Being Sam Malone: customer service on a campus where "Everybody Knows Your Name"

ABSTRACT

Working on a small campus has many advantages: Familiarity with the majority of faculty and staff, in-depth knowledge of how systems interact, adding the personal touch to each interaction with the users. However, this can also be a challenge, as knowing the personal history of some users leads us to make assumptions and generalizations with their problems.This talk will cover how we at Grinnell College deal with a very heterogeneous user base, and what we have learned through training and experience about what to do, and what not to do, with those "difficult" situations.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.7 THE COMPUTING PROFESSION
      K.7.0 General

General Terms:
Human Factors, Management

Keywords:
customer service, end user support, support teams