On the second installment of the Pet Peeve series, I’d like to focus on something we all love to deal with: technical support. I’m not afraid to admit that I’ve dealt with bad technical support and it’s utterly frustrating. When you realize you have to take that route to resolve your problem, I imagine people begin to get tense up before even starting the process, because the experience can be flat out annoying.
That being said, I was given the opportunity to provide the other perspective as a technician. Let me tell you, dealing with customers/client’s technical issues can be quite maddening as well. Here are a few instances where it’s frustrating
Phone Tag with Crying Wolf
Imagine this scenario: Someone reports an issue. They can’t access something, or an app they use is crashing. They ask you quickly respond to resolve this issue. Sure. I go ahead and call to reach out to them and there is no answer. I try again and end up with the same result. I end up email them to make initial communication. no response for hours later… Now, I’m in this situation where I have to decide to work on something else and possibly miss them again or keep falling up and potentially be behind work.
What makes it worse where sometimes they complain to my upper-level peers that something isn’t working, yet doesn’t mention how I’ve tried to respond.
“They won’t respond to that”
There are cases where I’ve responded to employee’s problems via email as our system allows that. I responded to in quick time so the employee can try my advice to resolve the issue. There was no response after some time. I was going to reach out, but I was told you should just call the employee because they won’t see that. I’ve also been
This perplexed me. The employee sent in a ticket via email. Our system has my responses come in as email. I will say I’m not against calling people for fixing issues. What I have a problem with is people are weirdly selective in communication versus adapting to the situation. Adding in the scenario where I’ve called the individual and often they don’t answer that :(. I could’ve saved time answering email if they weren’t available for a call.
Takeaway
Those were just two of many examples. This isn’t a black and white issue. The grey area is communication. Both parties need to be able to remove any ego and outside emotion and be constructive. More often than not, you will get a better outcome and go about your day without breaking a sweat. Here are my thoughts on behaviors that could help. If you have any others, feel free to comment.
Be adaptable: We have many ways to reach out to other people. Use it to your advantage. Not complying with this only disservices you. If one method doesn’t work, use this other one to accomplish. This also applies to where depending on the issue, you might be able to solve it yourself. Being resourceful and giving any effort in fixing it before reaching for help may save you time. Just… don’t go overboard and breach someone’s privacy.
More Context The Better: When reporting an issue, take the time to explain the issue. The more information you can help us, the easier it is for support to resolve this. Explain what you did or what should happen. Anyone that just says “it doesn’t work anymore”, or, “Outlook broke. Fix it”, be ready for troubleshooting time because we can’t conclude what the issue is without context. Can’t explain via words? Provide screenshots or videos. We live in an age where these tools to show our issue are at our fingertips and people don’t utilize it.
Propose Availability: If you want to report an issue (especially if you find it urgent), please be available. Assuming you can schedule time with support, provide your availability so we can coordinate. If there is no appointment approach, then block time off your schedule knowing it could take time, and then email/call in.
Stay Calm: This is a difficult one to do as many variables come into play. From my experience, many issues that people experience are not as bad as they perceive it. I feel the stress we are under nowadays makes the problems seem worse. Technology will fail and good companies understand that and work with the IT team to alleviate the issue at hand. I also want to add that the problem was out of your control, then you have nothing to worry about.