Technically Speaking

Last night I received a tweet from a friend who had just posted on her blog a rather great tip on managing Excel data and I got to thinking… not necessarily about Excel, but about how important it is to share your content with others and how doing so might be beneficial in many more ways than readership increases.

Since this blog isn’t about gaining readership for your content, let me see if I can explain.

We all have a niche, and lately mine seems to be support and some content publication, in my support hat there are times when I need to look for help with things.  Where better to find that help than on a blog?  Sure I could email or tweet or <insert communication method here> to get the information, but finding it on a blog might allow me to find other solutions or ideas I hadn’t thought of before.

Since Google Reader and other applications allow subscriptions to RSS feeds and most blogs today support RSS, the information on these blogs can come to you after adding it to your reader.

Even the best IT professionals need help once in awhile.  It seems as problems get bigger or more abundant, that it is easier to overlook the simple solution, perhaps a checkbox or incorrect selection that doesn’t rear its head until weeks later when computers decide that 8:00 am is a good time to reboot to finalize an update. – Oops…

Here is the link to that post I read about Excel. Give it a read, maybe it will be helpful to you, if in no other way than to keep you thinking about all the avenues where help might come from.

Let’s face it, we have all had bad days or bad experiences getting (and even giving) support.  I am not one that likes to admit defeat and call in reinforcement on an issue too quickly, but have come to realize that those on the other end of the call are just trying to help.  Much like I will do with my coworkers.

I have learned in recent experience to step away from an issue for a minute before calling in the cavalry and getting more frustrated trying to get help.

An example, when calling for help on an issue that has me frustrated, I will make notes of the things I have tried and take a brief walk around the office to “cool off” before I call.  This way I do not start out with the completely wrong attitude toward someone who is just trying to help.

Just being able to think more clearly, and objectively, about a topic or problem will help the person on the other end of the call get up to speed more quickly.  This can reduce the time spent on support and get the issue corrected more quickly.

Beware the caller

When trying to change your own view of support and the way you deal with them, be careful not to expect this immediate change of pace to work with coworkers.  You will need to change somethings there as well to get the incoming calls handled in the same professional manner.  I am not saying it can’t be done, just realize you will need to work through this just like any other challenge.

Best way to deal with support calls?

I am not sure there is a best way.  When talking to your internal cusomters (co-workers) remember that they are calling for help, just like your Mom or Grandparents might do.  Keep this in mind when working with them.

When dealing with external customers, (support companies and vendors) explain the issue as succintly as possible this will help those working on your call to understand the issue much faster.  Take notes.  Do not expect everything to be provided for notes to eliminate a future call, but make notes about the call to come back to incase the problem persists past the first call.

Simple as it may sound, dealing with people is much harder in many cases than dealing with Server or computer issues.

Remember that the customer is a priority.  They do not need to be right, they just need to be helped to continue performaing their tasks, if you see it this way on both sides of the support coin, you will gain more from each experience and your customers, internal and external will thank you for it.