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seriously, what did she expect? if you work any kind of helpdesk, inbound call center or even management - your job is to help people fix their problems. now,

seriously, what did she expect? if you work any kind of helpdesk, inbound call center or even management - your job is to help people fix their problems. now, does a calm, rational, smart person have a problem? unlikely. something is not working, hard to figure out, etc. the person is frustrated, angry, feels stupid for not figuring out - and now you come into the picture. it is assymetrical, one side has build up emotions, one hasn't. if you get affected by this, the job is not for you - and it is great to realise this as early as possible to prevent yourself from causing harm to others by being a shitty helpdesk, inbound call center, management person. i think this assymetry is the prime cause of all the BOFH (http://bofh.ntk.net/BOFH/ http://bofh.ntk.net/BOFH/) behaviors encountered in IT departments. young males wanting to work with machines, but suddenly being forced to interact with and help other humans in an assymetrical, emotional state.

lsc 14y ago
>seriously, what did she expect? now, first? you are saying "this is completely normal and expected" - and if by 'normal' you mean 'average' I agree. this is how customer service usually is. But it's not acceptable. Certainly not acceptable from the perspective of the poor kid getting yelled at. >it is assymetrical, one side has build up emotions, one hasn't. if you get affected by this, the job is not for you - and it is great to realise this as early as possible to prevent yourself from causing harm to others by being a shitty helpdesk, inbound call center, management person. Here, you seem to think that it is mostly the employees fault. I'd argue it's mostly management's fault. Yeah, a lot of the problems you list are real; sure. But they are hugely exasperated by companies that setup their callcenter such that employees can't be anything but emotional punching bags for angry customers. The place I worked as a tech support person? you were judged by your call times, not by actually solving problems. (fortunately, I got promoted to NOC before I got fired for, you know, actually helping people.) It was exasperating, because, at the time, I had a bunch of experience helping old people operate windows boxes (I was a helpdesk tech in highschool for an office with a median age around 45.) /and/ I had a basic understanding of IP, routing, and the like. And I liked helping people. But my supervisor kept giving me a hard time about how long I'd spend on the phone with a person. I mean, I was pretty good at focusing on the actual problem, and generally? when they figure out that you are actually solving the goddamn problem, even angry people calm down. And you know? actually solving the problem feels pretty good, even if many of the people start out angry. (the hard cases are the problems you can't solve, of course, especially when the problem is probably between the keyboard and the chair and they won't try the thing you ask. It's /way/ easier to do this in person.) Seriously, if you (the company) aren't going to put in the effort to maintain a decent callcenter? why bother at all? people buy products without phone support all the time. The way it's set up most places, not only are most employees not technically qualified, you don't train, and you don't expect employees to be technically qualified. But my main point, here? is that as a callcenter employee? you need to recognize a bad callcenter and /leave/ - if management's goal is to get complainers off the phone, well, you aren't going to be successful if you try to actually help people. (I mean, I think firing your expensive customers; the customer who need the most help is a reasonable business model. Hell, I put a lot of effort into scaring that sort off at signup. But having a really bad callcenter is about the worst way to do that firing, especially from the point of view of the kid who has to answer the phone.)
- pinaceae 14y ago
  i never said it is her fault. but listing this as some kind of hard obtained, new knowledge? of course the company should properly train their support staff, etc. but this is not the point here. people needing help are in a stressful mental state. they don't act rational, some stay nice, some turn into monsters. first step is to calm down, then solve the problem. some need tough love, some need love. dangerous analogy: sort of like dealing with an argument with your female partner in a relationship. it's first and foremost about the emotions at play, the factual problem is secondary. if you get stressed out by other people's emotions, you can't help them. basic human triage is calm down first, establish sympathy/empathy, then move to the issue. a good doctor works like that, a good sales person as well.
  - lsc 14y ago
    >people needing help are in a stressful mental state. they don't act rational, some stay nice, some turn into monsters. first step is to calm down, then solve the problem. some need tough love, some need love. If you solve the problem, the rest of it goes away. Yeah, if you exasterbate the emotional bullshit, you can make it harder to solve the problem, but my experience on the phone? Playing the autistic nerd works just fine. They called for help on a problem, if you just bring the conversation back to the problem, and, you know, fix it for them, they are usually pretty happy with it, even if you don't "build rapport" or whatever. Of course, this assumes they are contacting you because they are trying to solve a technical problem. If you are sales or what have you, I'm sure the rules are completely different.

