Helpdesk review

As we try and improve our services we carry out regular reviews using a web survey, and then we put in place an action plan depending on what the review came up with, and publish everything on our web pages so our customers can see what action we've taken.

The latest review was of our Helpdesk, and at yesterday's Executive Team meeting we discussed the report. In general it was very good - there were areas identified for improvement which there always are, but there were some very nice comments. There's been a clear growth in contacts to the Helpdesk over the last few years, with the majority coming from staff - students prefering to use the staffed desks in the Information Commons or IT Centres. It was interesting to see who the largest users of the service were - the top users are mainly from professional services rather than academic departments, but that is probably because many academic departments have some form of IT support locally.

Edit: This post got cut short because I was dashing to catch a train, and someone has commented that we should be developing self service systems so that contact with the Helpdesk will eventually drop. Of course, that's right - we should be developing more self service. We've already launched a service status page, and a self-service Helpdesk system where users can submit and track calls, and a knowledge base - all of these are bring developed and promoted. We're also looking at enabling customers to do standard tasks themselves such as retrieving passwords and increasing filestore. But, many people prefer to talk to a person, so we'll always be there..