5 demons in the soul of a support worker

“You may not be an engineer, but you must be a psychotherapist”



It is such a simple, but immutable truth that I can summarize my relatively little experience in telephone technical support. Immediately make a reservation: I work for Veeam Software. These are the guys who have “girls-check-bulbs” in general, and the first line can solve 90% of any problems. With some assumption, of course. The remaining 10% of the tasks are solved by the second and, more rarely, the third line of support, whose principle of operation is radically different from ours. However, this was also a kind of revelation for me, the difference is not so much in the level of knowledge and experience - although this can not be taken away - as in the intangible quality of a handicap. The main difference is that T2 and T3 come when diplomacy is already powerless, and the first-line specialist works not with problems, but with people. His main enemy is his prejudice.



Consider a typical situation: you call technical support and wait for a long time when the “interlayer” answers you, which you have to convince that you have a problem (it's obvious!) That they have somehow “messed up” (it does not work !) Service service does not recognize the guilt, and therefore have to butt, persuade, threaten ... The result - discontent.



It is this interlocutor who subconsciously expects every employee of the caliper — conflicted, irritated, pre-opposed to you — and lives in a world of constant stress. Still, if you wait 5 days a week for 8 hours a day, a tub of negativity will suddenly pour out on you, stress stops being a kitsch of young ladies and turns into a chronic disease that makes your hands tremble and do not sleep at night. Let us add to this the absence of any impressions, monotonous work requiring increased attention, the constant feeling of flowing time ...

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But let's not regret our hypothetical employee - he is a fool to himself.



The irony is that all this happens only in his head and he is convinced in advance that he will have to confront the client - which he does, instead of fulfilling his promises - namely, to support and help.



I have identified 5 myths - self-deceptions that do not adequately respond to the actions and the words "patients":

1. He will be a fool. He is incompetent or more competent than me.

The most easily refuted myth. In the first case, your help will only be more valuable and there is reason for pride. Of course, it is difficult to understand in time the errors of your interlocutor, which is fraught with consequences. The worst thing that can happen is a misunderstanding that can cause a conflict. To avoid this is simple - offer again to discuss the controversial issue. People often try to appear smarter and “not to lose face” - that’s why they hide their ignorance behind a pile of meaningless phrases. If a person is an expert in his field and is not afraid to ask questions - he deserves only respect. Remember: the one who turned to you for help trusts you. And, by the way, often this trust is also expressed by material and labor resources. If you are in the receiving position, do it with dignity. Even you can't know everything. Take a pause to check everything again - it will never be evaluated as a weakness.



In short: competence does not play a major role. The main thing is the trust that you as a member of the support team receive in advance. It must be justified and respected - this process is lengthy, and it is impossible to know everything “now”. “Liquidation of illiteracy” takes 1 action, but it takes a lot of iterations to convince a person to admit his shortcomings.

2. He calls me only because he does not want to decide anything or do

If we are on the purity, we are here all bad bring our thoughts to biological subjects. Such is the specificity of work in IT, and the poor style of presentation of this article only confirms this. It’s always stressful to ask for help, but not only everyone can do it in time, very few people can do it. ” We will look at the situation from the outside - they ask you for advice on what to do. Can you give it? Great. Can't make a decision for a client? Explain possible options and point out ways to solve a specific situation.



Now let's look at a special case: “Can you connect to me?” Or “he wants to do everything for him”. How many excuses can we think of that we don’t want to do! Even this interpretation already contains an error, it is an ethical loophole. And the second part, in which we seem to understand his desires, is entirely

contrived. Most likely, the interlocutor is not afraid of responsibility, he just wants to do it together, offering to work in a pair - so the likelihood of a positive conclusion doubles.

Everyone must find a fair excuse for their unwillingness to work together. As a rule, the reason is valid: the real detail of the instructions provided, the catastrophic lack of time, etc. But never reject invitations impulsively, for example, exclaiming: “I will not work for him!”.



In short: to support means working together. The client has already taken his first step in a joint search for a solution - he turned to YOU. It's up to you.

