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UCISA SUPPORT SERVICES 2014 CONFERENCE REVIEW by Sally Bogg, Helpdesk Service Leader, University of Leeds
SS14 saw the Support Services Conference back at Crewe Hall, providing us with the most amazing accommodation and conference facilities in one of Cheshire’s most beautiful stately mansions. The Conference opened with greetings from myself
as Conference Chair and a formal Welcome from the UCISA Executive Chair, John Cartwright, who gave us a very honest account of the problems experienced by the University of Liverpool last year. The fi rst keynote speaker was Carolyn Blunt who
delivered a session on why we are all in customer service now. Carolyn revealed some pret y shocking statistics, including the fact that 82% of complaints are related to poor customer service. Carolyn gave us seven top tips for improving our customer service. By the amount of chat on Twit er, it was easy to see that these tips went down very well with the audience. The Discussions with a diff erence were back and this
year’s topics covered BYOD, customer engagement, service portfolio and measurements, metrics, gameifi cation and utility and warranty. As always, these sessions gave delegates the opportunity to network and share ideas and issues. We also repeated last year’s Business Showcases –
giving suppliers the opportunity to present case studies on their products and services. We had sessions from FrontRange and the University of Oxford on service desk consolidation, Cardiff University and Bomgar talking about their implementation of chat within the library and St Andrews and TOPDesk discussing continual service improvement and service desk certifi cation. The last session of the day was a presentation from
Gareth Edwards talking about how diffi cult it can be to innovate and get things done. In 2013, the University of Surrey introduced an idea management platform as a way of challenging IT staff to deliver bet er services. This was a lively, fast paced session with over a 100 slides in total. Phew! The evening’s entertainment including a BBQ (with great weather) and a fun game of IT Family Fortunes −
defi nitely a fi rst for the Conference. Day Two saw a presentation from Dean Phillips
from the University of Aberdeen giving us an insight into how they have used business relationship management to improve customer engagement and deliver bet er services. This was followed by a panel session to explore the question of What does a successful relationship look like? with the general consensus summed up in a sentence by Rhys Davies as, One in which you would continue through choice. Barclay Rae also gave a strong statement Relationship trumps SLA every time, which really did seem to resonate with the audience. Rhys followed on from the panel session talking about the One IT programme at the University of Leeds who are aiming for Ronseal Service Delivery − it does what is says on the tin. The second evening saw the formal dinner with
entertainment from the singer/comedian Mitch Benn from BBC Radio 4’s The Now Show who was a huge hit with the audience. Day Three and now it was my time to present –
giving a session on the UK’s very fi rst HE Service Desk Benchmarking report. This report benchmarks HE service desks against each other and against the wider industry and has been used by some organisations to help build a roadmap for their service desk. James Woodward closed the Conference by giving
out the Unemo Awards to Alex Szymanski (lifetime achievement), Tony Bret (best 20x20), Mark Jacot (best newcomer) and Gareth Edwards (top Tweeter) as well as thanking the Conference organising commit ee and the UCISA team who work so hard to put on these events. If you haven’t at ended a Support Services
Conference before I can highly recommend them. They are a fantastic opportunity to learn from colleagues by sharing best practice and ideas. Delegates are encouraged to document their takeaways as they go along and I know that lots of people return to work full of energy and inspiration. Hopefully we will see you at the Oxford Belfry (NB not in Oxford!) on 8-10 July 2015! UB
Sally Bogg
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