Hi, I’m Julie.

I work for a wireless internet service provider that also sells professional wireless networking equipment, mostly to other internet service providers.

I’m in tech support. I field calls from our internal internet customers and as well as from outside customers that are wanting to buy the products that we sell and distribute.

Mostly its the external customers that I deal with because our network doesn’t have many problems, lately.

As anyone that has ever worked any kind of help desk or tech support knows, its a pretty easy job if you know what you’re talking about and if the customers on the other end of the phone know what they’re talking about (and they also should have common courtesy).

For the most part, the people I talk to already do know what they’re talking about because they’re in the industry, but once in a while I’ll get calls from the end user that has stumbled up on the products and wants to make it work for their house. These are people that know next to nothing about any kind of networking or how wireless works, etc.

Then there are the sexist customers. I deal with them at least twice a day. These are the ones that, when I answer the phone, immediately ask for tech support, even though my phone doesn’t ring unless they dial the tech room extension, or they’re transferred over to the tech room.  My male co-workers don’t have to deal with this.

Anyway, I just want to give a few pointers to customers that do have to call tech support so they can get the most from it.

I think we all have to call tech support eventually.

First, don’t assume that we know what you’re talking about when you say “I can’t get the thing to do what my friend Bob said it would do”. We don’t know what the ‘thing’ is and we don’t know what Bob said it would do. Be specific. A great way to ask your question is: “I did x and I expected y to happen but y didn’t happen. What should I do to get y to happen?” We’re not mind readers.

Secondly, don’t assume that you know more than we do, because if you did, you wouldn’t be calling us in the first place.  I get calls like this a lot, I think some of it has to do with me being female in a mostly male dominated profession. Lots of times people will call wanting to know why something isn’t working. I’ll give them suggestions of what they can try to make it work, but they’ll tell me that what I suggest isn’t the problem, even if they haven’t tried it. Believe it or not, its highly doubtful that you have a problem we haven’t encountered before. It does happen, but not often. And since we have seen your problem before, we probably already know how to fix it. Saying that you won’t try our suggestions simply because you think it won’t fix it, isn’t going to get us to give you the best help we can.

Third, don’t assume that when a female answers the phone that you’re not talking to tech support. We’re just as capable of handling your questions as males. Granted, there are some times when I can’t answer a customer’s question, and when that happens, I’ll hand the call off to one of my co-workers, but its not because I’m female, its because I don’t have experience with the question. When my co-worker gets off the phone with you, I ask him how he fixed the problem and what was going on so I’ll know for next time. There are also times when my male co-workers don’t know the answer and then they hand the call off to me. We help each other out.

Lastly, you being angry, irate, and rude on the phone isn’t going to get you the help you want. We do what we can do to help you but if you are calling us names or telling us that we’re incompetent, do you really think we’re going to go out of our way to help you? Because I don’t. When this happens to me, I give only the absolute minimum amount of support that I’m required to give.

For example, we offer 15 minutes of free support, if it goes past this, we are to make you pay $100/hr. for support. Usually, if the customer is nice I don’t do that. But the rude ones only get the 15 minutes from me, if I don’ t hang up on them, first. I don’t just hang up, though. I will tell them that I have permission from management to end the call if they keep being rude. If they continue, I hang up.

So what it boils down to is:  We want to help you.  This is why we are in tech support.  We like challenges, but just like if you don’t get enough clues in Sudoku you can’t solve the puzzle and if you don’t give us the information we need , we can’t fix your problem.  Also, keep in mind that you might be frustrated about your problem and have been struggling with it for hours, and sometimes even days, we’re just now hearing about it when you call.  We don’t know what you have, and haven’t, already tried unless you tell us.  We also don’t know what your level of expertise is.  If it seems like we’re talking down to you, its because we want to make sure even the customer with the least amount of experience can understand.