Excellent client service does not happen on its own. It happens because IT managers create the proper environment and teach their IT employees what is required to deliver effective client service.
A big part of a manager’s job is teaching and coaching. It doesn’t matter if you are on a sports team or in a professional IT support environment.
Good managers coach and reinforce the fundamentals of what it takes to be successful. They teach at the individual level to help each employee succeed. When individuals succeed collectively, the team succeeds.
What are IT support fundamentals?
Well, my list is pretty simple as you might expect. They include the following:
1. Follow-up – This is one of the most important of all traits we need. Simply put, when something is committed to a client, our staff needs to follow-up and close out their promise. In other words, “Do what you say you will do.”
2. Communicate effectively – IT people tend to lack good communication skills. It’s important for you to coach your employees on what and how to communicate with our clients, senior management, and each other.
3. Project management – Delivering projects successfully is how IT organizations achieve credibility. You may need to teach your employees how to work on projects or how to manage them. In fact, you may need to create a project management culture if it does not exist.
4. Quality – We want our employees to do the job right and to do their tasks completely, , , high quality. Finish the job and do the work once by doing it right.
5. Productivity – At the end of the day, how much an employee accomplishes is as important as how well they do something. Time management is essential and is a great coaching opportunity.
6. Professional conduct – “Dress for success!”, they say. Coach employees how to conduct themselves at work and understanding the importance of looking professionally is very important for IT success.
7. Being on time – Seems like a small point but it’s a major issue. Being on time for meetings, completing tasks and other commitments on time says a lot about you as an individual and an IT organization.
8. Be conservative – When making a commitment, be conservative so you can “over deliver”. No one gets upset if we complete the work earlier or less costly than expected.
9. Teamwork – Whether working with a client or with other IT employees, we are all on the same team. Respect for one another and working together as a team is an absolute requirement to achieve success.
10. Positive attitude – People who have positive “can do” attitudes achieve higher levels of success than those who do not. IT managers must not only coach this but they need to lead by example and become the IT organization’s best cheerleader.
Don’t assume your employees understand all of these fundamentals.
Professional sports team coaches constantly teach and reinforce the fundamentals of a player’s position with them, , , and these guys have been playing the sport for years.
What you see consistently is that teams who execute the fundamentals of their sport the best are the winners.
Instill the fundamentals of IT support within each of your IT employees and your IT organization will achieve many successes.
ITLever™ 