Improving customer service
No matter what budget constraints we hit (and we will hit them; this is ed tech we're talking about), the one thing we can give our users for free is good customer service. You want a SMART Board in your room? Mmmm...too bad, the governor just cut local aid. You need interactive response systems? Yeah, so do 40 of your colleagues. You want me to work hard and provide the best IT support I can? Oh, well sure, I can do that. How can I help you?
I was in executive development classes (I know, it sounds bloody awful, but the NISL program really is about transforming education in meaningful ways; these are classes to which I actually look forward) Tuesday and Wednesday of this week talking about coaching. Not SuperBowl coaching, but coaching those with whom we work and who work for us to improve their skills and make them more effective. While the curriculum was really directed towards coaching teachers, both in pedagogy and specific content areas (you tech integration specialists out there know what I'm talking about), it made me think about the three techs in my district who report directly or indirectly to me. It also made me think about the interns and students who work with us, providing front line support to teachers.
Our customers are students, teachers, and administrators and, while our job is to ensure that they have the access they need to technology, we need to be able to do our jobs well, efficiently, and with a smile on our face. How many young techs inherently know how to deal with frustrated, technophobic teachers in ways that won't turn them off from the tech and will keep them happy, even in the face of serious hardware or software issues?
For that matter, how many grumpy, overworked IT guys do you know who simply can't balance customer service with their workloads? And yet, it's our job to fix the printer one more time for Mrs. Smith, no matter how many times we've shown her how to unjam it. It's our job to reset a password for Mr. Jones, even though we reset it yesterday.
These sorts of interpersonal "soft skills" are just as important as technical skill, given that the average school tech doesn't sit behind a console all day or hide in a server room, disconnected from end users like so many of our private industry counterparts. Techs in the average school are dealing with customers every day. This is where coaching comes in. Soft skills are not part of an MCSE course or even most educational technology graduate programs. Rather, they are developed by working closely with technical staff who already have them.
They come from so-called coaching conversations, where the best IT staff (both in technical expertise and people skills) work with, and have frank discussions with, the most junior (or the most grumpy). They come from modeling and teamwork, tackling projects together, and ensuring that we remain focused on supporting our customers and improving education through technology.
Oftentimes, people skills and IT don't go hand in hand. How does that old joke go? How can you spot the extroverted IT guy? He's the one who looks up from his BlackBerry at you as you pass him. However, the role of customer service, particularly as we look to really disrupt old educational models by infusing technology into the classroom, is absolutely undeniable. Teachers need to like, trust, and respect us. Although our technical skills build credibility, our people skills build trust.