The first support hurdle
Figuratively speaking, I hope
We’ve all had the experience of calling up your ISP’s tech support because your connection is down. While you’re waiting to talk to someone, you’re wondering:
Is this person going to make me ‘click the start button’ even though I’m running Linux?
Is this person going to appreciate that I’ve already done the basic troubleshooting and am confident the issue is upstream?
How long will it be before my internet actually works again?
And in the first moments of the conversation with your assigned support agent, you’ll probably have a pretty good idea how long it’s going to take to get real answers, from a spectrum of ‘this person knows what they’re talking about, I’m in good hands’ to ‘saints preserve us, they’re not going to deviate from this script, are they.’
Circling back for a moment to something I mentioned back when we were discussing the necessary skills to be a good support engineer, it is very important that you have a base level of unflappability when dealing with customers. I wanted to dig a bit more into this concept, but look more at why it is so critical to present to customers as calm and collected. As I constantly would tell people on my team as they onboarded and gained confidence with the product, the first hurdle you have to face in any customer interaction is convincing them you know what the hell you’re talking about.
Returning to the ISP example, you start to get a feeling almost immediately just how technical the person you’re talking to is, and that sets the tone for the rest of the conversation and troubleshooting session. And when you’re building and running your own team, it is important to keep those experiences at the front of your mind. When your customers reach out, and particularly when they’re speaking live with your engineers, are they going to feel confident in your skills, or are they going to sigh internally and prepare for a slog?
There are a few different ways to build that sort of confidence, and I’ll look at them all roughly in order of how fast they will work.
Confidence: looking back at that post about unflappability I linked above, I mentioned that confidence is a huge part of keeping customers calm. Beyond that, it helps project the air of ‘I’ve seen this before, I’ve helped others and will help you.’ Right off the bat, your tone of voice, choice of words, and body language (when camera-on) all contribute to how confident you come across.
Speaking of word choice, this is also a big one! When we’re focused on troubleshooting and getting deep into the technical weeds, the choice of one phrase over another won’t always be at the top of our minds. But it’s worth thinking ahead of time about certain key phrases to rely on, and contrariwise some things to avoid saying at all costs. I’ll never forget a customer call I was leading years ago, when something went sideways and I blurted out ‘Let’s just take a mulligan on that.’ After that call my boss rightly called out that language—it’s not something you want to hear an alleged expert tell you! Word choice matters. Another thing to avoid, at least until you’ve established your bona fides: ‘Hey, I’ve never seen this before!’ There’s such a thing as too much frankness.
Relatedly, knowing the jargon is a smaller touch but still goes a long way towards convincing the customer you understand them. The fastest way to learn this is to already know it, but if you’ve got new support engineers who aren’t as familiar with the common terminology—and problems—your customer base is accustomed to, active shadowing and playing back recorded support calls will help bring them up to speed.
Technical aptitude: this probably goes without saying, but beyond using the right words and having the right attitude, if you can’t back it up with actual technical chops, that air of competence will evaporate very quickly. But it’s still very important to open the door with confidence and speaking their language. Particularly if the troubleshooting process requires making some in-depth or potentially dangerous changes, you will have a much easier time working with the customer to make those changes if they are already predisposed to trust you and go along with your suggestions.
Handling support issues, particularly in a live troubleshooting setting, can be stressful both for the engineer and for the customer. While building a base level of trust with the customer won’t magically solve all of their problems, it is a critical first step. And the good news is, once you have one or two issues solved with that customer, you’ll be starting from a higher level of trust the next time a problem rolls around with them.
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