(no subject)

[katyism.livejournal.com]

I wanted to briefly bitch...

We do not support home networking. It is stated in the policies of our support center, and we (well, at least I do) quote that policy when a customer calls in asking for help with their home networking issues. It so happens that when I quote that policy, the user will say something along the lines of "Um, I called you guys last semester for this and $some_dude helped me get it fixed up, can't you just tell me again?" And I have to say no.

Why? Because I don't do home networking. I am not as experienced with it as most of my co-workers. And they have put me in a very irritating situation by supporting home networking for customers in the past, and causing those customers to expect us to do that for them every time. Guess what - home networking is NOT one of the skills required by this job. It's great that my co-workers are able to support it, but they're not supposed to. And when they "go out of their way" on a "slow call night" to help a user with a home network issue, those users are appreciative and keep calling back. Which works out great until those expectant users talk to someone who isn't able to help. Me.

They curse at me, whine that "the last 5 guys I called tonight helped me configure my router, why can't you?" I don't want to say "because I don't know how, dammit!" even if that's true, because that would cast a bad light on the whole organization and cause the user to totally lose respect for me, a supposed guru. They would say "I see, well, maybe you shouldn't be working there answering the phones since you're the only person I've talked to who can't help me". I don't like quoting the policy that we do not support networks, because, obviously, my co-workers are suppporting them just because they can and no other users are calling with pressing needs. If I quote the policy I get whining from the user again that "the last guy helped me, can I just talk to HIM?"

So what should I do? Should I ask our supervisors to actually enforce the no-home-network-support thing here? Should I confront the main offending co-workers personally? I mean it doesn't have to be home networking, my coworkers will offer support on any number of things they're good at if they can even if the rest of us, our knowledge base, and Google can't help. That leaves the rest of us no resources if that person is gone or busy when his previous user calls back for more help on whatever it is we aren't supposed to be supporting at all in the first place.

Comments

[katyism.livejournal.com]

I do quote the policy any chance I get because I'd rather quote that than say "Uh, I dunno..." to a customer. I just hate doing it. It works well for a first-time caller, but for the ones on which the damage has been done, I see no way to handle the customer without bad-mouthing my coworkers. (We can't say "Yeah, the guy who helped you last time wasn't supposed to, he broke policy by doing it.")

[inahandbasket]

It's a tough situation.
Obviously your co-workers are making happy customers. That's a good thing. But they're putting you in a really uncomfortable situation. That's a bad thing.

I'd say go to your direct manager and have a sit down about it. Don't go to the co-workers yourself, that's more likely to cause a bad confrontation. Make the manager understand that they're working outside the scope of responsibility, and point out that it's a busy call center and people are still doing work out of scope. (That should get your managers' attention.)

[jecook]

What he said.

I have stopped taking any side jobs from co-workers simply because they almost expect me to put our (abused licensed) copy of Office on their home machine in order for them to do stuff, even though we provide a machine for that purpose.

One person had the balls to ask how much I would charge. I told them $35,000, because I'd have to find another job, and probably pay the company for that license thrice over what the retail charge is (that's the standard fine assement from the BSA for getting busted for pirating software - three times retail PER COPY) They even tried the "puppy dog eyes", which ended up me giving them several hundred watts of my stare in return... ::rolls eyes::

[ace-brickman.livejournal.com]

you signed on under a friend's^Hnother name to post that admission ;-), right?

[dangermouse74.livejournal.com]

well you can quote policy and say that the last guy was doing you a courtesy that sometimes can be extended, but in this case the center is too busy (or something) and you can not handle such requests at this time.

and i agree to make it clear to the other techs to quote policy and make it clear they are offering a courtesy before they help anyone. it may or may not work, users might still bitch even thoguh you are doing them a favor, people are like that. but they could bitch that you "should" help them anyway so i dunno if it would be any worse.

[said-by-me.livejournal.com]

We had a lot of those in the first level support group I used to work in. They justified it by calling it good customer service. It took a lot of explaining to them that in reality, they are doing the customers a disservice because of course the next time they call in for that unsupported issue.... they probably won't get support.

They changed the policy to read that if you are going to support the unsupported you have to tell the customer that it is best effort and they will probably not get support the next time.

Wanna take a guess at how many actually *hear* that statement?

[ghostdandp.livejournal.com]

as far as policy goes, it should be enforced. Or atleast inforced that it's stated before you help them.

