Re: Professional telephone skills for the helpdesk

I think this article hurts your product, because it fails to recognize the driving force in the HelpDesk community these days. If companies were interested in this bottom, up style approach, why would they ever have outsourced even a fraction of the jobs they have to people who had no technical training, no interpersonal training and spoke English, the language they were supporting their customer base in, as a second or even third language.
The Call support departments in most businesses treat support as the red-headed step child they wish they could drop in the bottom of a lake. Call support department wages are depressed, employees tend to be under-motivated, and call software that is purchased is focused more on call volume control, closed tickets and a machine like efficiency without the niceties. While anyone would want to get service like this, the added time associated with these calls would get the early adopters fired for failing to meet the basic statistics of the person who is pawning calls off, getting people to hang up, or who falsely closes tickets. When have the majority of the bonus/profitability reports used in customer support criteria focused more on customer satisfaction than on call volume?

There's some noble ideas here, but Rod's best bet would be to spend some time, incognito, or with informants, with some of the more average environments, learning how horrible and thankless these tasks are, and how easy it is for the worst tech support folks to complete the largest volume of calls, and thus achieve the faster promotions.

Re: Professional telephone skills for the helpdesk

I would say its a bit unfair to say theres a lot of whining, nor is it really saying 'look how much IT sucks' While the title talks about helpdesk, really its pretty much a stock article on how you should conduct professional phone conversation. I don't see a single piece of this advice that doesn't directly translate into any other job which involves regular customer contact.

While I agree that maybe there is a lack of understanding from the 'tech' perspective of the driving forces behind a call center, that does not limit the value of the advice. I don't see any bashing of the people on the other end of the line, but simply some good points on communication.

Re: Professional telephone skills for the helpdesk

Anyone attempting to read this out to genuine phone techs would be scorned so hard they would catch FIRE.

Re: Professional telephone skills for the helpdesk

At least 3/4ths of those suggestions could easily apply to the person calling the helpdesk and not the helpdesk agent. If the callers weren't stupid, lazy, or stupid AND lazy things would go better (let me point you to today's TDWTF at thedailywtf.com/Articles/Support-Should-Never-Be-Necessary.aspx ).

Also, if the helpdesk agent wasn't treated like a slave, get paid minimum wage, have to follow ridiculous scripts without ever deviating, knowingly try useless fixes before actually fixing the real problem due to procedures imparted by idiot managers, they would probably be able to fix your problem faster.

There's a reason that most good technicians and those with people skills don't last long in a typical call center environment. It is because as soon as they can get something better, they get out. I know, I used to work in a call center. The only way I'd go work at another would be if there was no other job available besides burger flipping or one of the jobs featured on Discovery channel's Dirtiest Jobs.

Re: Professional telephone skills for the helpdesk

No mention of the shouty, rude, arrogant people that call in, swearing their heads off, interspersed with helpful phrases like "It don't do nuthin' ", "just fix it" & the ever popular "I pay your wages!", all delivered at a volume that can be heard in the next cube.
If the callers would stop treating the phone techs as something they wiped off their shoe, LISTEN & follow instructions, they'd have their issues fixed faster & call stats would be a whole lot better.
Of course, it might help if businesses actually valued their helpdesk staff, instead of paying minimum wage, or trying to offshore the helpdesk jobs to the low bidder.

Re: Professional telephone skills for the helpdesk

Thanks for the comments everyone. I find it interesting that an outline of basic professional telephone skills has evoked such a negative reaction in some people. It's obviously a subject that is dear to the heart of any helpdesk professional that spends waaaay too much time with a headset. I'm sure many of you have paid your dues in this regard, as have I.

Jason, you're right, helpdesk can be a thoroughly "horrible and thankless task" and you make some good points about the ugly side of raw helpdesk metrics and statistics being a way out of the helpdesk. For those of us however that do work on the front line every day, a professional telephone manner and some basic interpersonal techniques to make a support call more pleasant for both parties is a good thing in my book.

Peace to all those helpdesk operators out there dreading the sound of that next incoming call...Rod

Re: Professional telephone skills for the helpdesk

Phone skills are one thing. However, there are just so many ways to ask "so, have you tried turning it off, then turning it back on?" politely.

