thwack Monthly Mission - January 2015

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope 2014 treated you well and 2015 delivers ten fold in your favor. This month we're kick starting the new year with a few resolutions of our own, let's see if you can keep up. The latest version of SolarWinds Web Help Desk 12.2 was recently released with several new features, like DameWare integration and Asset Reporting, and in true SolarWinds fashion, we've already started work on the next release. Throughout the month we will be highlighting new features included in WHD 12.2 along with best practices and how-to's to help you own 2015 as a Help Desk Pro. Successfully make it through all 4 of our resolutions and 16 of you will walk away with some sweet prizes!

January's Mission

Think you can make it through Help Desk Resolutions? We've assigned a resolution to each day of the week (Monday - Thursday) to show how Web Help Desk can help save you money, be healthier, self-improve, and provide better customer service. Even the prizes (all 16 of them!) are aligned with each resolution's theme. Simply answer each daily question and be entered to win that day's prize. Follow the rules below to play.

Mission Rules

One question will be released everyday starting January 5th (Monday - Thursday).
1. Once a question opens, it will remain open until January 29th @ 11:59PM CT. Check the schedule below for exact open/close times.
Only your first attempt at each daily question will count. Check your answers before submitting!
200 points will be awarded for each correctly answered question. There are 16 daily questions which means you can earn up to 3,200 points for this mission.
1. Points and badges will be applied to profiles once the mission has closed.
Prize drawings will take place on January 30th. There will be a total of 16 winners and prizes are sorted by days of the week, see below. Successfully answer a daily question and your name will be in that day's drawing (ex. correctly answer day 1's question and your name will be included in the day 1 drawing).
1. Monday quizzes: Nest Learning Thermostat
2. Tuesday quizzes: Vitamix 5200 Standard – Getting Started
3. Wednesday quizzes: CBT Nuggets – 1 month of Training
4. Thursday quizzes: $400 Amazon Gift Card

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Correctly answer all 16 daily quizzes and your name will be in all 12 drawings!

Monday: Save Money

Prize: Nest Learning Thermostat

Tuesday: Be Healthy, Relieve Stress

Prize: Vitamix 5200 Standard

Wednesday: Self-Improvement

Prize: CBT Nuggets - 1 month of Training

Thursday: Pay It Forward

Prize: $400 Amazon gift card

Friday

January 5th

Question 1

January 6th

Question 2

January 7th

Question 3

January 8th

Question 4

January 12th

Question 5

January 13th

Question 6

January 14th

Question 7

January 15th

Question 8

January 19th

Question 9

January 20th

Question 10

January 21st

Question 11

January 22nd

Question 12

January 26th

Question 13

January 27th

Question 14

January 28th

Question 15

January 29th

Question 16

January 30th

Grand Prize Drawings x16

Terms and Conditions Help Desk Resolutions.docx

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Comments

esther

Happy New Year to everyone!!!

jlim13

Are the prizes available for everyone to win during the raffle or will this be for US and Canada only? Thanks!

Jfrazier

Happy New Year to you as well !!

jbiggley

I really like the new layout of the questions -- kudos to the design team. Makes my eyeballs happy

mullinj

I'm so happy there is a new mission! I love starting my day with these.

cahunt

Happy New Year!

danielleh

jlim13 Prize eligibility is open to the US, Canada, UK, and Germany. (terms & conditions attached at the bottom of this blog post)

mdecima

DanielleH No international Elegibility....

kevincrouch4

US, UK, Canada and Germany is no International Availability? That's three places that are international from where I am

mharvey

Great way to start the new year

jlim13

Thanks, DanielleH! Got it.

syldra

Happy New Year everyone !

DanielleH and maria.bungau : just a strange behaviour of the mission page, nothing important, but when you click the header of a column ("Monday:...") it reorders the items under it alphabetically...

kbthwack

Oh god, you should not have pointed that out...

cahunt

it has 2 arrangements. Click once, and it's off, click again and it's back to the 5th being the first question (EDIT : but the rest are out of order)

*Doesn't matter what header you click, but it changes the spread, and it won't go back to the original setup unless refresh.

Even in this day an age Web Tables can still be fun!

network_defender

and I thought I was seeing things. Whew, what a relief. Now if the voices would just stop.....

mdecima

thanks for your insight, i'm sure danielle understood what i meant.

jbiggley

Amazing article on today's MM question. I was just talking with a friend about businesses that did customer engagement and satisfaction so well that we brought them repeat business. I believe there is a trifecta required to make your customers happy.

1. Have a product that exceeds their expectations and comes in at or below budget

2. Support the product through exemplary services including customer engagement outside the sales cycle

3. Delivering increasing value for repeat business

These tactics apply to every type of business whether you sell a widget or just a service. We have a local pizza place called Famous Peppers that does a great job. Their pizza is amazing and, while more expensive than the chains, is an exemplary product for the price. Almost as good as the pizza is going in to pick it up. The staff are always upbeat and happy like the actually enjoy going to work every day. They have a customer loyalty program for free pizza but, even better, they take the time to chat with repeat customers about everything from the weather to hockey. (We are Canadian after all -- not much else to talk about during the winter!)

For the record, I think that Solarwinds does all three of these things regularly. Some of them aren't always done consistently (value depends on the product lifecycle, sales engagements can be hit or miss) when comparing parts of Solarwinds family to others but comparing the entire company to other companies and there simply is no comparison. It isn't just as a Solarwinds vs IBM or HP or Microsoft, etc. etc but even similar sized enterprises fail on that customer engagement. You have to like our customers for more than just the value of the contract that they have with you. If you do, and they reciprocate, then it becomes a truly symbiotic relationship when both parties feel engaged to improve the product offered for mutual benefit. And that is something that Solarwinds does better than any other company that I have ever worked with, period.

How do you engage customers to help convert happy customers into repeat customers?

kevincrouch4

I understood what you meant, you just didn't say what you meant.

kevincrouch4

If you have it sort by the Friday column, it goes back to normal.

FormerMember

So this is awesome. I put in my log in and not my user name at the end of the question for credit. I don't suppose there is a way for someone to help me with that?

danielleh

lcoursy what name did you enter? If it's an email, please send it to me directly danielle.higgins@solarwinds.com

mdecima

Yeah, I know, its good that even in those cases i can get understood by the right people

jbiggley

Does anyone else have blender lust when looking at that Vitamix 5200? I mean that's one serious blender! (Unfortunately, I am being quite serious in my blender lust -- I probably need help )

network_defender

Perhaps we could start a support group? I'm in.

FormerMember

I'm glad I'm not alone in this! My life has never been the same since I first discovered the magic of the blender. Though the one I have at home cannot compare to this Vitamix

syldra

I'm not a big fan of blenders to be honest, but my wife would fall on herself seeing this... I may have found her next b'day present

Though this would probably make the best bacon/garlic soup ever !

syldra

!?!

Am I blacklisted now ?

danielleh

syldra It's because you posted an external link. Once you've been approved once, your account is now whitelisted in the system.

syldra

Ah, thanks DanielleH for the clarification...

syldra

Joshua Biggley, maria.bungau sorry for hijacking, please resume your blender beguilement