Service Desk superstars

We’ve sung their praises before, and we will do it again, but this time we think our Service Desk colleagues are especially great and we are so glad they are part of our wider team here at IT Services.

As you know, the past six months or so have been particularly challenging. Everyone at the University has worked exceptionally hard to keep it all going as smoothly as possible so students can enjoy top quality education, despite the circumstances we find ourselves in. 

Throughout all this, our patient and knowledgeable colleagues on the Service Desk have often been our first point of contact when we have a problem with our IT.  They have taken calls from across the University on an unprecedented scale and have calmly and professionally helped us to keep going.

Keeping us working, teaching and learning

Even from home, the team continues working extraordinarily hard to answer our questions and keep us all working, teaching and learning. Since the beginning of March the Service Desk have:

• managed around 30,000 incidents covering all sorts of things, from straightforward questions such as how to set up email, Single Sign-On or VPN, to much more complicated scenarios requiring coordination and collaboration across multiple teams.

• managed approximately 14,000 requests through self service

• answered over 13,000 telephone calls – the volume of these trebled during March and was again very high during September and early October.

The quote below captures much of the feedback the Service Desk team has received, and we couldn’t agree more!

I cannot thank the Service Desk enough for how helpful they have been throughout the entire duration of this pandemic. Every single time I called I was met with a calm analyst who was always able to take my problem without hesitation and assist my user(s) delivering and maintaining superb customer service, or escalating extremely technical problems to the relevant teams at IT Services. One consistent trait that I noticed was that every time I rang my problem was shared, they understood how much of an impact this was having on either myself, the users that I look after or the services that are ran at the Faculty. Quite frankly, I’ve not come across better service across the entire University, their empathy, energy and drive is second to none. I admire how well composed these analysts were during an incredibly stressful time.

Luke Milkovic, IT Officer, Faculty of Oriental Studies, Humanities Division

Getting IT help

We all need help from time-to-time, so here are the quickest ways to get help if you need it:

• Contact your local (department or college) IT Officer in the first instance – they know your local systems best

• Visit IT Help for the answer to common issues such as connecting to Wi-Fi, getting started with Teams and using VPN

• Request help 24/7 by providing details to log a support call  in IT Self Service

• Call (01865 6) 12345 (quoting your unique reference if you are enquiring about progress on an email) – you can call 24/7 and there’s even a call-back service.