I started off my career in tech as a support technician - worked on both end user/consumer product and business/corporate client support. I can say without a d

I started off my career in tech as a support technician - worked on both end user/consumer product and business/corporate client support. I can say without a doubt #3 and #4 are the absolute most important things a support technician can do - and do fast after answering the call. I had so many irate customers - just like my wife is with me when it's her turn to call the phone company(!). The second they believed I was going to fix their problem and not waste their time - we would be on the same team. Corollary - try hard to never, ever, EVER pass a customer to someone else. I would tell them my name, their case number and tell them if they call back to ask for me ..and then more or less demand in the case notes that the next technician pass them back to me (caveat: as long as the customer was ok with that). I look so fondly on my time doing tech support - but geeze was it rough emotionally.