One of the things about running a support team is that it makes you look at everyone else’s a little differently. When I’m in a support experience, I am constantly evaluating the person I’m working with to see what they do well and what they don’t. I’m trying to note what I think we should take to implement in our process to make it better and what we definitely need to stay away from. I have to say, my experiences with other companies have been pretty dismal lately.

My biggest complaint is the lack of communication these days with the people that can actually fix my problem. As you might guess, I’m a little more technical than most folks, so when I call in with an issue, Tier One probably isn’t going to be able to help me. Since I run a support team, I understand the importance of leveling the field to the lowest common denominator, so I’m fine with going through the paces of, “Have your tried x, y, and z yet?” Our first question with a client is usually, “When did you last reboot your computer?” But once we’ve gone through everything that a chat bot could’ve asked, the result is usually something like, “I’m going to have to go find an answer. We’ll get back in touch with you later.” In some rare occurrences, that could be the person I am speaking with puts me on a brief hold while they find a more senior person, but more often recently, it’s been a, “I’ll have to call you back.” I hate this, and I imagine most people do also, because it means most of the time, I can expect to get a call back with more, “Let’s try this. Hmm, I’ll have to call you back once I relay that back up.” I have a coffee maker that I’m probably going to have to throw away because I can’t talk to anyone who can fix my problem with it. The wall around senior technical folks is so high and impenetrable now that there is no getting around it.

How we’re trying to fix this is by making sure that when a case is escalated up, a time slot is scheduled for the senior tech to be there on the next call. They might be behind the scenes, but they should be there working alongside the more junior tech. Once it’s been escalated up, you should expect it to get fixed on that second call. Can we always get it? Of course not, but that’s our goal.

The other thing that gets me a little worked up is there seems to be a practice that has developed where a technician will get connected to your computer and then try to get you off of the phone. This has happened to me a lot lately, and it’s pretty frustrating. I see the point, it can be difficult to carry on a conversation while you’re deep in the weeds on an issue, but I really want to know why you are doing what you are doing. I want to know what’s going on as I sit here and watch you control my computer. And I definitely want to know when you are done and how you fixed it. Having a technician just close up their terminal and quit the session while I sit here waiting to know if the problem is fixed or what the next steps are is just unacceptable.

I like to think of our support sessions as not just fixing your issue, but I also hope you learn something at the end of it. Our support staff are teachers in addition to being problem solvers. We should keep you engaged throughout the process so you know exactly what we are doing, why we are doing it, and what you could do differently in the future.

My biggest final concern has to do with ownership of your product and responsibility to get it working. I have gotten to a point in a call where a technician just says, “I can’t fix it” a few times. Even worse is when a vendor sells you something and can’t figure out how to use it. We recently had an issue that we had to escalate to a vendor, and the person our tech was on the phone with said, “That’s above my pay grade. We’ll have to have someone else call you back.” Of course, that meant no one was calling back, and the issue still remains, but if you are going to sell a product, you’d better know it, understand it, and support it. There are many things that we simply say we won’t sell because we don’t know how to support them. Sure, it is lost revenue, but I think we would be at far fewer than 4.9 stars if we did.

Tech industry, you need to do better. We’ll always be striving to.

-Nate