lsc 14y ago

>seriously, what did she expect? now, first? you are saying "this is completely normal and expected" - and if by 'normal' you mean 'average' I agree. this is how customer service usually is. But it's not acceptable. Certainly not acceptable from the perspective of the poor kid getting yelled at. >it is assymetrical, one side has build up emotions, one hasn't. if you get affected by this, the job is not for you - and it is great to realise this as early as possible to prevent yourself from causing harm to others by being a shitty helpdesk, inbound call center, management person. Here, you seem to think that it is mostly the employees fault. I'd argue it's mostly management's fault. Yeah, a lot of the problems you list are real; sure. But they are hugely exasperated by companies that setup their callcenter such that employees can't be anything but emotional punching bags for angry customers. The place I worked as a tech support person? you were judged by your call times, not by actually solving problems. (fortunately, I got promoted to NOC before I got fired for, you know, actually helping people.) It was exasperating, because, at the time, I had a bunch of experience helping old people operate windows boxes (I was a helpdesk tech in highschool for an office with a median age around 45.) /and/ I had a basic understanding of IP, routing, and the like. And I liked helping people. But my supervisor kept giving me a hard time about how long I'd spend on the phone with a person. I mean, I was pretty good at focusing on the actual problem, and generally? when they figure out that you are actually solving the goddamn problem, even angry people calm down. And you know? actually solving the problem feels pretty good, even if many of the people start out angry. (the hard cases are the problems you can't solve, of course, especially when the problem is probably between the keyboard and the chair and they won't try the thing you ask. It's /way/ easier to do this in person.) Seriously, if you (the company) aren't going to put in the effort to maintain a decent callcenter? why bother at all? people buy products without phone support all the time. The way it's set up most places, not only are most employees not technically qualified, you don't train, and you don't expect employees to be technically qualified. But my main point, here? is that as a callcenter employee? you need to recognize a bad callcenter and /leave/ - if management's goal is to get complainers off the phone, well, you aren't going to be successful if you try to actually help people. (I mean, I think firing your expensive customers; the customer who need the most help is a reasonable business model. Hell, I put a lot of effort into scaring that sort off at signup. But having a really bad callcenter is about the worst way to do that firing, especially from the point of view of the kid who has to answer the phone.)

pinaceae 14y ago
i never said it is her fault. but listing this as some kind of hard obtained, new knowledge? of course the company should properly train their support staff, etc. but this is not the point here. people needing help are in a stressful mental state. they don't act rational, some stay nice, some turn into monsters. first step is to calm down, then solve the problem. some need tough love, some need love. dangerous analogy: sort of like dealing with an argument with your female partner in a relationship. it's first and foremost about the emotions at play, the factual problem is secondary. if you get stressed out by other people's emotions, you can't help them. basic human triage is calm down first, establish sympathy/empathy, then move to the issue. a good doctor works like that, a good sales person as well.
- lsc 14y ago
  >people needing help are in a stressful mental state. they don't act rational, some stay nice, some turn into monsters. first step is to calm down, then solve the problem. some need tough love, some need love. If you solve the problem, the rest of it goes away. Yeah, if you exasterbate the emotional bullshit, you can make it harder to solve the problem, but my experience on the phone? Playing the autistic nerd works just fine. They called for help on a problem, if you just bring the conversation back to the problem, and, you know, fix it for them, they are usually pretty happy with it, even if you don't "build rapport" or whatever. Of course, this assumes they are contacting you because they are trying to solve a technical problem. If you are sales or what have you, I'm sure the rules are completely different.