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TOP 10 WAYS TO GET HELP DESK HELP 1. Be polite and professionally courteous. Keep your feelings out of it. This is a technical call, not a hate-talk show, so keep it that way. Help desks aren’t perfect, whether paid or volunteer. If you’re not satisfied, seek alternatives or go to a higher court – but don’t go sportin’ a ‘tude with the help desk. Save that for the supervisors, or shop elsewhere. Help desk staffers are human too, and will reward an attitude by dealing with your problem instead of your machine’s problem. 2. Be prepared, and stick to the point. In advance, write down pertinent information in outline style about your machine, system, application versions, and the chain of events leading up to the problem. If you seem to have multiple problems to address, break them out separately. Try to minimize your own "Joe Friday" deductive reasoning skills in favor of "just the facts, ma'am". 3. Address still-unanswered questions after the help desk has finished asking its own questions, when the diagnostics part has been completed. It’s better to make your questions short, and as specific as possible. 4. Don't awe the help desk with your qualifications and experience until they ask. Don’t ask them to explain why your friend, or some other "authority", suggested a better approach. 5. Let the help desk steer the direction of the call. Let them direct most of the questions. Answer them with just adequate detail; let the help desk decide when they need more detail. If you insist on controlling this dialog, you will lose, but you will lose not because the helpdesk will necessarily withhold information, or because you were not clever enough. You will lose because you prevented the help desk from doing its job. 6. Listen carefully. Write things down step by step, and read or repeat back what you understood. 7. Don't try to second-guess the help desk. Don't tell them "I tried that" unless you tried the whole procedure, not just a single step. 8. Be responsive. Don't be afraid to ask "why", but let them understand you only want to know, not to badger or argue with them. Do give enough feedback so the help desk person can tell they are getting through to you. 9. Do everything you reasonably can to help yourself, both before and after the phone call. Never say, "I tried what you told me and it didn't work", and leave the conversation hanging in accusatory silence. If appropriate, tell them which procedure you followed and its actual result. For example: "I followed steps 1 - 10 of the 'Clean Install' procedure in Chapter 7 of the User's Manual, and startup still freezes when QuickTime loads." 10. Thank them for their time or help. Don't treat them like servants or prisoners of war. If you have to call back, you may well get the same person. TOP 10 WAYS TO ALIENATE THE HELP DESK 1. Begin by asking how much time they have, and how late in the evening you can call back when you get stuck. Let them know upfront that you’re open to calling them back at midnight. 2. Tell them you made the same mistake twice in a row, and trashed your system or hard drive both times. This will demonstrate a sense of urgency about stepping in to personally handle everything for you. Hint that they could drive up to your house right now, if the timing worked for you. 3. Make it clear you expect them to "walk you through this" – no matter what it is or how long it takes --before analysis of the problem has even been discussed. 4. Always deflect direct questions by redirecting them to completely different questions of your own. Let's say the question is: "do you have ants in the kitchen?" Your response should be, "But how do I burn the house down?" When they attempt to regain control of the questioning, ask them, "Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong with my computer?" 5. Make it clear to the help desk that you're not interested in their suggestions or direction of questioning, because a "higher authority" steered you onto a completely different path. If possible, pointedly let them know the only reason you're calling at all is because "my friend" inexplicably moved out of state, with no forwarding address or phone. Tell them all you want them to do is walk you through whatever the higher authority did. 6. If third-party software is involved in the problem, make it perfectly clear you won't be fooled into seeking technical help from the people who may already have the solution. 7. When pinned to the mat about booting or installing from the older system disk or CD version that you actually do own, impress them by telling them you're running system 8.1 with HFS+, which somebody else (guess who) installed, but for which you don't have disks. Never let them make you settle for less. Don't get sidetracked with issues of whether or not you own or even physically possess the installation software. Other people are supposed to provide that for you. Don't get stuck making do with the possible. 8. When pinned to the mat about checking your user's manual, impress them with the rebuttal that you're a novice who doesn't even know how to set the time on your PC clock. 9. Let the help desk person know upfront that you’ll not be thwarted with direct technical questions and basic facts. Remind them they are just there to fix the problem using a solution already posed for them by you. You have every right to make them agree with whatever you say, because you're the customer and they are supposed to help you. Let them know who's boss. 10. If the help desk persists in clinging to its own agenda by insulting you with fact-finding questions, tell them: "so you won't help me, then?" Copyright by Alex Forbes ©June 21, 1998 |
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