Ben Tucker is one of HCSS’s most prolific trainers in our Professional Services Department. In fact, in 2018, he completed 62 on-site implementations, spent 160 nights away from his Houston home, and flew for over 192 hours with United Airlines as he traversed city skylines from one HCSS User to another. He credits the success of his demanding schedule to the alignment of his team, and the satisfaction of helping customers that he considers to be family.

His knowledge and ability to train six different HCSS products is one of the reasons he stays on the road so often. Ben is even on request by some customers to come back and annually update their users on the latest features and optimize workflow because of how thorough he is. During his 16 year tenure at HCSS in a services and implementation capacity, he has garnered a reputation for being able to include people who may be outliers, and he is someone who asks for regular feedback to improve his method.

“I love the onsite stuff because it is the most real. Everybody is more honest in their home environment, more comfortable, and it presents the company dynamic between departments that you cannot see when training from HCSS,” Ben says.

“A lot of folks are do-ers, not talkers. They want to get going and get involved. I have learned that to keep things interesting I have to ask a lot of targeted questions to spark interest, and then really listen to their answers. I let people know that I am not going to make fun of them for asking a question, and that there is no such thing as a stupid question. This is a safe space.”

Ben says, “I always start off with asking my group if they have any questions. Inevitably, they may have a burning question in the back of their mind, and they are not going to listen to anything I say until I answer that. So I always lead off with clearing any worries or concerns so there is nothing on their chest. I have been doing this so long that I know what we need to cover, so if they want to cover something else first, Let’s talk about that. I try to adapt to the way they want to work and go from there.”

He attributes his dedicated focus with customers to the staff of support techs and project managers at HCSS that help him manage his day. “As an Implementer, you are going all day. You may start with a customer at 6 or 7 o’clock in the morning, and may not finish until 12 hours later. Meanwhile, the next customer you need to get in touch with you can’t reach because they are done for the day. This is how the project coordinators make my job so much better, ” Ben says. “The project coordinators do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to the scheduling and coordinating and getting the initial documentation data. This information they ask customers for helps me understand each company’s business , and to me that is huge.” He says, “All I have to do is book the travel and go. Get me in front of the customers, get me work, and because of my project managers I know that all the stuff in the periphery is getting taken care of.”

Here are some tips from Ben for preparing for your HCSS trainer to come on site:

• Get foremen used to using an iPad. One client Ben worked incentivised their employees to take care of their iPads by allowing them to keep it if they kept good care of it for 2-3 years.
• Answer as much of the data setup forms as you can. The project managers give this information to me on the road and it helps me get you to the point where we can begin using your data in the application, and not waste time trying to work on it while I am on site.
• Set your mechanics and foremen up for success by allowing them to be heard. Set up a channel for regular internal communication. Their experience, difficulties, and wins are important to get buy in. The full capability of job costing and forecasting depends on the integrity and consistency of their data input. They usually have some great suggestions to help out the company.
• If you need it: call support, call the project coordinator, call somebody. The last thing you want to do is leave a burning question unanswered. We are here for you, and if your trainer cannot be reached, the coordinator is the best resource to get your answers addressed.