Respondents to a recent IT Manager channel poll talked about time-wasting requests, examples of users trying to fix problems themselves, and other issues which effected their ability to provide service to internal customers.
Arthur Smith, chief engineer at Arlen Enterprise--a company which provides in-home computer servicing--has had a range of interesting requests for help from users.
Smith said that the strangest request for IT support was from a user whose monitor was blank. "After the usual questions regarding the monitor [such as, are] there any lights on the front of the monitor, is it plugged in properly, there was the usual trudge down the hallway into the call centre," he explained. "Only to find that the call centre staff member had very conveniently pulled the plug on the monitor so her radio could be plugged in.
"Would you believe this happened three times over three days by the same staff member?"
Peter Hannan, director of IT services at IT services company Consultel, believes that there are many pitfalls for managers who are juggling the balancing act of real or perceived service levels, VIP users and regular callers.
Hannan thinks that a two-tiered approach offers a higher degree of customer service, although admits it is more costly and time-consuming. He suggests that technical people solve the problems one at a time, according to their service-level priorities, with a customer relationship person designated as a point of contact between the end user and the technical staff member.
He suggests that these customer service staff can then work with business unit managers, so that they are aware of any problems with rogue users. "In-house delivery issues are advised to the customer base so that IT is not see as a distant black hole of jargon, technical fuzziness, wasteful budgets and unresponsive service," he added.
Another IT manager respondent said that one of the biggest frustrations at the IT department where she worked were users with trivial issues which seemed extremely important to them, but were irrelevant in the big picture. "They take time, therefore money and resources," she said. "Also, the constant battle with other managers to explain that system maintenance is important and resource consuming. They only realise when something goes wrong, [such as] a security patch isn't installed and there is an incident on the Web server".
Ernst Zimmer, a retired IT professional, believes the problem lies in the way the IT professional is forced to provide service to the various clients. He suggests equipping each PC within the organisation with standard software that the IT department believes can be maintained in an economic manner. "Prohibit end users [from loading] any software or applications on their PC unless it has been approved by the IT department," Zimmer advises. "Ensure that each user uses that PC in accordance with strict guidelines as laid down by management. This includes reporting of viruses, suspicious e-mails and other behaviour that may not be acceptable by the organisation".
Zimmer also suggests setting up procedures within the IT department so that end user PCs can be monitored, maintained, updated and modified centrally from the IT service desk.
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