Change is always difficult, and the consolidation last fall of UNC-Chapel Hill’s Finance, Human Resources and Payroll functions with the existing Student Administration system in ConnectCarolina was one of the biggest technology changes the University has ever experienced.
Help Desk keeps customers updated
So it is especially striking that Information Technology Services’ new Business Systems Help Desk, which launched September 1 to assist users of the new financial information and personnel applications of ConnectCarolina, has been able to elicit smiles from an overwhelming majority of its customers. That’s even as some ConnectCarolina issues are still being worked out and as the Help Desk is doing its best to keep customers updated on some of the tickets that are lingering.
The Business Systems Help Desk has garnered an 81.6 percent “very satisfied” response from its surveyed customers and a 15.9 percent “satisfied” response, said Theresa Silsby, Business Systems Help Desk Director. Only 2.1 percent of those surveyed said they were not satisfied while fewer than half of a percent of surveyed customers gave no answer.
Overwhelming majority say they’re “very satisfied”
All initial calls and online help requests for the ConnectCarolina Finance, Human Resources and Payroll functions funnel through the Business Systems Help Desk. Some technical and functional issues are pushed up to second and third tiers of assistance. Of all the tickets that Business Systems Help Desk runs—including the issues that are forwarded to other responders, some 72.5 percent of surveyed customers reported they are “very satisfied” with the service they received, Silsby said. Another 20.9 percent described themselves as “satisfied” while only 6.1 percent said they were not satisfied.
“I feel like those are really good numbers,” Silsby said. The satisfaction level from customers is especially good, she noted, considering the ConnectCarolina implementation included the entire University and her unit has handled thousands of help tickets, including some from frustrated users as they learn and adjust to the ins and outs of the complex system. Also noteworthy is that this new ITS Help Desk has achieved these results when the call center staff members were themselves recently trained users of this new system.
Help Desk is “face of the system”
Silsby, who has worked for the University for 19 years including 13 years of help desk management in Carolina’s central Human Resources office, leads a Help Desk team at ITS Manning of nine people. Her team has closed 6,380 help tickets from among the more than 21,000 
tickets submitted since go-live. Many of the other tickets were funneled through the team, but were resolved by responders at other levels.
“Here at the Business Systems Help Desk, we are the customers’ advocates first and foremost,” Silsby said.
“We are the face of the system. We are who they reach out to,” she added.
Customers appreciate a “calm, friendly voice,” Silsby said. In addition to seeking a knowledgeable person to assist them, customers are happy to have someone who will let them “express their feelings and thoughts on the system.”
