Dear Users… (A thread for Sysadmin, Technical Support, and Help Desk people) Part 10

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arthwollipot said:
Apparently they all deserved it.
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Heh. Actually, they did and do. The thing they keep doing is trying to get data they are explicitly forbidden to have. They know they're not supposed to have it, but they each reach a point where they imagine they have thought of a sneaky way to get it without tripping alarms. They have each been insufficiently sneaky so far.
 
I was most gratified the other day when a colleague said that he had adopted part of my patter.

I have a standard answer when someone asks how long it will take to get their problem fixed, or their request fulfilled. It goes like this:

"We endeavour to fulfil most requests within one to three business days, but it's hard to be precise, because it depends on factors that aren't under our control, including availability of staff. A technician has been assigned to your case and they will be contacting you directly as soon as they can."

I developed this over a long time, picking words that I found most effective. "Hard to be precise" is better than "we don't really know". "A technician" rather than "someone" indicates that they know what they are doing. "Assigned to your case" to make it sound more like they're getting personal attention. In cases where a technician hasn't been assigned yet I say "a technician will be assigned to your case as soon as one is available".

Words are important. Words mean things. It is my aim to ensure that the caller has the best experience possible, given that despite the fact that it's perfectly reasonable to want to know how long it'll take, it's almost impossible to answer. And little things matter. If they open the call with "how are you" I say "I'm great!" and not "eh, not too bad". Positive language = positive experience. And it works. I very rarely get complaints, even when I'm telling people things they don't want to hear.

This is one reason why I'm good at my job.
 
arthwollipot said:
I was most gratified the other day when a colleague said that he had adopted part of my patter.

I have a standard answer when someone asks how long it will take to get their problem fixed, or their request fulfilled. It goes like this:

"We endeavour to fulfil most requests within one to three business days, but it's hard to be precise, because it depends on factors that aren't under our control, including availability of staff. A technician has been assigned to your case and they will be contacting you directly as soon as they can."

I developed this over a long time, picking words that I found most effective. "Hard to be precise" is better than "we don't really know". "A technician" rather than "someone" indicates that they know what they are doing. "Assigned to your case" to make it sound more like they're getting personal attention. In cases where a technician hasn't been assigned yet I say "a technician will be assigned to your case as soon as one is available".

Words are important. Words mean things. It is my aim to ensure that the caller has the best experience possible, given that despite the fact that it's perfectly reasonable to want to know how long it'll take, it's almost impossible to answer. And little things matter. If they open the call with "how are you" I say "I'm great!" and not "eh, not too bad". Positive language = positive experience. And it works. I very rarely get complaints, even when I'm telling people things they don't want to hear.

This is one reason why I'm good at my job.
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..............you get back to people???
 
Humble-brag:

I was mentioned in despatches because I called back the people who had called to report an outage, and explained what had happened and why.

(I was only on the helpdesk for about 2 hours, because the regulars needed a break)

:)
 
arthwollipot said:
Well, like I said, one of the reasons I like working where I do is that we do find the balance between meeting KPIs and actual good customer service. I am proud of the service that I can provide and the positive feedback I get.
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My last helpdesk job (about 12 years ago) I was very grateful that the KPI of "First Call Resolution" was considered more important than call time.
 
You know that one customer? The one that has a reputation? That everybody dreads getting a call from? Ours is named Ann. We have a standing instruction that if we get a call from Ann and she starts to become abusive and difficult, we are to transfer her directly to our manager or deputy manager. She was once placed on administrative leave for being abusive towards Service Desk operators.

She just called me a magical fairy.

She was having problems with Outlook not being able to connect to the Exchange server. By the simple trick of putting Outlook into Working Offline mode and then returning to Online, I was able to resolve it for her.

I think I just scored bigtime with this customer.
 
arthwollipot said:
You know that one customer? The one that has a reputation? That everybody dreads getting a call from? Ours is named Ann. We have a standing instruction that if we get a call from Ann and she starts to become abusive and difficult, we are to transfer her directly to our manager or deputy manager. She was once placed on administrative leave for being abusive towards Service Desk operators.

She just called me a magical fairy.

She was having problems with Outlook not being able to connect to the Exchange server. By the simple trick of putting Outlook into Working Offline mode and then returning to Online, I was able to resolve it for her.

I think I just scored bigtime with this customer.
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What you should have done was murdered her. Sometimes I think you're not in IT at all.
 
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