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Comment by breppp

1 day ago

the blog is full of other ways to trick your support cases while not showing at all you deem yourself superior

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040303-00/?p=40...

When I worked for an IBM helpdesk looking after point-of-sale systems, we used to ask them to check if the power cable had a black or a blue bit of plastic surrounding the pins.

"It's black? Okay, it's not that then, I was hoping it would be easy. Right, plug it back in again and... oh it's working now? Cool, ring me back if there's anything else then!"

  • This is really brilliant.

    Once thing I've noticed whe dealing with support cases in a variety of industry is, while there are different types of customer needs/comlaints (ex. a customer who is afraid of losing their warranty service via chicanery versus a customer who is dissatisfied with the results of the warranty service) customers sometimes really need to first feel like they are being heard.

    Sometimes the emotional response of a person is literally "Can i speak to your manager?". It comes off rude, and it sure and shit is rude, but maybe they need to feel acknowledged, like maybe someone farther down the line was a jerk to them and they just feel blown off, or could just be a bad day. You sometimes do indeed need to perform emotional labor in order to achieve the best customer service.

    I like this approach because it acknowledges the customer intrinsically and they feel like the maze has ended. The process has now become pro-active: There is light at the end of the tunnel.

    This is not easy to bang out @work 9-5!

Dang that way of helping folks fix their problems without loosing face is such a cool approach!