The Scenario: It's Monday morning. You've come to work fully intending to finish that report your supervisor wants. As you attempt to e-mail the file to her, however, you discover that you can't get to the network. And so you call 4-HELP. Then, as you peruse your e-mail, you discover that a correspondent has included an attachment that must be decoded, but you don't know how to do it. Again, you place a call to 4-HELP. Who are the people at the other end of your phone call?
4-HELP: In campus computing sites throughout the University community, posted signs urge computer users who are experiencing computing difficulties to call 4-HELP, a one-on-one service available to students, faculty, staff, and alumni. In service since 1986, the Information Technology Division (ITD) offers computing assistance either through its telephone hot line, 764-4357 (4-HELP) or through questions submitted through e-mail to online.consulting@umich.edu.
The ITD consultants of 4-HELP are made up of over 15 permanent staff members. They handle the incredible range and ever-increasing complexity of questions from the university community. The 4-HELP site consists of 15 consulting workstations, each equipped with a Macintosh, a Windows machine, and a consulting terminal, allowing the consultants to follow along as a caller describes his or her problem. In addition, consultants make use of ITD's online information system, available on the World-Wide Web at the URL: http://www.itd.umich.edu/itcsdocs/ as well as a Footprints database that allows searches on various topics. Finally, if your question is still not answered, it will be forwarded to one of the several specialized referral teams: communications, the Internet, Macintosh operating systems, Windows operating systems, e-mail, etc.
Why Can't I Get Through to 4-HELP? Many of the questions called in by users have to do with communication issues such as network connections or e-mail. Given the complexities of these issues, the required amount of time to resolve a problem has increased along with the number of calls.
What Happens When I Call? Customers who call 4-HELP will first be greeted by a recording that informs them of any current outages. Customers will then be transferred to the call prompter where they may choose from 1 of 7 options. Option #2 will transfer them into the consultant queue. If the consultant queue is full, customers will receive a message informing them that 4-HELP is extremely busy and to either try their call again later or send e-mail to online.consulting@umich.edu for assistance via e-mail.
It's understandable to believe that the problem-solving begins only when you are finally connected with a consultant. In fact, however, the process begins before you call. The remainder of this article discusses the steps that you can take to make your contact with 4-HELP more efficient and get you working once again.
How You Can Help 4-HELP: Given the demands on the system, it is inevitable that there will be times when callers cannot get through to a consultant. Everyone in the university community, however, can expedite the 4-HELP service by simply observing the following guidelines. Allowing 4-HELP to answer individual questions more quickly will free consultants to take additional calls.
If at all possible, call 764-HELP when you can be in front of the computer at which you experienced problems. Otherwise, write down all error messages and the steps you took to solve the problem yourself. Often, consultants get calls from people at their offices who had problems the day before at their home computers. In such cases, callers may not remember exactly what the error message said or what happened and in what order. Without the appropriate information, it is extremely difficult for the consultants to help you.
The main thing to keep in mind when calling 4-HELP is that the more information we have about your problem, the faster you'll be off the phone.
Things to Know Before Calling 764-HELP:
To get a "cheat sheet" for this information, click here.