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Is anybody else stricken by the fact that the email seems to be too much like a boilerplate support email, providing little useful information and offering no r

by mrb 13y ago

Is anybody else stricken by the fact that the email seems to be too much like a boilerplate support email, providing little useful information and offering no real information about the next steps? Even in the context of this hypothetical exercise, the email could be made better: - "we'll be contacting you soon" is vague. The client might wonder if it is minutes, hours, days? When should he be expected to reach back to Support if the problem is not resolved? "I'll be contacting you in the next X minutes/hours" would tell the client exactly when he can expect the next step to take place. - the support representative could have added "call me at (XXX) XXX-XXXX if you wish to talk to me directly" to make it clear he wants to go above and beyond his job duties to provide fantastic support. - the mail could be made more personal by using more "I", as in "I attempted to check with the members of my team, etc" instead of "the members of my team [...] aren't available".

notahacker 13y ago
Being too specific on timing is a bad thing if you're a remote rep relying on technical people you haven't spoken with to fix the problem I thought a bigger weakness to the email was that it didn't gather generic useful information that might help the people actually equipped to fix the problem. It doesn't even ask the login name the customer is trying to use, never mind other any error messages, browser version etc. Asking those questions should speed up the tech team's work, and might even result in the customer trying something else which fixes their problem. Even in the worst case scenario - the information being useless and irrelevant - it at least gives the customer the impression they're being listened to rather than apologised at. Since plenty of people that wouldn't be well-suited to helping customers with problems (unreliable, disorganised, lacking initiative, technically illiterate etc.) could also write a nice canned apology for an interview exercise, I'm more intrigued by the process after the initial screening was complete that earned Dylan his permanent role
- mrb 13y ago
  "Being too specific on timing is a bad thing if you're a remote rep" It is not. I did not promise a time by which the pb will be fixed, but a time by which a status update will be given (even if it is "I have made the technical team aware of the pb, they are still looking into it and will give a ETA for a fix").
HarryHirsch 13y ago
Is anybody else stricken by the fact that the email seems to be too much like a boilerplate support email Yes, I find that email profoundly unhelpful as well; it sounds like generic level-0 helpdesk drivel. The client was promised 24/7 support (and is probably paying for that level), he hasn't been getting anywhere, and is meanwhile losing money. In that situation people are past looking for empathy, here it's no longer "about onion soup, Obelix, it's about sesterces. About mo-o-oney!" A competent secretary would have emailed something like "I contacted XY, who was supposed to be on on-call duty, but he is in hospital with food poisoning. I then contacted ZW, who is next on the on-call rota, he is looking at your ticket. His cellphone number is XXX-YYY-ZZZZ; he is waiting for you to call." In a well-run company a secretary has no place on the totem-pole, he can run up and down and talk to whomever he pleases. Good secretaries are worth their weight in gold, bad ones, on the other hand are only fit to serve as boat anchors.
- deleted 13y ago
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kevinskii 13y ago
I'd be curious to see what percentage of the applicants were simply able to write a grammatically correct response. I'd guess it's fairly small. Many people, and frankly most college grads I know, couldn't have done better.

by mrb 13y ago

notahacker 13y ago

Being too specific on timing is a bad thing if you're a remote rep relying on technical people you haven't spoken with to fix the problem I thought a bigger weakness to the email was that it didn't gather generic useful information that might help the people actually equipped to fix the problem. It doesn't even ask the login name the customer is trying to use, never mind other any error messages, browser version etc. Asking those questions should speed up the tech team's work, and might even result in the customer trying something else which fixes their problem. Even in the worst case scenario - the information being useless and irrelevant - it at least gives the customer the impression they're being listened to rather than apologised at. Since plenty of people that wouldn't be well-suited to helping customers with problems (unreliable, disorganised, lacking initiative, technically illiterate etc.) could also write a nice canned apology for an interview exercise, I'm more intrigued by the process after the initial screening was complete that earned Dylan his permanent role

mrb 13y ago
"Being too specific on timing is a bad thing if you're a remote rep" It is not. I did not promise a time by which the pb will be fixed, but a time by which a status update will be given (even if it is "I have made the technical team aware of the pb, they are still looking into it and will give a ETA for a fix").

HarryHirsch 13y ago

Is anybody else stricken by the fact that the email seems to be too much like a boilerplate support email Yes, I find that email profoundly unhelpful as well; it sounds like generic level-0 helpdesk drivel. The client was promised 24/7 support (and is probably paying for that level), he hasn't been getting anywhere, and is meanwhile losing money. In that situation people are past looking for empathy, here it's no longer "about onion soup, Obelix, it's about sesterces. About mo-o-oney!" A competent secretary would have emailed something like "I contacted XY, who was supposed to be on on-call duty, but he is in hospital with food poisoning. I then contacted ZW, who is next on the on-call rota, he is looking at your ticket. His cellphone number is XXX-YYY-ZZZZ; he is waiting for you to call." In a well-run company a secretary has no place on the totem-pole, he can run up and down and talk to whomever he pleases. Good secretaries are worth their weight in gold, bad ones, on the other hand are only fit to serve as boat anchors.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

kevinskii 13y ago

I'd be curious to see what percentage of the applicants were simply able to write a grammatically correct response. I'd guess it's fairly small. Many people, and frankly most college grads I know, couldn't have done better.