Friday, August 10, 2007
Why we start with the basics
I don't think I've posted this story before, but it's a great example of why it pays for tech support to ask customers basic questions about the problems they're having (or, as this case will show, even more basic questions).
A man called in to report a problem with his mother's internet connection. She was experiencing packet loss, causing sporadic connection issues and disconnections. The man was obviously familiar with DSL infrastructure, as he'd gone above and beyond the troubleshooting I'd expect from a customer, and based on the information he was describing, he correctly diagnosed that the problem was likely with a bit of Bell equipment serving the DSL service onto his mother's line.
Me: "Well, let's log some of this in your mother's account. What's her phone number?"
Caller: "555-555-1234."
Me: "Hmm, I don't seem to have anything under that number. Let's try her username."
Caller: "It's 'example'."
Me: "Still nothing under that. What's her last name?"
Caller: "Her last name is Smith."
Me: "Well, there are a few Smiths, but none in the area you're calling from." At this point I had a thought. "What's her email address?"
Caller: "It's... oh geez, you know what? She's not even with you guys! You're my internet provider, so I just automatically called you up, but she's got service with someone else entirely. I'm really sorry."
Me: "No problem!"
The guy was nice, knowledgeable, and polite, a trifecta of qualities that I love to have in callers, but he'd waited about 10 minutes in our queue and then spent 4 minutes describing a complicated problem to me, only to realize that he wasn't talking to the right people at all.
There's a lesson that can be taken away from this, besides the obvious one (make sure you're calling the right company!). It's often best to have a one-sentence summary of the problem ready. Tell the agent what's wrong in concise fashion. For example, "I'm having trouble sending email but not receiving" or "when I try to connect, I get an error saying my password is wrong" is good: it gives me an idea of what's wrong, and if there's an outage or network problem, I immediately have a really good guess whether or not your problem is related. "My internet isn't working" and other similarly vague statements are bad, as is spending tons of time describing your problem before the agent has figured out who you are.
Sometimes the problem isn't very clear, and sometimes the user might not have enough knowledge to describe the problem in a succinct way. That's alright: giving it your best guess is usually fine. And hey, it might save you some time.
A man called in to report a problem with his mother's internet connection. She was experiencing packet loss, causing sporadic connection issues and disconnections. The man was obviously familiar with DSL infrastructure, as he'd gone above and beyond the troubleshooting I'd expect from a customer, and based on the information he was describing, he correctly diagnosed that the problem was likely with a bit of Bell equipment serving the DSL service onto his mother's line.
Me: "Well, let's log some of this in your mother's account. What's her phone number?"
Caller: "555-555-1234."
Me: "Hmm, I don't seem to have anything under that number. Let's try her username."
Caller: "It's 'example'."
Me: "Still nothing under that. What's her last name?"
Caller: "Her last name is Smith."
Me: "Well, there are a few Smiths, but none in the area you're calling from." At this point I had a thought. "What's her email address?"
Caller: "It's... oh geez, you know what? She's not even with you guys! You're my internet provider, so I just automatically called you up, but she's got service with someone else entirely. I'm really sorry."
Me: "No problem!"
The guy was nice, knowledgeable, and polite, a trifecta of qualities that I love to have in callers, but he'd waited about 10 minutes in our queue and then spent 4 minutes describing a complicated problem to me, only to realize that he wasn't talking to the right people at all.
There's a lesson that can be taken away from this, besides the obvious one (make sure you're calling the right company!). It's often best to have a one-sentence summary of the problem ready. Tell the agent what's wrong in concise fashion. For example, "I'm having trouble sending email but not receiving" or "when I try to connect, I get an error saying my password is wrong" is good: it gives me an idea of what's wrong, and if there's an outage or network problem, I immediately have a really good guess whether or not your problem is related. "My internet isn't working" and other similarly vague statements are bad, as is spending tons of time describing your problem before the agent has figured out who you are.
Sometimes the problem isn't very clear, and sometimes the user might not have enough knowledge to describe the problem in a succinct way. That's alright: giving it your best guess is usually fine. And hey, it might save you some time.
Labels: backtobasics, whoops
# posted by Terry @ 12:02 AM 
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My biggest dreaded comment when I get a call is 'I'm no computer geek/I'm not computer literate'. Not so much because they're not good with computers (usually they're capable of following directions *if* they actually listen), but because they've already admitted defeat before even trying to attempt a resolution. It's tough to work with a self-professed loser.
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