Category: Customer Service

There are so many facets to supporting higher education that it’s difficult to contemplate in a single blog post, so I may do it in several over time, but let me begin by saying what I’m not talking about. I’m not talking about supporting students in higher ed, I’m speaking primarily of faculty and staff. And with that cornerstone laid I should also share that the people I support in higher ed are in the English department, and our English department is really heavy into linguistics, so I don’t support the kind of folks you’ll find in Math, or CompSci, or Ag.

So, what is different about the group people I support? Well to begin with, there are a lot of them. Iowa State University has a student population of over 30,000. I’ve lived in towns that aren’t that large. And English is the largest department on campus with nearly 200 faculty and staff. Additionally, we’re the heaviest concentration of Macs on campus at > 90%. And I think it may be because our English department is so heavy on linguistics, but it seems like (and I don’t have numbers to back this up) the majority of my professors come from other parts of the world, which I think is very cool. I get to interact with people from all over the globe and learn about different people and cultures all from the middle of Iowa, often without even leaving the building I’m in!

I tend to think of my customers as having very high expectations for the service they receive, but I also think of them as very kind and patient people. Effectively, they just want stuff to work. I’ve said on many occasions that I believe I have the best faculty and staff on campus to support, and I believe that with all of my heart. But the work I do is not very much like support work I’ve done in other organizations over the past 33 years. There is some phone support, but it’s not mostly phone support. There’s also some desk side support although it isn’t mostly desk side either. In my office we generate a lot of foot traffic which is partly the nature of the people I support and partly by design. We have an office that looks less like an IT office than any other IT office you’ve ever seen. We work hard to foster a welcoming environment and are actually pretty effective in that endeavor.

However, none of this would be possible without the small army of about a dozen student workers that do the bulk of the work. I guess when I think about it, they’re what’s different about supporting higher ed for me. My student workers aren’t always as busy as other student workers, but when there’s work to be done, there isn’t a moment’s hesitation. And when the work requires many hands, they come together almost as one unit to get things done. It’s really a lot of fun to see how they work together and with each other and how they help one another. I guess in many ways, my job is more hands off than it’s been in years past because of the students who work with me. It’s really quite special and I’m extremely fortunate to have been able to assemble the team that I have. Surely, they’re the most unique part of supporting higher ed for me.

I suppose in certain contexts, you could say that yes. You’ve heard it said that everybody has a customer, and of course we really should treat all customers the same, but we don’t really treat all customers the say, do we?

When this post came to mind, what I had in mind was internal vs. external customers. When I have a choice, I’ll support external customers every time. The reason for this is simple to me.

• All things being normal, I excel at customer service and it’s something I enjoy a great deal
• External customers generally are paying for a service I’m providing and therefore have higher expectations than internal customers
• External customers have choice as it relates to who provide their service, and I’m flattered when they trust me enough to select me to provide service in consideration of the choices they have.

Internal customers to me are much more challenging to support. By contrast they:

• Have some kind of unexpected problem
• It’s a problem they can’t resolve themselves.
• They don’t have any choice about who they get help from

In the past I’ve said that having internal customers automatically sets you up for a negative interaction. As I described above, it’s one, two three strikes you’re out at the old ball game and that’s often a difficult set of circumstances to overcome. But they can be over come and you can turn those sometimes difficult customers into raving fans as Kenneth Blanchard talks about in his book by the same name. You can find it on Amazon

It’s a noble endeavor to make Raving Fans out of those sometimes difficult customers, but it’s also exceptionally rewarding!

I’m still a few years away from retirement when I’ll get to shift gears and do more with web things. Until then, I’m fortunate to be able be able to support some unique and wonderful people during my 9:00 to 5:00.

I do support for the English Department at Iowa State University. English is the largest department on campus. I have around 200 faculty and staff members that I look after that come from all over the world and it’s really a very special privilege to support these customers.

I think of my customers as the stars of the show. They’re the ones who are front and center in front of the students who pay a good sum of money go come to our university. If these folks weren’t top shelf they couldn’t attract the student base that they do, and so as cornerstones of the organization, it’s important to keep them doing what they do.

Some of the new TAs when they come in each year haven’t experienced the kind of support I strive to provide and I often explain it like this: If you think of your favorite television show, there are probably not more than six or eight actors in any given scene. Behind the scenes however, There are many more people than you see on the screen at any particular point. There are producers, directors, show runners, caterers, lights, sound, camera operators, costume designers, choreographer and many others I’m sure.

That point I’m getting at is there are many more people than the ones you see that are all working together to make the scene look good for their customers., That describes how I feel about my customers. They’re the stars of the show, they’re the ones that students come to our organization to learn from. My job (and the job of many others!) is to enable those stars to do what they so enrollment stays up and we can all keep doing what we’re doing. They’re just the tip of the iceberg really. So I feel responsible for helping them to have a really amazing day when I can, and I want to make sure their interaction with me is as painless as possible.

I don’t remember where I heard it first, but someone said, “Technology is at its best when it’s least visible.