I am a professed idealist in terms of support method.  Key influences on my outlook were being a squad leader in the Army, and the original mission statement of Circuit City (in the pre-1997 era) of having the goal of "hitting it out of the park" with every interaction with internal and external customers.  It's simply not enough to provide functional and productive IT solutions.  The goal should be to make them glad that they reached out, and to consider the solution arm as an ally.

I respect nothing more than the quest for knowledge and understanding, and nothing less than complacency and apathy.  Too often, it is easy for forget that every meeting, every phone call, and every email is someone asking for help.

Due to the companies I have worked for, I have had a front row seat to watch competent but unapproachable IT departments destroy a company.  If an IT support effort does what is asked, and nothing more, then they are expecting the end user to know exactly what they want, and be tech savvy enough to understand what they are asking for.  There needs to be an effort to, even in some small way, educate the end user about what's going on in easy to grasp terms, help them understand that they should not feel at fault for not knowing the answer themselves, and most of all, that their act of reaching out for help validates the existence of the IT department.

When asked what the most important skills in Information Technology are, my immediate answer is always "listening and responding with empathy", and "the ability to assimilate new information and technology quickly".  Anything else is a trainable skill that you can develop within associates.