developing a service catalog for higher education information technology services
Customers of Information Technology Services at Hobart and William Smith Colleges need to quickly and easily access information and ask for help when needed. With this principle in mind, we redesigned the IT Services Web site and list of services to integrate and simplify the categorization and description of the three main types of information we provide to customers: - What services we provide - How to request the services or get instructions - Where to get help For this project, we had a small team head the planning and coordination for the rest of the department's collaboration in creating, updating, and reviewing materials. We started by consulting a core group of customers for opinions on what worked well (e.g. types of content available) and what did not work well (e.g. organization, masses of text, and jargon) in the previous rendition of our site and service list, then developed our goals from the findings: Make it simple Make it searchable Make it actionable Make it in regular language With these goals in mind, we collected, evaluated, and recreated the existing list of services into a standardized catalog of services, each with links to instructions and request forms or contact information for guidance or assistance. The result of our efforts is a customer-oriented, clean, and searchable catalog of services that appropriately sets expectations. This all prepares us to successfully accomplish the department's mission of providing the Colleges with timely, high-quality, and cost-effective information technology services and solutions that support all aspects of the mission of the institution.
service catalog organization service level agreement customer service information technology web site