The Picard ManeuverProgrammer tries to explain binary search to the police
dejected_warp_coreThis didn’t go down well.
IT consulting pro-tip: Customers would rather pay for your time and expertise, than be made to feel stupid that they didn’t think of something so simple themselves.
After working in desktop support for a year after college, I realized that people just wanted their problem solved and to not feel frustrated. That realization made my job immensely easier because I pivoted from copying a file in 30 seconds and walking away to talking to them a little bit and letting them feel good after we were done. My ticket closing speed slowed down a little but people felt better and I consistently got positive feedback.
Same story here, actually. I cut my teeth on internet telephony (modems) support for an ISP. People would call up furious about not being able to connect. I learned that chatting people up during a long Windows reboot, did a lot to humanize their struggle and get them to calm down and loosen up. FIrst few times were organic, then I started looking for pretenses to do this, just to bring the temperature down for the rest of the call.
Call centers tell you to empathize but that’s not something you can teach. You can either do it or you can’t. So they give those terrible scripts, and then some of them require you to speak the scripted lines, even when you know all it does is piss the caller off.
No hears that scripted pablum at the start of call and thinks it’s genuine. No one. “I’m sorry to hear your having issues sir, but I’ll be happy to assist you.” genuinely comes off condescending at this point. They know you know it’s scripted, they know you know the representative has to say it, but they make them do it anyway.
Here’s what I found doing ISP call center work, and it worked virtually every single time: imply through tone and pointed comments you’re as frustrated as the called with how shitty the service and the hardware is. They’re never prepared for it, it always catches their anger off guard.
Don’t outright say “Yeah, Cox is absolute dog shit, and that POS gateway we make you pay for isn’t worth the cost of the the technician we’re sending out to ‘fix’ it.” You’ll get in trouble for that.
But if you’re careful and creative, you can make them appreciate you think that