Supporting customer / end-users

What does it mean when an organization states they provide "Support"?

Within business, workers are given one or two choices of an approved workstation. The worker is provided software and hardware support so that their workstations/laptops are patched.

Within Acadamia: faculty, staff, and students may use a variety of hardware and software combinations to access our computing resources.

What does it mean to support an end user?

Have central IT organizations drafted Operational or Service Level Agreements with academi departments, colleges, or schools?

Do students sign an agreement accepting well defined terms of the types of questions, requests, and reports of the Central IT organzation will respond to when the student contacts the help desk or service center?

I am curious to hear or see how others define "support" when talking about supporting the enduser or customer's use of the Core IT services.

 



Is there Best Practice for the number of Support Groups an IT organization manages?  We are a mid-sized organization, and we are looking for guidance on what the best # of Support Groups is to best support our employees\customers