Posts Tagged ‘support’

10 Tips for Success in Tech Support

While most people don’t think of a technical support position as their dream job, it is often the gateway into the IT world. Most computer people live in a completely different world than end users which often causes conflicts between IT departments and those end users. I’ve been through the rank of technical support on-site, over the phone and via email and thought I would share a few things that helped me on my way.

1. Don’t take things personally. Please don’t take this the wrong way. Take your job seriously and take personal responsibility, but don’t take things end users say in rage personally. The user you are speaking with probably got yelled at by his or her spouse this morning, found out his or her dog peed on the carpet, and got cut off 10 times on the freeway on the way to the office. Bad things tend to pile up anger until something or someone is there to take the brunt of their anger.

2. End users lie. Whether it’s intentional or not, end users lie. Sometimes a user doesn’t understand what you are saying, or perhaps they want to pass blame, but they will say things that are completely not true. This is not meant to be offensive, it’s a fact. Just today I was helping my sister with an issue with her iMac. She thought that she was rebooting the machine, when in fact, she was putting it to sleep and waking it back up. Don’t take it the wrong way, it’s not that I’m mad or that she was doing something intentional, she was just mistaken. To assume that something is the way the user things is going to waste a lot of time. In my case, I figured out that a certain process I had running still had the same PID and start time as before the “reboot”. When things appear to be really strange, assume nothing.

3. Define terms. This is somewhat related to number 2. Often end users hear terms that they automatically assume are what they are talking about. For instance, when I worked in an IT support role, I often heard end users refer to the computer as the hard drive. Often they will talk with a coworker or other non-technical (or even more dangerous, somewhat technical) person or only catch a few words of a technical conversation and act like they know what they are talking about. I do this all the time when I have problems with my car. I always want to make it look like I know what I’m talking about so often I will pick up terms from someone I know who knows a little bit about cars and take my new-found “knowledge” and take it to a mechanic. Luckily, it hasn’t backfired horribly on me yet.

4. Learn to ask good questions. This is one of the biggest things that I’ve seen new support technicians struggle with. Problem-solving is something that cannot be taught and is critical to the computer industry. If you can learn to break down problems logically and systematically, problem solving becomes a trivial task.

5. Use Google. Depending upon the nature of your job, probably 90% of problems can be solved within a few seconds using a quick Google search. Often a problem can be solved with a quick search before the user is done explaining the problem.

6. Logs are your friend. Whatever systems you support, they have to log somewhere. Learn where they log and what kinds of events they log. Also, learn how to turn up and down logging levels. You can check the documentation for whatever kinds of systems you support for this. Learning how to read logs is a integral to the logical breakdown of a problem that can’t be solved from GUI error messages. It will give you a glimpse of what is happening ‘under the hood’.

7. Know your limits. If you’re in over your head, tell the user. Find someone who can help or consult Google. When you know you’re in over your head and you don’t consult help you will waste your time and what’s infinitely worse, frustrate your user to no end.

8. Think about the problem from a high level. Most of the time problems have multiple solutions. If you’re struggling with getting a certain task accomplished, move on. One of the most common problems I’ve seen with support technicians is that they (including myself from time to time) get caught on one small issue and lose picture of what ultimately needs to be accomplished. Often there is another way to accomplish the same task. Perhaps you’re using the wrong tool. If you are working on something that will only happen once, sometimes doing the task manually can be faster than figuring out how to do it automatically. It may be more footwork for you, but at least it will get done. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty (or at least the keyboard).

9. Be thorough and follow up. This is one of the simplest, yet shows the type of person and worker you are and often prevents bigger problems down the road. Unless you have a good relationship with a user, never tell them to ‘reboot and try again’ and then hang up. In an email support scenario, check back in with the user. They will be glad you did.

10. Automate. Every time you do something more than once, automate it. One great thing about computers is that a majority of tasks can be automated, so use it. For questions, you can build out a knowledge base or FAQ site or document. Answering the same questions all day wastes your time and your company’s money. Automating those tasks and making yourself more efficient will launch your career much faster.

While this list is certainly not all-inclusive, I found these things to be a great help in working with people of the non-technical nature. This list can help not only help desk support personnel, but also systems admins as well as developers working on websites and user interfaces.

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Filed under Tech Trends : Comments (2) : Sep 15th, 2008