Students walking on campus in summer
The 4Help Fall Rush period covers the weeks surrounding the first day of classes each fall semester, when most students return to campus. Photo by Clark DeHart for Virginia Tech.

Leveraging User Experience (UX) data to enhance 4Help user support services during ‘fall rush’  

The leadup to fall semester is the IT Experience and Engagement (ITEE) team’s busiest time each year for providing user support. This period, known as "Fall Rush," spans from the week before classes begin, when students typically arrive on campus and faculty begin to prepare for the semester, through the first two weeks of classes. 4Help ticket volume increases substantially during this period — 4Help receives 29% of the total semester incident volume during Fall Rush.  

4Help has provided enhanced support during the Fall Rush period for many years, and continually strives to adapt their service model to ensure the best possible user experience. User Experience, or ‘UX,’ is the holistic journey users traverse as they interact with a product or service. UX includes their direct interactions with the product, as well as how that product fits in with their overall completion of a task.

During the fall of 2022, ITEE conducted a comprehensive analysis of historical Fall Rush data to gain meaningful insights into ways the team could improve their service model, and to identify actions that ITEE can take moving forward to improve UX within the 4Help service.  

Extending the Fall Rush period to better accommodate incident load

One of the most compelling findings was the need to extend Fall Rush by an extra week to more adequately support user needs. As shown by the data below — and by the influx of incidents that persisted several weeks into the semester — the traditional two-week window was insufficient. By ending Fall Rush before the ‘rush’ really ended, ITEE had been missing the full picture of the user experience. Starting in Fall 2023 and going forward, ITEE will increase staffing to include a full three-week period.

A graph showing the 4Help incidents created during fall rush 2016-2022
Historical data for Fall Rush time period.

Connecting users to the information they seek most

By looking at the most common reasons for 4Help tickets according to a user’s affiliation  (e.g., new or returning student, alumni, faculty, etc.), ITEE discovered that alumni and returning students consistently needed assistance with issues related to wireless, PID password resets and Duo two-factor authentication (see figure below). 

In response, ITEE published a new knowledge base article, 4Help Welcomes You Back to Campus, which provides guidance on the most common issues for each group. This article was promoted on the 4Help Service Portal and the Canvas homepage in time for the fall 2023 semester.

Improving user satisfaction through clear communication

Finally, the UX data analysis helped ITEE identify the need for better communication between 4Help agents and users within individual incidents. The analysis showed that the time it takes to resolve an incident has a noticeable impact on user satisfaction ratings. The findings revealed that any wait time on an issue can be frustrating for users.

This frustration can occur when agents are waiting on the user to provide information, and conversely, when the user is waiting for a solution to their problem. Targeted improvements initiated during the 2023 fiscal year included:

  • Ensuring clear communication regarding closing of an incident
  • Asking users for a preferred call back time
  • Offering multiple potential solutions in our first response. 

Our goal is to achieve an optimal balance in incident duration i.e., not making the user feel rushed versus not unnecessarily prolonging closure of an incident.

ITEE is committed to ensuring that customers have a positive experience with IT services throughout their journey at Virginia Tech. By proactively identifying and closing gaps in the user experience, we can better serve as stewards of the lifelong relationship between Virginia Tech and  its students, alumni, and employees.