Faster response to student and faculty questions is the reason the Computer Help Center is deploying new tools and realigning office hours.
Beginning Sept. 11, the Computer Help Center will be open 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., Monday to Friday; and noon to 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. During off hours, calls to the help center will be answered by the UNL Operations Center.
“To be effective, you have to be available when your customers want you,” said Paula Lampe, supervisor of the Help Center. “Our peak hours of customer activity are from 10 a.m. through 4 p.m. We can begin to overlap our staff during these periods, giving us the ability to respond to our customers more efficiently.”
A new incident tracking system, Numara FootPrints, was implemented at the beginning of the fall semester. The system helps track, escalate and resolve customer problems.
“When someone has a question regarding technology, it’s smart to deploy technology to help provide the answer,” said Neil Wineman, manager of Information Services' client services. “Anyone who has a question can send an email to mysupport@unl.edu. That email is automatically entered into our tracking program. It then is either answered by our Help Center staff, or is escalated to personnel who can answer and/or correct the problem.”
Customers are informed of progress on their inquiry through email updates. They can also view progress by using my.unl login at http://mysupport.unl.edu. An online knowledge base of frequently asked questions is also available.
“These tools and operations help us more closely align with our Big Ten peers and IT best practices,” said Wineman.
UNL Operations Center operators are also being trained to respond and answer help center questions during off hours.
“The operations center is 24/7 and we’re leveraging that staffing to provide service to the lower call volumes in our off-peak hours,” said Wineman. "The Computer Help Center will still offer extended hours of operation during the first two weeks of each new semester to accommodate the higher volume of customer contacts during those periods."
For more information, go to http://ischc.unl.edu.