I still think the automated call response programmes should be programmed with that as the first option. "Welcome to User Support. If you have not rebooted your computer, press hash (to be automatically disconnected). If you have rebooted, please listen carefully and choose the most appropriate selection.

Re: Professional telephone skills for the helpdesk

Thanks for the response Rod, but I think you miss the point. I worked my way past the helpdesk phase of my job to become a Senior Developer. Perhaps money was a better motivator or perhaps it was to escape the saccharine expectations of the team builders, hired to come in with their advice upon high, and then watch those sticky sweet dreams be dashed away by a management that was given a different set of priorities.

A pleasant phone manner is one thing, and I think if you called me at my current job, you'd get it, but the realities of modern tech support are more difficult. A tech rep or even a call center manager has no control over the musak that drones on and on from the phone system. The IVR boxes often, aren't even within the maintenance rights of the people who use them most. The scripts given to bring a lowest common denominator to every support call are statistic driven, not customer support driven. Perhaps what you need is an article that would show how the bottom tier and tier two support reps could use your software to notify higher ups of script deficiencies, customer black holes, or even policy driven systems that drive customers to more positive relationships with their support reps.

The negative response you're getting, at least from me, is because someone who knows even less about tech support than you or I will read your article. Look at your 20 years of experience on LinkedIn, and then proceed to lecture people like me and customer support managers on the benefits of this policy, without recognizing realities like, it was their decision to fire the American, Australian, and UK staff and replace them all with a team in Costa Rica, which is furiously trying to train their team in basic computer literacy and English, while trying to maintain the IVR system through rolling black outs.

There's a way to take what you've written and phrase this as the way you hope things will turn out, and at the same time not feed the people who might use your product, or influence its use to the wolves.

Re: Professional telephone skills for the helpdesk

Hi Jason,

Not sure which point you think I missed. The article is about some basic principles about telephone ettiquette - that's all.

Thanks for stopping by.

Best regards,
Rod

Re: Professional telephone skills for the helpdesk

The problem is that the basic principles presented here fall into the categories of:

1) Unworkable
2) Unfeasible
3) Just plain wrong
4) Making the helpdesk process so horribly inefficient that it would kill any accountant within five miles
5) Teaching your grandmother to suck eggs
6) Actively wasting the time of both the staff and the callers
7) Micromanaging idiocy
8) Potentially correct at its core but presented in a stupifyingly condescending manner

It's the kind of article you'd read to your helpdesk if you wanted the top performers to quit and the remaining ones to have the customer service capacity of a houseplant.

Re: Professional telephone skills for the helpdesk

STEVE: "Did you write the Professional Telephone Skills for the Helpdesk article?"

ROD: "You want answers?"

STEVE: "I think I'm entitled."

ROD: "You want answers!!"

STEVE: "I want the truth!"

ROD: "You can't handle the truth!"

ROD: "Steve, we live in a world that has technology problems. And those technology problems have to be reported to the service desk by people with telephones. Who's gonna answer those phones Steve? You? The SDI? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom.

You weep for front-line helpdesk staff, and you curse the management team. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that your indignation that someone would write such an article, while tragic, probably saved the customer service. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves the professional image of an organization.

You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me manning the phone system. You need me on phone system! We use words like screening calls, positive language, and "Please hold"... we use these words as the backbone to a life spent providing a professional telephone manner. You use 'em as a punch line. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very helpdesk service I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I'd prefer you just said thank you and went on your consultant way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a phone and start taking helpdesk calls. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to!!"

STEVE: "Did you write the Professional Telephone Skills for the Helpdesk article?!??"

ROD: "I did my job, I'd do it again."

STEVE: "Did you write the Professional Telephone Skills for the Helpdesk article???!"

ROD: "You're !%@&*? right I did!"

Re: Professional telephone skills for the helpdesk

"Effective telephone skills are an asset to an organization, and even though the phone has been standard office equipment for years, the etiquette and skills underpinning the use of the phone are often overlooked. The help desk is a business environment where such skills are most needed. help desk analysts have a tough job. They provide a service to people who are anxious, stressed out and need help. By implementing the practical ideas outlined above, both parties can benefit."

