1. Walking the Line Between Customer Service and Customer Codependency
Susan West Klein
Office of Information Technology
North Carolina State University
Copyright Susan West Klein 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.

2. 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

3. 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.

4. 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, 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

5. A few definitions…

6. 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

7. 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!

8. 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

9. 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

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

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

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

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

14. …with so many priorities
Individual Attention
Scalability
Efficiency

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

16. 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

17. 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

18. Being able to let go…

19. But don’t let it all go…
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20. 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

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

22. Problem tracking tools…

23. 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.

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

25. 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

26. 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

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

28. 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.

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

30. Questions? Susan West Klein Office of Information Technology
Technology Support Services
North Carolina State University

31. What did you think? Your input is important to us!
Click on “Evaluate This Session” on the Mid-Atlantic Regional program page.