As far as home networking goes, if you know how to setup a computer, you can learn how to setup a home network. It's easy as all heck. It is your perogative to learn it, however in the future it's a goods kill set to have :)

[greeklady.livejournal.com]

I would tell the sup to remind the cowokers in your meeting to if they decide to give best effort to home customers to remind them of the policy.

I don't tell them I can't due to policy. I tell mine, we give best effort but that doesn't work since everyones home system is different.

[sneezypb.livejournal.com]

How well are these co-workers actually helping when the customer has to talk to 6 different people in a night? It sounds more like these co-workers are over their heads and giving the customer BS solutions out of kinda knowing something, but not really being in a position to support it.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

"Im sorry, but none of us here are trained to troubleshoot home networks. Any advice we give might completely destroy your network, so we aren't allowed to give any for legal reasons."

"But the others did!"

"And I'll be having a word with them about that. Was there anything else?"

Arr, nothing like putting the fear of dataloss into the end-users.

[jjjiii]

Bad idea to lie.

"None of us here are trained" is demonstrably false if they've received help previously and the help they received worked out.

"Legal reasons" can easily be looked into and disproven.

"Might completely destroy your network" makes it sound like it's amazing you're not doing the same for the company you work for, and would make me question why you're even working there.

"I'll be talking to them about that" makes it sound like you, the Bad Tech, are now on a vendetta to expell any remaining "Good Techs" from your organization.

The effect of these statements make the rest of the company hate the IT department. And I really couldn't blame them.

It's better just to give the real reason. Bullshitting someone is really only a more effective solution if you are reasonably certain that you will NEVER have to deal with that person again.

A lot of people just hang up and don't think anything more about it, but if you're like me and talk to other people and ask questions, stuff like that could really end up coming back to hurt you.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Not a lie if training of that particular kind is not provided for the staff in that team. Regardless of if some techs know enough to do the troubleshooting or not, they haven't been officially trained to.

Legal reasons vary from job to job, and may or may not be appropriate. However, there is one very good reason - provision of information you're not trained for and have not been employed to provide can leave your employer open for negative consequences if things go sour. I'd consider that a 'legal reason'.

The possibility of network destruction is geared more towards calls about unknown home networks. Within a company, I'd say "That's not a supported configuration and as such is not guaranteed to work with the $companyname computer setup." Depending on policy, you may even be able to add "And I'm sending someone over to dismantle it."

As for talking to the other techs (and managers), I certainly would be.

The reasons I gave originally are 100% backed up by my current job and boss. I realise that they will not apply exactly to every techsupport job and management policy out there, but substantially similar responses could very well be a useful (and approved) method of dealing with certain categories of call.

[jjjiii]

Not a lie if training of that particular kind is not provided for the staff in that team. Regardless of if some techs know enough to do the troubleshooting or not, they haven't been officially trained to.

Do you EVER do anything that you were officially trained to do? I've had a small amount of IT training compared to what I "just know" or "happened to pick up" or taught myself. If I only used what I was "officially trained" on, I'd be literally unable to do my job.

Most of these home networking devices are brain-dead simple to set up, and require opening a box and plugging stuff in. If they don't work, then they may involve readin the instruction manual. Basic configuration information should be within any competent networking tech's ability to guess correctly in 3 tries or less. Claiming that you are unable to do this because you haven't received official training is pretty misleading.

The real problem is the scope of support needs to be limited, or else pretty soon you're expected and obligated to support anythin and everything, you lose sight of your core mission, and can't focus on what's really important.

In this case, the company has drawn a clear line and has a good policy, and it's just a matter of enforcing it, and doing so in a way which still conveys to the helpdesk's internal customers that they are being provided with excellent customer service. Giving the standard company policy (but probably not goin so far as to justify it or explain why policy is as it is -- it's enough that it merely is) and then referring the customer to proper support channels is a good way to stay out of trouble.

As far as "legal reasons" go, you're right that it's smart to leave yourself and your employer open to as few lawsuits as possible, but unless Legal specifically put their stamp on the IT helpdesk's policy against supporting home user problems, citing legal may not work out well if someone bothers to pick up a phone and call them and ask why the non-existent policy is causing them to be unable to do work from home. After Legal says, "Who the hell told you that?" you'll have both an angry customer AND an angry Legal department AND an angry helpdesk manager in the customer's corner, and even though you're technically in the right, you're still going to lose. It's wonderful if and when your company really does back you up, though.