I think everyone needs to read the conclusion again..... the atricle is on effective telephone skills, not stupid callers, ignorant computer users, evil corporations and call metrics. It's about how to handle a phone call so that your customer/user is satisfied.

The only thing I disagree with is using the caller's name three times in the call. I hate when people I don't know do that in a call. It just sounds so used car salesman.

Chris

Re: Professional telephone skills for the helpdesk

lol re: A few good telephone men.

Steve - totally owned. Great response Rod - very creative.

Re: Professional telephone skills for the helpdesk

I worked in call centers for 11.5 years: supporting entire PC systems from DOS & Win3.1 through Win95 and beyond, imaging products, accounting software, and dialup, cable & DSL Internet service; taking Supervisor calls; advising other agents; training new hires and longtime employees. The reason you're getting negative reactions is because people with actual experience in environments such as this (USA or UK call centers, for example) are reading this. And though the information presented truly can be helpful, the fully contradictory demands placed on us at the same time make it impossible to implement properly. For example, I have never heard of any company, outsourced support provider, contract, group, or ANYONE who didn't say, "You must never interrupt a customer. Such action is subject to disciplinary action." (Up to and including termination, of course.) This, of course, is a load of [whatever nasty thing you imagine] because agents are also told, "You must resolve this issue in one call, within TWELVE minutes -- and the customer must not call back within three days -- or YOU will suffer for it. And you can't call them back, either; you'll be punished for that. One call. Twelve minutes. Or else."
And Rod, though you and others say this is about "basic professional telephone skills," take a look at the title up at the top there:
Professional telephone skills for the helpdesk
Yes. It says "helpdesk," right there.
I suppose you have never worked in a helpdesk or call center environment that seems to be run by Dilbert's idiotic pointy-haired boss. You have not been exposed repeatedly to multiple outsource companies, many manufacturers and publishers, and countless callers who demand things that are actually physically impossible.
I guess you have never been told that, no matter how disgustingly personally abusive a person you're supposed to help becomes, if you hang up one time then you will be fired on the spot.
I suspect you have never had a supervisor insist in front of dozens of co-workers that you can actually physically control a caller's fingers after you have disconnected, during a post-call survey -- and been held responsible for the survey results ... especially when you know the results are wrong.
It seems to me that maybe you have never worked with someone whose advice to multiple agents caused the agents and customers worse problems than they already had -- and then tried to address the issue, only to be told, "I don't want to hear it; he's going to be promoted [to advise other agents]."

My experience, and that of many others, is that call center agents -- and even internal helpdesk groups -- are put under great pressure to achieve self-contradictory and impossible goals, and then blamed when these goals are not met. We could also carry on a long, long discussion about people bending their ethics systems (or being retained and promoted partly because they don't have what many of us would call "ethics") to creat the false impression that impossible goals have been met. The absolute crushing idiocy visited upon these people -- some of whom have a genuine desire to help people -- will result in dissatisfied customers who keep on calling back until they reach someone whose "Average Handle Time" is so high that they're about to be fired. This is the comprehensible, competent, compassionate person who will help the customer. And get fired for doing it, not praised.

Meanwhile, the incompetent, the unintelligent and ineducable, the unintelligible, and the lazy will be retained because they have lower AHT -- because they have no interest in helping, or no ability to help, the customer. And because customers hang up rather than be subject that such abuse.

What you have found here is an audience containing at least a few "helpdesk" veterans.

But we're not bitter.

Re: Professional telephone skills for the helpdesk

Hi FuzzyElf,

Thanks for your comments and perspective. Sounds like we have a similar history when it comes to working on the helpdesk. In each helpdesk position I've had, I've always had a fair amount of autonomy when it came to dealing with customers, however when it comes to rude, or obusive clients, I have never tolerated them no matter what management style is above me. Even here at PRD Software, where I am the owner and every client is a lot more personal to myself and the business, I have still hung up the phone on people that are abusive, threatening or use foul language, as I know you also have. I realize that others in a more "Dilbert-like" organization as you put may not have these freedoms, and I think that's sad and wrong.

