Institutional Excellence Award
Northeast Community College ’ s Service Center Initiative
Applying for ACUTA ’ s Institutional Excellence Award provides an opportunity to examine a broject you are currently implementing or have recently completed . The process requires that you describe what was done , where , when , by whom , and for what purpose . You identify key goals and objectives , and explain aspects of this undertaking that make it unique and worthy of recognition : Does it promote community outreach ? Was a unique partnership formed ? Did you obtain creative funding or receive high profile media attention or coverage ? It requires considerable thought , winners have told us that the process was a good experience for their campus . ACUTA is always proud to present the descriptions of these outstanding projects .
Northeast Community College redefined its approach to customer service by transforming the IT help desk into a “ Service Center ” for all college departments to better serve students , faculty , and staff . Customer satisfaction today is a commodity every institution provides . To give customers more , Northeast needed to surprise and delight them . The Service Center concept enables Northeast to mask the complexities of departments , systems , and processes to provide a frictionless customer experience .
The Service Center is similar to an Information Technology Infrastructure Library ( ITIL ) concept of a service desk , except it serves other service departments in addition to Information Accepting the Institutional Excellence Award for Services . Northeast Community College were Derek Bierman ,
The key institutional goals
Carla Streff , and Alex Cook . and objectives of the Service Center include : 1 . Serve as an objective for Northeast ’ s Vision 2020 Strategic Goals : Increased Student Success , Increased Student Access , Provide a Globally Competitive Workforce , and Develop and Maximize Resources . 2 . Serve as a single point of contact for end-customers and all service departments where applicable . 3 . Manage the customer experience . 4 . Bridge day-to-day gaps in services , processes , systems , and communications .
5 . Provide data and analysis for continuous improvement and institutional strategic decision making .
Creating the Service Center involved a multitude of aspects . The newly formed Technology Services division , a centralizing of all technology departments , needed to be merged with Library Services . The Service Center would take ownership of the library ’ s customer service desk for general responsibilities and allow the librarians to specialize in helping students with research and study . All communication channels for customer contact were dissolved and replaced with one desk , phone number ( 844-HELP ), email address ( help @ northeast . edu ), web portal , and knowledgebase . In addition , Northeast partnered with four other colleges in a Shared Services initiative , another institutional strategic goal , to integrate their versions of a Service Center . Technology employees , administrators , and key department directors from the colleges were all certified in ITIL and / or received various other related training including the “ Red Bead Experiment ” to give employees the necessary fundamental skills to catch the vision of the Service Center . The Service Center ’ s funding included the reallocation of resources and an infusion of strategic funds .
Planning , Leadership , and Management Support The Service Center is a key objective of Northeast ’ s Vision 2020 Strategic Plan . The original idea was developed in 2013 as part of a strategic realignment by our president , Dr . Michael Chipps and his cabinet . The initiative was started in 2014 with phase 1 going live that same year .
During realignment planning , the vice president of Technology Services proposed the initial idea brainstormed by his team to solve a student experience frustration of the various silos across campus . The director team posed two questions , “ how do we effectively hide or mitigate the process complications , communication gaps , and individual department functions from students so it ’ s easy to work with us ? The only thing that should be hard for a student should be their course work ;
30 Winter 2017 ACUTA Journal