While we provide solutions that drive success in business, IT doesn’t directly make money for the company – so while what we do is business critical, we are still primarily in the business of providing service to other functions.
So what happens when something goes wrong?
There are two possible responses to a customer service problem. The first response is, “This is unacceptable. This must be resolved immediately”. The second response is, “It’s a problem, but it’s not a big deal. We can figure out a work-around until it gets fixed”.
Now here’s where the light bulb goes on: if you are providing service to a customer, and a problem comes up, you get to pick your response first. The 100% always true no fail guarantee is that whichever response you pick, your customer will pick the other one.
The cool thing is that it doesn’t matter if it’s a broken cellphone or a million dollar piece of software - it still works this way. (It also works the same way if your restaurant meal isn’t satisfactory or you are trying to return something to a store or somebody messed up your tee time – try it and see!)
And when people in your organization see how seriously you take the fact that their blackberry isn’t working properly, they will understand that you also take their big problems seriously, and the next time you have a significant issue you will have their support. It’s amazing how much support you can get from your business colleagues by sending somebody out to the store to spend a couple of hundred dollars on a phone.
