The Importance of Customer Service

I attended training in Management Skills this week, and one of the standout messages was "Know Your Customer". As the class material pointed out, we all have a customer, and most of us forget that when our main customer is other departments within the same company. Managers in particular need to understand their customers' needs so that they can better lead their group, prioritizing the right projects. Sometimes IT people feel as if we are so needed and crucial that we don't need to sell ourselves to our customers, the other people working at the company who use our applications or need our assistance with technology. Sometimes, that's true, but it makes for a better working environment when the IT department is trusted and liked. When servers have to be upgraded, applications deployed, or new policies put into place, the user community adapts much better when they trust the people providing the service.

So, if you are an IT department, you are providing products/services - desktop support, database applications & access, network access, reports production and delivery. If you are following BMC's route-to-value with the CMDB, then you know that you need to start by defining your services. It has no meaning to track something in your CMDB that no one wants or uses.

We also need to provide good customer service. Desktop Support and Help Desk of course are primarily about customer service. However, IT project managers and application developers could use a lesson in customer service as well. I really enjoyed the article I've linked to here - Joel on Software: Seven Steps to Remarkable Customer Service. In particular, I think a lot of us could benefit from "Take the Blame" as a way to defuse arguments. For a Help Desk Manager struggling to retain their smartest employees, I like the bonus step - provide a career path for customer service people.