Need help? Is help desk your best bet?

By Chris Ricci

Where's the help in the help desks? Way too often, it's nowhere to be seen. Sometimes, they do help, to be fair, but, unfortunately, it's the bad memories that persevere. We tend to forget good experiences: well, is helping us not something they're paid for in the first place?

Of course, it all depends on the perspective. Help desk technicians will insist it's the customers who are close to being morons, all of them: they wouldn't read their manuals, they don't know what they're talking about ... you know the spiel.

So, let's look at the customer - service provider relationship in greater detail, and let's check out both points of view.

Here's what the customers have to say, generally:

• The technician had poor people skills and didn't care about me or my problem
• The technician had poor language skills or spoke too quickly to understand
• The technician had poor technical skills, and didn't know anything

Imagine that? A technician who doesn't know it all! In my IBM days, it was a common saying that if you could walk and chew gum, and you were polite, they could train you to fix computers. Oh, how sadly untrue!

And for the record - it's the other way around! If you can fix computers, we can teach you to walk and chew gum - virtual gum, and walking through a cyber-world. - Just kidding.

Consumer scenarios

You're an idiot, and we know everything

As the customer, we've become familiar with that drab and monotone voice on the other end of the phone. They patronize you in every word and even mock you! You can easily imagine the tech's face and actions akin to "whatever" - I'll bet you've often felt like they put you on hold to get their colleagues to listen in, and have a comedy central riot at your expense. Or worse yet, they put you on speaker phone. All the while, claiming to be getting their second-level support team involved. As for second-level support, he's most likely the guy in the next workstation pretending to be the go-to-guy. Oh, the tricks and webs we weave …

Passing the buck

You're on the phone for an hour, and the problem still exists. The technician told you to download the drivers and call back - but your problem is that you can't access the Internet. How can you download the drivers without an Internet connection?

He said, she said

You have a computer, a modem, a router and a Voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) phone. The phone doesn't work, so whom do you call? The Internet service provider (ISP) says it's not their problem and all is working fine with the lines in your house. How do they know, did they come out and check them? Taking this advice, you call the VOIP provider. They say it's your ISP's problem. You call back the ISP and relay the information, although you have not got any reason, or information to convey, you just say - it's your problem. ISP says it's your computer, then.

The point? Well, the technician is basically trying to get rid of the idiot on the line. Pass the buck, find a place to lay blame, somewhere that the consumer can't refute. Somewhere in techno-babble land. The customer won't know what hit him!

Stats, baby, stats!

Call centres run on statistics. Plain and simple. More calls in less time, be polite so that the company looks and sounds professional and that they care about you. Etiquette over technical abilities. Heaven forbid - a likable technician? Although rare, they do exist. It is the technician's job to take inbound calls, and complete them as quickly as possible. Politely and courteously. If a call goes beyond the average talk time of say three minutes, it starts to impact his personal stats. Lower talk times are better, and he who handles more calls looks better to management.

Although technical abilities are nice to have, a good talker can get you on the line, confuse you and get you off the line without fixing anything. It should work - that's the term technicians use to get rid of you. They have either reached their personal limits of technical abilities, or they've been on the call too long, their supervisor is waving his arms, or pointing at his watch, or the tech just doesn't care any more.

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