Walking the Line Between Customer Service and Customer Codependency Susan West Klein Office of Information Technology North Carolina State University Copyright Susan West Klein 2009. This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author.

A bit of context…NC State University Land grant university, located in Raleigh, NC Part of the University of North Carolina system 31,000 students ~8000 faculty and staff Comprises 10 colleges and schools Colleges and schools have varying levels of funding/control for IT

IT at NC State The Office of Information Technology (OIT) was formed November 2007 from the central administrative and academic IT organizations. New support group was formed, comprising staff from former administrative and academic IT groups.

Culture shock of merging two organizations Providing “high touch” support for a managed environment to a fixed population (3000 clients) Focus on managed desktop environment and web-based business applications Providing support at scale to all students and employees (~30,000 clients) Focus on authentication, email and a number of Tier 1 services Which group do you think was larger? 17 front line employees on admin; 10 on acad, including CT and ResNet

A few definitions…

What is Customer Service? The added value that a service organization provides its clients Proactive aspects Respect between the service provider and the client Meeting the expectations of the client

What is Codependency? Taking care of others’ needs to the detriment of oneself Lack of respect for the other person’s ability to care for him/herself Expectations? Caregiver does it all!

What is Customer Codependency? Support person does too much for the client, often to the detriment of self or others Why? Belief in excellent customer service—more is more, right? Client may demand it Path of least resistance

Why is Customer Codependency a problem? Client has no responsibility for self-support Client doesn’t grow his/her expertise Support group will be unable to keep up with client expectations—and will never be able to do the next thing Unhealthy relationship for client and support provider

but we also all know… All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. George Orwell (1903-1950), Animal Farm

Goal…achieve a balance on the continuum… Customer Codependency Customer Service

…and provide good service to our whole community Needs of the few Needs of the many

It is easy for a support organization to lose its balance Customer Codependency Customer Service

…with so many priorities Individual Attention Scalability Efficiency

…one strategy is to facilitate self sufficiency/self help Individual Attention Scalability Efficiency

Helping people help themselves IT culture is becoming a culture of self-service It’s not all about training or documentation…it’s about the tools…and how we facilitate their use The goal: compelling/useful tools that educate our clients while giving them the ability to help themselves

Pushing support closer to the end-user Self-service isn’t always possible or desirable Enhance “local” support Extend use of support tools (with appropriate auditing and access control) Focus of training and communication

Being able to let go…

But don’t let it all go… Not Found The requested URL /file was not found on this server.

So, what are the strategies at NC State? Self-service tools (HR, Student, Benefits, etc.) Resources for local support staff Integration into our business processes

Emphasize self-help in our interactions with our clients Self-help tools Part of the interaction with the client Reinforced by confirmation email that is generated by call-tracking system

Problem tracking tools…

But what about your staff? Being an advocate for self-help can be hard for support professionals It can be fun to be the hero! Our role as managers is to help our staff understand the benefits of promoting self-support, while maintaining high levels of customer service.

NC State-developed tools… http://sysnews.ncsu.edu

So then, what’s the role for the central support group? Answering questions! Providing support, particularly for the “local” questions Process documentation Process improvement User advocacy Process expertise Being a good responder

Being a good responder… Focusing on your ability to be an effective responder can enhance your customer service. Infrastructure for effective response ACD, problem tracking, etc. Problem notification/transparency: It’s broken and we know it! Learn from other responders

Letting go… Being all things to all people System access Control and Information

The end result… a community of clients who can feel empowered to use their technology tools a community of departmental support staff who have the tools to be effective a support staff who can partner with their clients to reach solutions to their problems.

It’s about the relationship between support provide and the client Respect Reasonable expectations

Questions? Susan West Klein Office of Information Technology Technology Support Services North Carolina State University Susan_Klein@ncsu.edu

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