The Email I Sent to Reset Expectations for My Role in the New Year
“Support Expectations in the New Year”
Providing IT support to an entire organization can often feel like a futile endeavor. Focusing on one ticket at a time as you receive multiple emails and instant messages — simultaneously — can be challenging. It can also be really frustrating when you are channeling your energies towards solving a vexing problem and end-users are continuously calling you — or knocking on the door.
In 2021 I have big goals and I know I will need some “headspace” to achieve them... I am sure I could find this headspace if I recalibrate my organization’s approach to problems we face... I am certain that I can achieve this if I can empower end-users and help them adjust their expectations.
In this vein of thought, I decided to send out an email at the beginning of the year to clear the air. I wanted people to understand why I approach problems the way I do, to realize my role is to solve problems they can’t solve efficiently themselves and to be cognizant of the ways they can help me help them.
Here is the email I sent and I hope it inspires you to reset expectations in the New Year as well:
Good morning,
I just wanted to touch bases about support and what we can do to work together more effectively in the New Year.
Whenever I receive a support request, I strive to take into account the job function of the requestor and current circumstances to prioritize the request appropriately. As you can imagine, prioritizing requests becomes more challenging the more of them I receive but here are the criteria I use:
1. Is the issue preventing the requestor from completing a time sensitive task?
2. Is the issue preventing the requestor from completing a critical task?
3. Is there an alternative means for the requestor to complete the task?
4. Is this something the requestor has the means to handle on their own?
5. Do I have other higher priority requests, projects or administrative tasks that I must tend to first?
In light of these criteria, these are the steps I recommend you take when you open a request:
1. Check that basic requirements for the function of your device or application are met… Does it have power? Has a cable become disconnected? Am I able to connect to the internet? Have I restarted my computer?
2. Email me specific details about your issue, including if anything has changed, error messages, the sequence of events leading up to the issue and noteworthy observations you have.
3. Provide any information you feel is appropriate regarding the criticality of the issue according to the criteria above.
4. If you are not able to solve the issue on your own, it is preventing you from completing a critical task AND the task must be completed immediately, consider the issue critical, give me a call AND leave a voicemail if I don’t answer. (I will respond to and resolve issues as quickly as I can, even on nights, weekends and days off, for highly critical issues.)
5. If the issue is not critical, please wait until business hours to make a request and provide me up to 2 work days to respond. Depending on the complexity of the issue, the fix, my current workload and issues out of my control, it may take me longer to fix an issue in some circumstances.
By printing out and completing these steps whenever you have an issue, you will often save both of us time and cut down on email, such as when a restart is the only fix required. In addition, you will provide me valuable context that is necessary to troubleshoot and research the issue, thereby leading to a swifter resolution. Lastly, I will be able to maximize the efficiency of my responses and put an increased focus on increasing the quality/reliability of IT services.
If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know. Providing high quality service is important to me.
Jon Sexton
Want the skinny on other valuable problem solving techniques learned over years of experience? Read What 7 Years as “The IT Guy” Taught Me About Problem Solving.