From help desk and resnet to "Best Service Center in Town"
Niki Serakiotou, Aime Diaw, Thomas Bui, Richard Roberts, Carolynne White · 2008
Rice University used to divide personal computer support between the Help Desk staff, consultants and students workers at the colleges resulting in inconsistent service and low help desk morale. During the last two academic years we embarked on a number of reforms. In this paper we describe the restructuring of the support model for undergraduate students and the way it improved support for the entire campus. We also describe some of the details of the new support model and the techniques we use to train and develop student workers. We will share some details of our new operations including the hiring, training and evaluation processes for students, documentation and training materials and workflow procedures. The results we have experienced from restructuring the Help Desk and ResNet relationship have been impressive as shown by metrics, surveys and personal experience.