding and realistic and when we showed clear sticker shock at the proposed cost of the replacement, he immediately understood our concern and did not try to force the sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I play a lot of golf. Don\u2019t tell my boss! That\u2019s my quiet time because IT support can get to you, it can drag you down. I don\u2019t want to compare myself to a doctor or a nurse, but there are similarities in a technological sense; the nature of IT support is to always hear about the bad things, and you always deal with problems that need fixing. You never hear about the good things, people never talk about their email account because it just works, until it doesn\u2019t work! Golf is my escape, but family is important to me. I have a wife and two children, and two dogs that I spend a lot of time with, or at least I try to; my son is now 22 and rarely at home, and my daughter is a senior in high school and so Dad is boring these days! I do work in the yard and work in my workshop too, but really family is number one, and then golf is number 2, and then work is more like 5 or 6!<\/p>\n\n\n\nAt Scope Services what does a typical day look like for you?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
I know Scope Services joined IFS as a customer through the Clevest acquisition<\/a> in 2020, tell us about that relationship.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What do you think a great service means to you?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What is the service angle at Scope Services, how important is it?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
At IFS we talk about the Moment of Service\u2122 and we define that as the moment when every business process comes together to delight a customer. What would you say is your Moment of Service at Scope Services?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nIn your consumer life, can you describe a moment where you\u2019ve felt like you\u2019ve experienced a great moment of service?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What do you like to do outside of work?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n