3. He does not fulfill all my instructions because he is lazy

Still easier. He does not understand them or does not understand the significance of the prescribed actions. I know it for myself - when the doctor ordered me to take vitamins, I quickly forgot how important it is. I had a very weak motivation - after all, according to him, it was necessary for “well, you will be healthier, it will not hurt, probably ...”

How do I understand this phrase? “You do not need to do anything, you can forget” - which I did the next day. Someone may object to me - it is obvious that this is necessary for health, since the doctor told me so. I completely agree, but not motivated to action. Reason, I accept this rightness, but my subconscious, responsible for motivation, does not see the connection between vitamins and well-being. Here is the dentist was intelligible: "Next time we put the implant," and now I am very, very careful.



In short: customers will only follow your instructions if they clearly understand their bases and goals. Share your thoughts and your advice will be valuable and accepted.

4. Your identity is not interesting to the client - only the result

This is not true even if you work at McDonalds. Remember how many times you looked at the cashier standing in line, out of boredom. Each is unique: someone clumsily covered the tattoo on his arm, and this causes a smile, someone leans on high-calorie sandwiches. And a minute is enough to notice it, even if everything was done in the same fast food restaurant to hide any individual trait of the staff. In a caliper, one case can last several weeks, and one conversation can take many hours. You are unique and interesting to your interlocutor. And you can not hide anywhere - to play the robot is useless. It is not even about the notorious “small talk”, allowing you to feel temporary closeness. Just be alive and real all the time. It may seem that working in this vein will be an extra blow to emotions and the nervous system, but this is not so - you can already, without noticing it, keep a moral block and try to be drier and more callous than you really are.



In short: cynicism is only permissible for physicians who have completed residency. You're a person talking to a person. It’s only you who have hundreds of interlocutors, but the client is not prepared for the tactics of “cold hands,” although he quickly (and irreversibly) adopts the rules of the game.

5. I am only a cog in a corporate car. My opinion means nothing to the client. He paid the boss, so he will be right or consider himself as such

Yes, you and I are just gears of the mechanism that does an excellent job (or trying to do it). You know that, I know that. Does it press? By no means.



It is worth coming from afar - the concept of corporate culture, which works well in the west, is absolutely perverted in the CIS countries in the 2000s and is perceived as oppression of individuality. If you look around, the picture is much wider - even across the country there is its original “corporate” ethics, etiquette and rules. Some of them were even recorded in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, the AK of the Russian Federation, the corporate style is illustrated in Khokhloma and Repin’s paintings. What should this very corporate culture give in a person, expressed in job descriptions and oral rules? Confidence that nothing sudden will happen, and the rules of the game will not change overnight. You do everything right = you are protected. With reference to the caliper, it sounds like this: as long as you try to help another person, and he feels it, everything will be under control. It is enough that a person believes in your motivation and feels your personal, human respect.



Here we come close to the second point - personal opinion. It is always necessary to remember one rule - you are a man, your personal opinion has a weight equal to your authority. As we have seen above, even before you picked up the phone, you already matter for a client who knows that you are just that same notorious gear and you have a lot of rules and superiors. But if you are asked for your opinion and / or you have reason to express it - go ahead. “I personally think this configuration is wrong” or “In my opinion, it’s better to go the other way” - excellent phrases when they are relevant and beneficial, well-reasoned and politely served. Just remember that as a member of a corporation (read: associations), your voice can often speak for everyone - these moments need to be divided so that misunderstandings arise.



And quite briefly about the myth "the customer is always right." These times are long gone. Now another axiom is relevant: “the client is always well done!”. But for the value of each participant in the business process for your corporation, you can talk for hours. More importantly, you are an equal participant in this system.



Summing up this rather lengthy article, I want to once again return to its epigraph. In my timid opinion, for successful - and I also put a sense of personal comfort in this concept - working in the frontline support should be “a little psychotherapist”. First of all, for myself, in order not to go along the slippery path of cultivating personal demons of self-deception, which will help to artificially distance themselves from people - put on masks of cynicism and bigotry. Be honest with yourself, correctly understand the motivation of your interlocutors, and most importantly - do not dwell on work in one way. After all, the beauty of our work in endless experiments!