Hooboy. That's how I feel about the tech people at our school district. In order to find a teacher's e-mail address, you need to know their full name. If I knew the full name, in most case, I could figure out the e-mail address on my own. Sheesh.
That's actually a common symptom of help desks - not thinking outside the box, not even one millimeter. You tell them it's the teacher named Ms. Wilson, they look and see 3 female Wilsons, and instead of saying "Is it the one who teachers 5th grade, 3rd grade, or Kindergarten?", they say they can't figure out which one.
It's like they have a script for which there are only certain questions and those questions only have certain answers.
My complaint is actually about the web design, not the help desk aspects. I don't expect them to need to be a help desk; I expect them to design something useful and intuitive. Instead, the website is cluttered and every time they mess with it, they make it worse.
I'm not even going to get into the absolute crap form letter they sent out (more than a week in advance) describing the parent portal that allows you to see your child's grades in real time. I wound up yelling at someone over that who kept trying to talk over me and wouldn't let me finish a sentence. I hate that.
but i think i have to defend helpdesks slightly because i more or less work in one. :P I work hard for customers satisfaction, at the end of the day hearing that the connection works again does make me happy :)
but we are based in Australia for an Australian ISP. I find it difficult to talk to the HP helpdesk.
You're right, it's down. I think we broke the site! I got that from a friend on Facebook, so there's probably been a lot of traffic going there.
Don't get me wrong, I worked Help Desk for 5 years myself. That's exactly why I have no use for the attitudes of most of the people who do it.
We were supporting a required government data gathering project, people had to use this system, they hated it, they were all remote (phone support only), we never knew what they had in the way of a desktop system at the other end, and because it was a legal reporting system, the users were generally not technical: they were secretaries, clerks, or financial assistants. We had to tell these people how to create a clean ASCII text file of the report from whatever word processor they were using, how to use their modems (usually external in those days - no Intarwebs yet!), and how to use either their own telecomm product or our proprietary product or both.
These Help Desk people at my office nowadays? Who are only supporting one organization with a limited set of hardware and software? Hah! They have it easy! Why are they so helpless and surly?
hmmm i dunno it is hard to say, a friend told me a story about a member of their team hanging up on customers. All i say is "Gah" i've worked their for two years, you don't hang up on people without warning.
I think good helpdesk roles are more customer service roles so you're trained to assist the customer rather than to push their issues away.
Yes, exactly! For Tier I support - the people who take the initial call - customer service is key. You have to calm the customer down, be reassuring, and get the customer to the point where he or she can explain the problem in enough detail so that troubleshooting can begin. After that, if necessary, you can always bring in a more technical person to take over if the problem isn't simple.
When they interviewed us for the job I was describing above, we did role-playing: the interviewers pretended to be angry customers, and we had to act out what we would do in such a situation.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2011-05-07 02:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-07 02:16 pm (UTC)We're in the process of transitioning from one low-ball help desk bidder to another. Yays?
no subject
Date: 2011-05-07 02:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-07 02:19 pm (UTC)That's actually a common symptom of help desks - not thinking outside the box, not even one millimeter. You tell them it's the teacher named Ms. Wilson, they look and see 3 female Wilsons, and instead of saying "Is it the one who teachers 5th grade, 3rd grade, or Kindergarten?", they say they can't figure out which one.
It's like they have a script for which there are only certain questions and those questions only have certain answers.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-07 02:41 pm (UTC)I'm not even going to get into the absolute crap form letter they sent out (more than a week in advance) describing the parent portal that allows you to see your child's grades in real time. I wound up yelling at someone over that who kept trying to talk over me and wouldn't let me finish a sentence. I hate that.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-07 06:31 am (UTC)but i think i have to defend helpdesks slightly because i more or less work in one. :P I work hard for customers satisfaction, at the end of the day hearing that the connection works again does make me happy :)
but we are based in Australia for an Australian ISP. I find it difficult to talk to the HP helpdesk.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-07 02:27 pm (UTC)You're right, it's down. I think we broke the site! I got that from a friend on Facebook, so there's probably been a lot of traffic going there.
Don't get me wrong, I worked Help Desk for 5 years myself. That's exactly why I have no use for the attitudes of most of the people who do it.
We were supporting a required government data gathering project, people had to use this system, they hated it, they were all remote (phone support only), we never knew what they had in the way of a desktop system at the other end, and because it was a legal reporting system, the users were generally not technical: they were secretaries, clerks, or financial assistants. We had to tell these people how to create a clean ASCII text file of the report from whatever word processor they were using, how to use their modems (usually external in those days - no Intarwebs yet!), and how to use either their own telecomm product or our proprietary product or both.
These Help Desk people at my office nowadays? Who are only supporting one organization with a limited set of hardware and software? Hah! They have it easy! Why are they so helpless and surly?
no subject
Date: 2011-05-07 08:36 pm (UTC)I think good helpdesk roles are more customer service roles so you're trained to assist the customer rather than to push their issues away.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-08 01:39 am (UTC)Yes, exactly! For Tier I support - the people who take the initial call - customer service is key. You have to calm the customer down, be reassuring, and get the customer to the point where he or she can explain the problem in enough detail so that troubleshooting can begin. After that, if necessary, you can always bring in a more technical person to take over if the problem isn't simple.
When they interviewed us for the job I was describing above, we did role-playing: the interviewers pretended to be angry customers, and we had to act out what we would do in such a situation.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-07 09:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-08 01:40 am (UTC)It's a very popular book!
XD
no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 05:34 pm (UTC)