Abstract

paper -

 

  98                  Is Call Tracking Really the Goal?: Building Better Communication with Your 2nd-tier Support

Jen Whiting, Princeton University

Pete Everett, Princeton University

 

Tivoli, Remedy, Apriori – the list goes on and on.  Call Tracking software has made its way into most every Help Desk, be it home-grown or commercial.  The question still remains: is call-tracking enough?  Statistics and numbers and ticket times and customer records aside, have we improved our service to our customers?

 

Deploying a new call-tracking system forced us to look at the impact we could have upon our services: can we gain clearer communication with our system administrators, our Oracle gurus, the e-mail guys and the ADSM group by offering them something from our call-tracking system: fewer customer contacts, more time with their servers.

 

Princeton University’s recent move to a new call tracking system that embraced us as an enterprise, and even moved beyond the walls of CIT has quickened answers to our customers, removed administrators from customer phone calls and given greater access to answers to our customer’s fingertips through a web interface to our knowledge base.

 

This paper will challenge the reader to ask if service to the customer has truly been improved by call-tracking, and how can an organization take it to the next level of improving communication between the factions that so often have little to say to each other: front-line support and back-end administrators.

 

Expected audience are Help Desk staff and managers looking for ways to improve service to their customers as well as better communication lines with 2nd-tier support.

 

Keywords: Communication, IT Organization, Support, Call Tracking

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