Smart Business magazine

The Delicate Art of the Help Desk

By Eve Tahmincioglu

www.smartbusinessmag.com/article/0,3658,s%3D101%26a%3D14747,00.asp 

There are puppy charm schools. There are charm schools for southern belles. And there are even charm schools for CEOs. But what about a charm school for your IT staff?

Why not? asked Calvin Sun, a consultant from Paoli, Pennsylvania, when he started his Technology Horizons "IT charm school" (www.calvinsun.com) for computer professionals in 1997. IT workers from all walks of life—everyone from the front-line support staff to system specialists—have a hard time getting along with the world outside, says Sun, and teaching employees to don a nice cap can only help boost the bottom line.

Richard Jarvis, director of midrange systems of Synthes USA, put his programmers through Sun's charm school classes. His technical staff got some needed instruction on how to treat the company's internal users. "They learned the proper way to talk to them," says Jarvis. "Make them feel part of the problem and part of the solution."

The IT workforce isn't known for its communication skills, says Bob Artner, VP for content development at tech info portal Tech Republic. A recent survey he conducted found that IT managers prefer to work with technology more than people by three to one.

However, Artner adds, an increasing number of computer managers are realizing that they, along with their employees, need to "hone their soft skills." Featuring lessons like keeping end users informed of troubleshooting progress at all times and cutting through jargon for less tech-savvy employees, Sun's syllabus appears to be paying off for various high-tech clients.

While Ken Cohn, CIO of Washington, D.C.–based Potomac Electric Power Company, says his IT staff was already quite charming, the 48 staffers he put through Sun's program "now see things from the customer's point of view. It has reinforced their interpersonal skills, which are sometimes sacrificed by technical folks concentrating on technical issues."

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