As well, it's not your position to argue with someone why policy is set as it is set. This just opens up a point of negotiation -- "Oh, so you're saying if I sign a waiver of all $employer's legal liability for the advice you're about to dispense to me that you're about to give me, you have the knowledge and time to help me out, but other wise you're willing and able to help but your hands are tied, right? And of course, waiving $employer's liability in no way waives your own personal liability, so if I notice anything wrong with my $techThing after you look at it, I can hound you until judgement day for additional free tech support without limit, right?"

People need to have limits, and reasonable people will understand reasonable limits when stated reasonably. Being obstinate or abrupt or throwing up a wall of bureaucracy tends to make reasonable people angry and not appreciative, so even if you're doing your job properly by doing so, if you're using those measures, you're probably incurring negative karma.

99% of the time, if I talk to someone in a reasonable manner like they're a human being, they understand when I say "no" and feel like I've helped them out even by saying no to them -- because I don't just present myself as a dead end that doesn't care, I offer suggestions and a friendly "good luck" before I hang up. "NO" is a very good tool, and I couldn't do my job without it, but still you have to be able to use it properly to be effective.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Do you EVER do anything that you were officially trained to do?

Um... all the time?

But yes, I use knowledge I haven't acquired officially. I just first think about whether or not I should be offering it. Knowing where the power button is on an obscure brand of PC is probably not going to cause a lot of grief. Offering to troubleshoot the entirety of what turns out to be someone's chewing-gum, paperclip, tinfoil, hamsterwheel and pre-80s tech network could be a swamp you don't want yourself or your colleagues to end up in.

Additionally, working corporate support for a large organisation means that there are several dozen IT teams with defined support boundaries. I'm not supposed to support applications or systems I haven't been trained on, as we have other people for that. Moreover, I don't want to be stuck doing their work for them when I have ten more people stacked up in my phone queue. Just because I know the meaning of a given error message in an application doesn't mean I won't tell a caller to phone the helpdesk for that app - I'm trying to train them to call the correct people in future.

In short, it depends a lot on the scope boundaries of any particular techjob. It may be fuzzy and wide-ranging, or narrow and clearly defined. Mine happens to be fairly wide-ranging (we're the most generic helpdesk), but with some clear boundaries around those edges. There's a lot I can do, but there's also a set of information I am literally not allowed to give out, and even hinting that I know it is considered bad form. The most I can do is to tell someone exactly who they need to talk to get the information they need.

[jjjiii]

That's a bad situation to be in, particularly because the customer complaints are going to make it look like you're less capable than your co-workers, meaning you'll be less likely to get a good raise, promoted, etc.

And it's not even a part of your job description. Pretty soon, you end up supporting burned out light bulbs, telephone systems, fax machines, and pencil sharpeners. I know a little bit about everything, and can figure out damn near anything else given enough time, and I enjoy spreading my knowledge to others and hopefully learning something from them, but sometimes you just have to draw the line.

I've had people ask me to take care of filling out a property disposal form for an old paper cutter they wanted to get rid of, presumably because the paper it cuts originates from a printer that is an IT asset. Or maybe it's because the property disposal form is an electronic document.

The helpdesk should maybe consider publicizing router settings needed to allow access to work-related systems, or if there are none, enforcing the policy they have.

I tend to help people out when they ask me tech questions about stuff at home, but only because I think it raises my stock in their eyes. But it also is helpful because for every person I can persuae to try F/OSS or secure their system properly, it makes the world that much better. Occasionally I'll get some side-jobs and a little petty cash to come my way, too.

[justsomegurl.livejournal.com]

I feel your pain. That is almost the same situation here except our policy is even more vague. We are only required to know dialup and DSL. Networking is not a required skill to work here. However we dont' have an exact policy. It goes something like help the customer "as much as you can". So I end up looking like an idiot often. I hate the fact that I am expected to help a customer with their router, but was never trained or even informed beforehand that I would need that knowledge. Of course I can't go back to school either because I have to put in my 40+ hours.

[geekgrrl-ca.livejournal.com]

If they ask to speak to such and such I tell them they can call back and roll the dice and hope they get that support person.

I used to bend the rules on what was not supported, until I got burnt because the customer was unsatisified because I couldn't make the impossible work for them. Now if I know of a document or website that will help them I'll give them that and leave them to their own devices. That or sell them a contract to our third party support line.