Excellence in support or support is more than a correct answer

Your telephone rings, you answer, and it is a customer with a question. You provide the answer, check to see that it has been understood, wait to see if it fixes the problem and, when it does, thank the customer for calling and move on to your next task. Some would feel that this scenario defines excellence in computer support for our customers. And yet, excellence in support is so much more than having the right response to provide. It also involves being able to:

• empathize with our customers

• think "outside the box" for solutions

• talk knowledgeably about cutting-or-bleeding-edge technology with early-adopters on our campuses

• proactively respond to problems you know that they will have (but they may not anticipate)

• understand the planned future directions information technology (IT) may take on our campuses

• anticipate what advances the IT industry may provide and how these will affect us

At the University of Virginia (U.Va.), we in the central ITC organization try to offer our customers (the students, faculty and staff with direct questions, our colleagues who provide departmental computer support and each other) excellence in support, which is why we strive not only to find ways to stay abreast of new developments but also to share information with each other, with our colleagues providing support in departments, and with our customers.