Follow Through on your Follow Through

Although most calls that come in on a tech support line are "one and done", there are going to be times where you need to check on something and get back to your customer.  In this case, "Follow through" is key.

• Let your customer know roughly how long it will take for you to get back to them
• Make sure you and your customer agree on the manner in which you will contact them (email, phone, IM, etc)
• If you don't have a solution by the deadline, at least let the customer know you're still working on it 
• If you come up with an answer ahead of schedule, let them know ahead of schedule! There are very few circumstances in which a customer will be upset that you have gotten back to them with good news ahead of the agreed up on time

Be Pleased With Your Ignorance

For a Tech Support rep, not knowing something is akin to admitting defeat. After all, the job entails knowing more than your customers know.

However, finding out that you don't know something is an opportunity to remind yourself that you don't know everything - it's an opportunity to learn something new, write it down and stockpile that information for yourself and your coworkers.

Be happy when you find out you don't know something - it means you're still learning.

Time and Knowledge

When is the best time to make sure new information is noted somewhere you can find it again?

As soon as you recognize it as being new information.

"One-off" information may not be needed on a regular bases, which makes it even more important that it be recorded. Information you wind up using on a day to day basis will be reinforced through repeated use. As usual, it's the "edge cases", the things that only occur once in a long while, which make Writing Everything Down vital.

Coaching vs. Criticism

In the course of your job, you will make mistakes. When mistakes happen, managers communicate thes "opportunities for growth" in the form of coaching notes.

Don't take them personally. A coaching note is intended to point out information which you may have missed, or a technique to resolve an issue which you may have been unaware of. Take that information as information rather than as an attack. (Remember, managers want you to succeed.)

Don't be afraid to point out areas where you made a mistake which you learned from before it's pointed it out to you. Learning without being prompted to learn looks good to a manager.

Brake for safety

In a high volume environment, it can be easy to forget that not only are you supposed to take regular breaks in the call and ticket flow, but that, in fact, it's legally mandated.

Take advantage of scheduled "down time" to get up and away from the screen - and not just to check your own email. Take a walk, talk to people, go outside and remind yourself that there is a world out there.

Widen Your Scope

It's very easy to get used to dealing with a very finite set of subjects during the course of your day.  You can end up knowing everything about a few things and very little about others.

Take some time to broaden your scope - even if you only spend a few minutes surfing on a subject that's tangential to what you do, but interesting enough that you continue to look for more information on it.  That might even lead to widening your scope farther.

It also helps to remind us that no, we don't Know Everything. And that can keep you out of Competency Level 4, which will make working with people who don't know about your particular area of expertise easier.

Not Knowing is OK

Part of knowing your job is knowing what things you know and knowing what things you do not know. Although many techs would rather lose a limb than admit they don't know something.

Customers actually appreciate it if you let them know that you've hit a point where you need to get more information from other sources. (It lets them know you're human!) Set the customer's expectation, do some research, and then them know what you've found out. Even if you have to tell a customer that you still aren't sure what's going on and are still researching, they appreciate that you are willing to say "I'm not certain, but I'll find out."

Above and Beyond? (The worst they can say is...)

Some Tech Support reps are nervous about asking whether something is possible when the request appears to be beyond the generally assumed scope of their company's support.

It's hard to think about going "above and beyond" when a product or service is new to you , but once you have some experience with what you're supporting, don't be afraid to look beyond the scope of what you've been trained for and consider offering support that goes "Above and Beyond"... provided you know how far you personally are capable of going.

One other thing to consider: If you're going to go "above and beyond", make certain you document what you've done and what you've offered in considerable detail and set the customer's understanding that what you're doing is a little farther than some would give...