Best type of questions?

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

What's the most helpful type of questions in your repertoire? The ones that cut through the most crap in the shortest time?


For instance, I've always found 'scope' questions to work well in a corporate environment. How many people are affected, does the problem follow you if you log on to a different PC, is the person next to you having the same problem, etc.

With a couple of verbal machete strokes, the likely source of the problem reveals itself - user profile, email settings, site setup, workstation on fire, you get the drift.

So what about ISP support? Tech shop support? Onsite support? What's your weapon of choice?

Comments

[zig-mover.livejournal.com]

'what color is the link light on the router?'
then from there, i ask:
a) no? are ANY of the lights on? like is it dark in the room?
b) yes? is it an orange light? okay, reset it.

Most of my calls end in about 2 minutes just through these questions.

[tmercenary.livejournal.com]

"What did you do?" Always puts 'em on the defensive. Try using "Has anything changed recently?"

[loosechanj.livejournal.com]

Always puts 'em on the defensive.

What the hell is wrong with that?

[the-paco.livejournal.com]

makes 'em lie, then you gotta go around it and make 'em think it's ok that they totally screwed the pooch, so they don't feel guilty telling you what they did. Dumbass children customers. If only they didn't put on suits/ties/shit and go work in an office during the day as 30-40 year old men/women, I could forgive 'em that.

[loosechanj.livejournal.com]

hell, they're gonna lie anyway.

Liars... all of em!

[igz00.livejournal.com]

I make it a habbit to ask every single user I talk to if they have changed any settings or installed any new programs since things stopped working. I think I have only ever had one single person who has told me the truth. Even my own mother claimed she did nothing after killing the entire network with Yahoo Desktop Beta.

[jahbulon.livejournal.com]

Man with home ISP support every question is an attempt to cut through the crap.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Ooh, followup.

"When was the last time it worked properly?" <- yayful

This breaks the "I noticed the problem five minutes ago" down into:

1) It was working fine five minutes ago
2) It broke last week but I've been waiting for computer faries to come and fix it in the night
3) It's never worked, because I misconfigured it/didn't read the instructions/don't have a computer.

[thalionar.livejournal.com]

2) It broke last week but I've been waiting for computer faries to come and fix it in the night

I actually had a call like this this morning...

Customer: "It (the program) stopped working 3 months ago."
Me: "OK, is this the first time you've called it in."
Customer: "Yes, I figured someone would notice that it wasn't working and come fix it."

WTF?

[ex-prunesnp.livejournal.com]

My favorite with client/server stuff is 'What does the user see?' and 'Do you see anything strange on the console?'

Of course, that works less well with a generally non-GUI platform, then you 86 the last question and dig through logs.

[xdownfornowx.livejournal.com]

"Are there any geeky guys in your classes? There are? Great... ask them to come over and straighten you out. Geeky guys love helping out girls with computer problems."

My answer while working the phones for Gateway when some dumb bitch couldn't figure out her new laptop when she first got to schoool and some how crippled it with spyware after a week.

[xdownfornowx.livejournal.com]

...And then there is the ever classic, "Sir, is there a child in the house I can speak to?"

[dmsalem00.livejournal.com]

I generally tend to use medical metaphors.

Regardless of how mysterious the human body is, people understand it's inner workings moreso than they do that strange little(or in my case, massive) black box on their desk.

"What are the _exact_ symptoms?"
and if it's an IT guy that just wants parts sent..
"What was done to diagnose this problem?"

[eightofspades.livejournal.com]

Erg, my pain is when I just want those hardware parts sent and I don't have someone willing to deviate from their script to ask me that.

I make a point to to rigorously test my internally issues before I call them in to a hardware/solutions vendor. It usually makes the calls easier, unless I get stuck with the guy who wants me to load from the original system restore disc just for this call, when it's locking up during POST...

I suppose that leads into the reverse question - "When dealing with outbound calls, how do you make it clear that you're willing to work with them *and* know what you're talking about?" I'm not sure that applies here, though.

[dmsalem00.livejournal.com]

Hah. I know the difference between SW and HW. If the system's not turning on, and it's beeping loudly, screw the discs, I'm sending memory.

I don't make too many outbounds due to the way our queues are set up, but when I get someone that's on the defensive to start with, I usually assure them that if they can explain a logical set of steps that leads me to the same conclusion, I'll replace what they want. If the damn thing won't power on PERIOD, and they've done everything up to swapping in a known-good power supply, I'll send PSu and Motherboard just to be safe.

As for if *I* call in? I usually just explain everything I've done ASAP, and ask if there's anything they think should be done. Saves time. You don't understand how many pompous asses call in that don't know a DIMM from an AIMM, and say "I need a HARD DRIVE" when all they need to do is run chkdsk.

[eightofspades.livejournal.com]

I explain as well, at the start of my calls. 90% of the time it works - 10% I get the guy who won't deviate from the script.

For the record, the POST lockup was without beeps - it was an overheating laptop and the entire thing would lock prior to any error codes.

But yes, I understand why they have to be careful (:

[elobscuro.livejournal.com]

ah, carp. I'm prolly the guy who won't deviate. For some reason, everything I ask approval for is watched like a hawk. Well, that and I've got a real hardass side that comes to the fore when I hear the words, "I've been doing this x years, I just need a Y".

As for dealing with calls, especially by IT pros (and those who THINK they are)... "Okay, first obvious question..." usually works. Especially on those occasions when clearing NVRAM/reseating memory/toggling the volatge seletor fixes it. ;)

[eightofspades.livejournal.com]

See I never use the words "I've been doing this x years..." - there are many admins with many years of experience who know nothing. (;

I'm always more then willing to sit through the troubleshooting steps, as long as they're not excessive or completely uinrelated. A few times they've surprised me - like the BIOS update that actually fixed a lockup issue (unlike usual,) or the built in hard reset in a batteryless Toshiba notebook.

[abstrak-tokatl.livejournal.com]

"what's your fravorite computer thingy? You know, the thingy you use to..."

for somereason they understand 'thingy' better then program.

[samwize.livejournal.com]

For the tech part, it's usually "Sir, I need you to be my eyes. I need you to describe _exactly_ what you see."

But the best line I ever found while working the phones is for use on the irate, angry, yelling types. Let them fume and sturm und drang and bitch you out, and when they pause for a breath just say "Sir, what can I do to make your day better?". This flips the whole conversation, almost always results in a cool head, and gets them thinking about solutions instead on complaining about problems.

[jacobine.livejournal.com]

"What is the exact error message?"
"Can you send me a screen shot/a copy of the error message/the non-delivery report."

"Is this at the first login or the second login?" (Useful for our ERP software, since our users log onto a terminal server and then onto the system.)

"Who else is having the problem? I need some names so I can let our tech/network guy know." -- Very useful for defusing the 'Everyone is having problems!' when this one person is 'everyone'.

[katyism.livejournal.com]

"Can you think of any changes you've made to your computer recently? New programs, new parts, Windows update, etc?" amazingly people leave out obvious info like this... and like the other guy said "what did you do to it" doesn't yield honest soul searching answers.

Also, "Do you have kids? Do they use the computer?" is a good way to start suggesting the problem was caused by human error, without the user thinking i'm saying it was THEIR error. sad part is it trains some users to start blaming their kids everytime they call.

And, reminding them harshly pointedly of what they told me before works when they start spitting out lies contradictory information. They tend to be surprised that I remember what they told me before.

[kingofgeeks.livejournal.com]

unfortunately: "is it plugged-in" *sigh*