As I commented previously, this is the ugly side of metrics and CRM. When statistics are viewed by management through such tunnel vision, no good can come from it. For small businesses, this will surely put the company out of business. For larger businesses, I guess they get a bad name for their service and end up with a lot of staff and client issues, which most likely erode profit through other means.

I agree with many things you've said. I disagree with your statement "the fully contradictory demands placed on us at the same time make it impossible to implement properly". I'm not sure how you see that any of the ideas presented in the article work against a professional, timely, and accurate resolution to a telephone call that I would imagine even the most "Dilbert-like" organization would impose on their workers.

Sounds like there are a lot of helpdesk vets out there that could do with a break.

Best regards,
Rod

Re: Professional telephone skills for the helpdesk

Yeah ! you are right. Telephone skill is much important factor to be a good help desk person. Excellent post.

Re: Professional telephone skills for the helpdesk

These skills are seriously under-rated and, as someone else has pointed out, can and should be applied to any role in which a telephone is used. Common courtesy and politeness used to be unconsciously inbred but something has gone wrong over the last 30 or so years.
I have read the posts from people who have been unfortunate enough to work in what sound like hell-holes. Faced with those circumstances I can understand why they might ridicule a standard that probably seems to them to have come out of the arc; what a shame that they have become so disengaged from the gentler age that they can no longer even see the right and wrong.
It is perhaps symptomatic of global society where everything is money-driven and there is 'therefore' no time for the niceties in life. One can but hope that the circular nature of history will bring about a revival in good manners.

Re: Professional telephone skills for the helpdesk

Hi Kate,

Thanks for stopping by. I completely agree with you - time has not been kind to manners, general business ettiqute and the perception of right and wrong. What's even more disturbing is that the main instigator of the negative comments to this article have come from a person who supposedly runs a service desk consulting business!

In all the years I've been doing (and watching) tech support via the telephone, I have never experienced a situation where the application of a professional and courteous telephone manner has harmed the outcome of the call, or the bottom line of the business. Quite the contrary.

Re: Professional telephone skills for the helpdesk

It's an interesting article that makes a lot of valid points: all quite useful under low call circumstances with a fully staffed, trained and experienced helpdesk.

I do practice exactly the professional telephone skill techniques that you have posted here, but having worked in a national Australian ISP call centre where your average handling time (AHT) for all support calls had to be five minutes or less with a first-time resolution requirement of 100% (regardless of the difficulty/complexity of the problem or problems), while I had a +99% customer satisfaction rating "for my consistent and excellent ability to regularly reach a first-time resolution for almost every client I ever assisted" (direct quote from the then call centre manager), all it resulted in was no pay rise for 3.5yrs and in the end being forced to resign because my AHT never fell below an average of 25 minutes.

Compared to the guy next to me teaching himself German on the job via YouTube, while straight off probation on to a salary of AUD$11,000 higher than me (with far, far less experience) and had a customer satisfaction rating of <40%, I just didn't cut it because his AHT was always less than four minutes.

Last I heard, he was recently promoted to call centre manager and now owns an Audi.

While I don't doubt that you understand where the "bitter" helpdesk comments are coming from here at your blog, I think that it'll take a planetary alignment shift of epic proportions before corporate managers globally will stop knee capping their best staff in favour of their quickest who opt to completely ignore good telephone skill techniques such as you have written about in your article.

Re: Professional telephone skills for the helpdesk

Yep, I have to weigh in and agree with Rod here...I have been in customer service for 12 years, and while the callers may frustrate you to drinking, you can't afford to cut them off or be overly rude. I too have become sooo frustrated at times with support agents at GoDaddy and Hostgator, but both do an excemptlary job of keeping their cool and tolerating impatience. (Hostgator more than GD) but both must have really good training etc; But my main point here is that a business cannot get hurt by allowing the customer the benefit of the doubt, and the help desk agent works for the businsss....

Re: Professional telephone skills for the helpdesk

Wow, I am utterly impressed. You see, I'm in the middle of studying business practices like telemarketing but I have yet to find very comprehensive information on what an inbound call center agent is supposed to act like (properly, of course). I mean you hear so many comical stories about the sort of job these agents do when on help desk duty. Thanks for putting a more serious perspective. It really helps in my research.