Creating the customer service team: an ongoing process

Prior to the advent of the Customer Service Team at the University of Puget Sound, academic and administrative computing had just been merged into the Office of Information Systems (OIS). However, the merger had mainly resulted in an umbrella structure, with each department still operating on its own. Calls from faculty and staff would get bounced from the academic computing gr oup to the technician’s group to the networking group, and back again. Requests for service would get lost in the shuffle. Inordinate delays were not uncommon. Finger pointing would occur. Users had no clear sense of service priorities or response times. The process of creating the Customer Service Team, with the help of an outside consulting firm, forced staff to consider how the divisions among the departments adversely affected our customers. This process was a strong force in the reorganization of the Office of Information Systems to eliminate the distinction between administrative and academic computing, form a gr oup focused on customer service, and involve other members of OIS in a larger Customer Service Team focusing the entire organization on customer service. Technology played a large part in the coordination of the activities of the team. Policies and procedures provided vital underpinnings to the effective use of the technology. This paper will address customer service within OIS prior to the development of the Customer Service Team, describe the startup process of the team, and cover the ongoing process of revisiting infrastructure, communications, and policy.