Newbie Orientation

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

Since I'm bored today, I wanted to pose a question to everyone.

To everyone who works phone support/helpdesk or has in the past... assume you were designing a training program for new hires. This would be the training that you actually NEED to do the job. Every job I've been trained for I found to have 90% blabber and 10% useful info. What goes into that 10% that you'd want your coworkers to know before they ever take their first call?

I find myself thinking that intelligent use of the mute button, including practice, is very important. Easiest way to get a writeup on all the desks I've worked on was to swear at a client.
Acceptable use policies for systems - installing World of Warcraft (or bringing in your personal system to play it on the company netrk!) isn't allowed. Ever read those license agreements on all the crapware you put on the computer? I don't, but I know our lawyers do. And when they get upset and have the power to do something, it's not good.
Support people - if it's within the scope, do it. If it's not, don't. The best way to ease your pain is to be able to makethis judgment quickly and convincingly.
Don't threaten a customer unless you are ABSOLUTELY sure you are right. Odds are we'll be eating crow and you'll get to sample it first.
(to outsourcers) Yes, our client sucks. They know this, but we must never tell them or their customers this. This means talking too loudly behind people taking calls.
If you know it's illegal, researching it on company time is not the brightest idea. Same goes for any material that gets you off.
Show up. On time is preferable. Ready to work is even better.
If you break it, tell someone you broke it. We aren't going to beat you senseless for it unless it was really dumb. If you don't tell us, we will beat you for it. Even harder still if it was really dumb.
The customer is always right in their own mind. You are effectively changing their reality so their preconceived notions fit their situation. Teaching them didn't work in school any better than it does on the desk.

Yes, many of these are applicable to any job, but they seem to be a problem for the techs in my office. Dimenional lumber is good for solving these problems and should be used vigorously if the offense warrants.

Comments

[zig-mover.livejournal.com]

So far I've trained 4 people, three of whom still are employed at the company. For me, it's as simple as sitting them down, showing them how to access customer records, do basic ts, and opening tickets. Tech support here isn't so busy that it's a matter of getting the caller off the line, and we'll deal with it later. Sometimes we'll tell the customer I'm training someone, and just put the phone on speaker and I'll walk the new hire through the basic steps, suggest questions to ask, etc.

So all I care that they know is how to look up customers in the database. That's all I knew when I took my first call.

[zig-mover.livejournal.com]

This is, of course, that they're familiar with different versions of Windows, and can think for themselves. I haven't used a Mac since 6th grade Word Munchers in the computer room, but I still know how to set up dialup and TCP/IP on the different OSes. Google is yr friend. I expect everyone else to know this too.

[darkblade1.livejournal.com]

Word munchers. Haha, holy crap I remember that game. Yup, google is your best friend and it shouldn't be any other way. Good old green screen Mac. Niiiiiiiiice! lol.

[raina.livejournal.com]

Yummy apple 2 e's when I heard my elementary school was auctioning them off i bought it, 10 bucks. Cant find printer cartrages for it though. circus math, number munchers, word munchers, Origingal oregon trail. Hours and hours of fun

[darkblade1.livejournal.com]

Oregon trail. Heh.

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, Word Munchers. I remember demonstrating that on a videotape for the elementary school's computer department so they could get funding for more computers. I used to r0xx0r at that :).

Then I learned how to hack disk images so that the words would be expletives, and they stopped letting me play the game for a while until I promised not to do that :).

[katyism.livejournal.com]

It would really help if my training had consisted of some fake practice calls and chat sessions, because hands-on is the way I learn. As it was I was so nervious on my first phone call, having never touched the phone or used the ticket logger software or anything before.

Training

[yduras.livejournal.com]

We had a weaning process - (1) trainee sits with an experienced rep and listens in on calls and watched the ticket process, (2) trainee sits in experienced rep's cube and takes calls while experienced rep is listening in and available to jump in if there's a problem, (3) new hire has own cubicle and takes calls solo, with an experienced rep droppping in on a regular basis...

[xdownfornowx.livejournal.com]

working the phones for Gateway was great. Spyware removal was out of the scope of support. So I got to punt every 5th caller to the pay support. Out of the remaining calls every 4th one was AOL conflicts... easy unistall all the versions you have and go with the current version. Drivers can be found on this at this web page, download and follow the directions for install. Problem with a laptop... needs to be sent in for service. Not really the hardest job... just really fucking annoying people to deal with. It seems that southerners and mid west folk were attracted to the cow boxes. So I had to help the feeble minded in navigating the OS to help them get it together so they could get on AOL. After a while apathy set in and would pretty much have every caller do a repair install. I knew it would take care of their problem, occupy them for 30 minutes, and most importantly get them the fuck off my line. Big hammers solve little problems.

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

Email me privately - skrshawk @ gmail.

[jacobine.livejournal.com]

I admit I hate training people, in part because I'm hyper-anal about getting things right and so my attempts at writing manuals to walk even our emergency coverage people (non-helpdesk folks we've corralled into helping) through things frustrates me.

That said, I've had to train a few people. I've just given them a basic list of instructions, have them answer on speaker-phone for a few days and prompt them, or ask questions myself if they're getting really lost, then turn them loose. They sit in the same room as me, so just asking can help, because I can troubleshoot from a one-sided conversation sometimes.

that said, what do they need to know? How to use the ticketing program, what the most common problems are (for us, password issues, orders locked up, printers not working), who handles what so calls can be distributed and (hardest to explain) how to distinguish who gets what with some of our software -- some of it is a training issue, but other pieces go to the people actually in charge of the program. (I'm one of them... and we're application stupid. We just administer it!)

[taleya.livejournal.com]

Every time you speak to a customer, or write an email or a log - Write it as if you were writing it to your lawyer

'cos you don't know when it's going to end up in the hands of one.

That little phrase got a shithead on my shift to finally fall in line and have some goddamn customer service skills.

Yes

[tolarous.livejournal.com]

Actually what i tell them is almost the same.

Write your note will all the details, so in case it comes up in court in 4 years you are not called in to explain what you did to this poor souls computer.