Support As A Business: Effective Phone Support

      I am often providing technical support over the phone. Having done this for a good number of years I have learned a simple trick that make the process more effective: Do the same thing on your end that you are having them do on their end.

      I learned this trick at a help desk years back. It was long enough ago I can’t remember if I was told this, or figured it out on my own. Either way, it made it much easier to help people when I was going through the same steps they were.

      While you can’t see what they are doing, if you have the same thing on your screen you can talk about what they should be seeing. And use that as a comparison, to see if they are in the right place, to tell them what to do next, etc. Isn’t perfect, but it helps greatly when you’re only source of information doesn’t know what they are doing (otherwise they wouldn’t have called you).

      To some extent, this isn’t as useful as it once was, due to the prevalence of remote control tools. But in many ways that has merely changed the goal. Instead of talking someone through fixing the issue, you talk them through establishing the remote connection. In either case, going through the same steps on your end makes it easier to talk them through doing the matching on theirs. Whether those steps are to fix the issue or establish the remote control.

      Even then, remote control isn’t always a viable option. The most obvious being when the problem is a lack of internet connection, which eliminates remote access entirely. Not that other reasons don’t exist, which is why having the ‘backup plan’ of talking over the phone can be useful. And thus, ways to be more productive doing that are potentially useful.

      Having said that, nothing is as good as having your eyes in the room, while your hands can interact directly with the problem. But we work with what we can, making the best of the limitations life imposes upon us.