Conversing with customers

In the challenging business of customer service, it can be difficult to gauge how well you and your employees are doing. Since you don't usually create a physical product, measuring the somewhat intangible results of your work can be a challenge-particularly when you provide support in other than face-to-face interactions. The bottom line is often how happy or satisfied your customers are. To assist in measuring customer satisfaction, we developed a real-time survey that is sent to each person who contacts the Solution Center at Iowa State University. Each customer then gets an opportunity to rate us on how we did and whether we were able to help them. In addition, the customer can ask that a manager contact them to follow up on the situation. This effort to reach out creates a channel of communication that lets the customer know we care about their experience and the quality of help they receive. Additionally, it also allows us to see where there are opportunities to improve our processes and helps us to assess potential problem areas. The real-time survey has been beneficial in the development of our student employees as future IT support professionals. The survey yields real-life responses to employees' performance in an environment where they can learn from their experience. This session is intended for all levels of user support staff.