This summer, the IT Service Desk was delighted to achieve Proactive Service Desk status having successfully completed a programme of IT service desk benchmarking.
Paul Rodrigues, Chairman of the Service Desk Institute (SDI) presented us with our award this week.
We undertook this rigorous process to examine how we operate, to identify existing strong and weak points, and, ultimately, to identify areas for service improvement.
Following an initial pre-assessment in July 2017, we hosted an SDI auditor for four days in May this year. Our auditor probed and prodded, spoke to our staff and customers, and sifted through innumerable pages of supporting evidence before being satisfied that we merited SDI Certification.
The IT Service Desk team, led by Iain Cameron, would like to thank those staff around the University who were surveyed and interviewed and who provided evidence and support during the certification programme.
What next?
There are higher levels of certification – Customer-led, Business-led, and World-class – and while we will keep these in our sights, our current focus is on improving our daily operations.
Most immediately, in response to feedback from students, we are moving our face-to-face, drop-in Service Desk to co-locate with the Library Information Desk on the First Floor of The Sir Duncan Rice Library. We’ll be there from Monday 3 September onwards and look forward to meeting you at our new location.
The audit identified areas for improvement, making around sixty specific recommendations for how we could enhance and develop our service to the University community, and we are already prioritising and defining road maps. We plan to replace our Service Desk software (better self-service options for you!); improve our reporting and metrics (on average time to resolve calls, for example); and revise queue handling procedures to identify urgent issues more promptly.
We also hope to improve your experience through active engagement and discussion. As a first step, we would welcome any suggestions you might have for change by inviting you to contact Iain directly at i.cameron@abdn.ac.uk.
About the SDI
The SDI is a professional body for those working in the IT service and support industry, and its Certification programme sets global best practice standards based on measurable benchmarks for people, processes and operations. Its mission is “to inspire service desks and service desk professionals worldwide to be brilliant.”