(no subject)

[shadowheel.livejournal.com]

I am really starting to hate this field.

Not for what may seem to be the obvious reasons -- namely the customers. No, I get a real rush out of that wow moment at the end of a call where the caller just gets it, or is genuineely happy that a problem is solved.  Not that these happen all that often.  Just often enough to make it worth getting out of bed in the morning.

No, what's getting me is the attitude of the callers. 

I have one particular queue where we provide one service under a particular brand name.  There are other organizations who provide related services under the same brand, but are supported (I think) by yet another organization.  I'm sure a lot of you can understand how these sort of things work.

By the time I get a caller on this queue, chances are they've spoken with at least three other people from my organization and the other who have already told this caller that whatever it os can't be done or that we can't do it for them.  So the caller already has this resigned/combative attitude of "I don't really want to hear no again and I don't think you're qualified but I must get this working" that I have to work through.  This is especially annoying when nine times out of ten the solution is something along the lines of "Go into the configuration and make this change.

Ugh.

Comments

[jecook]

FWIW, I remember reading somewhere that the average Hell desk droid has a tenure or turn over rate of 9 months, which was why a lot of them are staffed up via a recruiting company.

It's a good foot in the door (hell, I started that way) but the only real next step up is either field support, level 2 help desk (for the resilient ones) or some other computer related field if that person chooses to stay in the field.

And a lot of the things that make helldesk managers happy are not conducive to making the customer happy: short call times and call volume are prime keys. Sure, if you take 40+ calls a day, what does that prove? I’ve always thought that it meant that you got the customer off the phone in a hurry. There is no incentive for helping the customer for the most part, because it's very difficult to measure those metrics.

One call I remember taking was nearly a half hour, but I got the problem solved, and the customer was made very, very happy. One of the things I got bagged on during my eval was my ‘lack’ of call volume. My defense of "I was told in the training to focus on call quality, not quantity" was ignored.

[shadowheel.livejournal.com]

Nearly three years, THIS time.

Or eight years, on and off, everything from high-end, quasi-SA, consultant-type helpdesk to 'how do I turn this thing on again?'

business webhosting this time.

[klytus.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of a story a fellow tech from a prior job once told me. He was contracting on a help desk, and he was the best expert they had on the desk for certain problems. This was important, because they did not have 2nd level support - they were it. So whenever a call came in that was a real problem and could not be resolved quickly, they forwarded the call to him. As a result, everyone elses metrics looked great, while his were in the toilet - but he took all the tough calls and made the clients very happy. Only management didn't seem to think that was important. His numbers were down, that was unacceptable, so he was fired.

Justice was served two week later when his old boss called - begging him to come back. Not only were everybody elses numbers now shot to hell, but thanks to him not being there to fix the real problems, clients were cancelling service because they couldn't get help.

Too bad. He was on a different contract and not available to work - not even for the raise he was being offered.

That anguished cry you may have heard is the sound of a manager finally getting a clue.