I was going to make this a snarky post on how to get bad service from IT, but then I realized that it might actually be more useful to write this in a more positive light.  Also, I actually had positive things to say.

So you’re someone who has a computer problem at a company, and you have some sort of computer support/MIS/IT department that you need to help you.  Here’s what to do to get the best service both now and for your problems in the future:

• Follow the process.  Maybe it seems really silly to call into the Help Desk line rather than just walk up to the systems administrator (since you just did tequila shots with him last night), but I really mean that you should call in instead.  Why do you need to follow the process?
• If it’s a system-wide problem, having all the calls come into one place will allow it to be diagnosed & fixed faster.  If 4 different people get 4 different calls about the same problem and we’re all in different offices, we’re not aware that it’s system-wide until several minutes or hours later.
• Your buddy in the IT department might not be the best person to ask about your question.  Your drinking pal the sysadmin usually can’t fix your Word problem, and the IT Director probably doesn’t know her way around common Citrix problems the way the Help Desk does.
• You can make sure your problem gets documented properly.  When I ran IT departments and had to handle a user’s issue directly, I rarely remembered to document it in the ticket tracking system.  Unfortunately, that meant that the next time that user had that problem, someone else had to take the same troubleshooting steps I did.  If it’s a problem you have all the time, you also WANT your problem to be documented properly, since it’s more likely to be taken very seriously if you can prove a pattern via the documentation trail.
• Walking straight up to IT & support folks tends to tick them off.  They might be in the middle of a different user’s problem, or they might be held to a certain hold time standard.  Your walk-up interrupts them and probably annoys them as well.
• Call the support line WHILE you’re having the problem (and you’re at your computer!).  Calling after you’ve already moved on or–even worse–calling when you’re not in front of the computer removes almost all the tools that the support folks will need in order to diagnose and fix the issue.  This is another reason not to walk directly up to the IT folk; we need you to access your computer so we can figure out what’s going on!
• Call the support line yourself.  Don’t have your boss/secretary/wife/dog call for you.  Maybe you feel like your boss will have more clout & get things done better or faster, but it’s the same as the last point–we still need you to be at your computer.  And if you’re the boss, you should note that your secretary can’t fix it for you if he’s not at your computer.  Your wife will make us laugh but probably won’t help us fix it, either.  And your dog doesn’t have opposable thumbs.
• Be nice. I know you’re annoyed that your @!#&* document has @#$%^&* frozen yet again, but cursing at the person on the other end of the phone won’t motivate them to fix it any faster.  Please keep in mind that geeks are people, too, and treat them politely and professionally.  If you’re rude, chances are we’ll fix your problem this time, but you might find yourself ringing to voice mail a bit more often, since the support folks will be more likely to jump to answer the calls from the users who are nice to them.  If you did happen to lose your temper, donuts make good apology tools.  Just sayin’…

I had the opportunity recently to meet with the inimitable Donna Payne, CEO of PayneGroup.  I have been a groupie of Donna’s since she changed my world by talking about PowerPoint metadata back in 2000 when I was doing applications at a law firm.  Since then, we’ve been social media buddies and even co-presented on using social media to the vendors at ILTA ’09.  I was pretty thrilled when she made time in her busy day to chat with me.

What became very clear during our conversation was how focused Donna is on what I can only describe as “CEO stuff”.  Even though she has successfully created a premier company in the legal space that writes top-shelf metadata, formatting, and numbering software, does high-level consulting, and provides some of the best training around, she’s not just sitting around and trying to make sales.  Here’s why I think her brain is in the right place:

• She cares for her team.  A LOT.  She has a yoga instructor come in once a week to help with stress (and it’s just fun!).  She specifically cited my On Burnout post as something she diligently attempts to avoid having anyone on her team experience.  And I think her caring has paid off–most of her senior team has been with her more than a decade.  That’s something like 30,000 years in the software space, I think.
• She sees her company’s potential weaknesses and attacks them before they become REAL weaknesses.  This goes along with watching her team for burnout; she’s also watching for any potential internal or external weaknesses so that she can address them quickly.  I like to call this “preventive maintenance”, and I’ll bet that it saves her company a ton of cash in the long run.
• She is constantly thinking about her company’s next steps. Donna is thinking 10+ years into the future of her company, and is taking action right now in order to bring that future about.  She’s not content to just have one of the best companies out there–she’s looking for what’s next, and she’s not afraid to take risks in order to get there.
• She’s actively thinking about the industry’s next steps.  Even though a lot of law firms are scared of the cloud and might not want to touch non-Microsoft applications for a long time, Donna is actively thinking about them and planning for when the industry becomes less hesitant.