Follow-through, follow-through, follow-through

If you're working multiple cases or multiple tickets, it is very easy to allow yourself to let the less urgent tickets fall by the wayside. Sometimes you'll find some problems "fix themselves" - unfortunately sometimes that means the customer has just given up hope.

Make a point of trying to "touch" every open or pending ticket you have in your stack every day. Even if it's just to make certain you haven't missed something.  You'll be surprised how many things you find you can solve.

The new gig: Hitting the ground running

Starting a new job means getting an idea of what the work environment will be. While some companies take the time to provide an orientation period, in many cases once you're in, you're moving. If you have the time to do so (say, the weekend before you begin your new job), try the following:

Spend some time getting familiar with the area around your new place of work: This will give you an idea of the environment, possible places to go for lunch, where to go when you're almost out of gas, and other useful bits of data.

Spend an hour or so checking your favorite online map site for alternate routes to and from your new gig - where do you go if the freeway is at a standstill? Can you get from here to there on surface streets alone?

Get an idea of the size of the company. A company with 120 employees "supports" differently than a larger, more spread out company.  The kind of support you provide (ie: sterling) should not change, but the manner in which you provide that support might be different.  Do they have a system in place to log requests or is it a more informal "can you help me with this?" environment?

Learn the location of the restrooms, fire exits, break rooms and vending machines. This information will help keep you sane when it's time to get up and walk away for a moment.

Read over any information your company provides in regard to internet usage. This is a big one especially as some companies are beginning to crack down on the use of streaming media sources like YouTube and Pandora. Find out what's OK and not OK to do at work before you try learning the hard way.

Learn people's names as quickly as you can. Start with your immediate supervisor and coworkers, then work your way out from there to the other teams and support people.  Always learn the names of the admins, secretaries and receptionists. They're the ones who really run things.

The more you know about where you're working, the easier it will be to work there!

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.

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.

Phones vs. Email

Tech Support takes multiple forms these days - it used to be that the only way to get assistance was by calling a phone number, waiting on hold, and then talking to someone.

Now you have telephone support, and then support via email, instant messaging, chat, even social media outlets like Twitter.

While Tech Support will always be, at its root, the art of helping someone use something they don't fully understand, there are some differences between email and telephone support.

Email (or chat, message board, instant messenger, IRC channel) support has the advantage of an unspoken, but generally understood time delay.  You don't have to maintain a continuous dialog with the customer, and that can give you the chance to review what you want to say, polish it, edit and then send the email, post the message, send the IM.   The disadvantage is that you are communicating entirely in text - you do not have the advantage of communicating through pitch, tone and timing that speaking with someone on the telephone permits.

Telephone support is the most "immediate" form of support - the clock is running from the moment you answer the call. You need to be able to think on your feet, and if you need to put the customer on hold you need to set that customer's expectations as clearly as possible.  On the other hand, you can make a more direct connection on a social level through how you say what you say - it adds another level of communication beyond conveying information.

Most techs have a preference - phone or email. It's a good idea to build your skills in both media, that way you won't have issues no matter which media you work in.