I can never get enough of articles like this one about the state of tech support and published recently on CIO.com. It’s easy to write about help desk horror stories – we’ve all had a few – but it requires a bit more insight to see things from every side, which writer Bill Snyder does quite effectively.

They are conditioned to expect terrible service from their IT department. That’s truly sad.

And although his anecdote is about the business-to-consumer market, it could just as easily be used to illustrate the state of customer service within companies.

This company, PC Helps Support, is an outsourced software support provider, so we’re chin-deep in issues surrounding customer service on a regular basis. When a firm partners with us, our consultants become part of their help desk.

One of the most surprising — and troubling — things I have seen in my time here is how taken aback callers are when a real person (one of our consultants) answers the phone and doesn’t put them on hold. And when we solve an issue within one call, it blows them away.

They are conditioned to expect terrible service from their IT department. That’s truly sad.

One point in Snyder’s piece that resonated with me was about lingo. Indeed, the lingo needs to go. I wrote a few blog posts on this subject, and in one in particular, I noted how the recession has made IT/business alignment that much more important — alienating the rest of your company by speaking in terms no one but programmers can comprehend is not alignment. Understanding how technical tools and practices relate to the business as a whole, now that is.

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admin Customer Service Customer Service, Help Desk, lingo

If someone asked you explain exactly what a computer mouse is, what would you say? A “pointing device”? But how does it actually point? With infrared sensors, of course. But what is “infrared”?

Not everyone knows what a mouse is, or what a gigabyte is, or how the Internet works.

To people who have used computers since the 1990s, this is an unnecessary dialogue. Doesn’t everyone know what a mouse is?

No, not everyone does. Nor does everyone know what a gigabyte is, or how the Internet works, or what a virus does, or the difference between Office 2003 and Office 2007. It’s called the digital divide, and it’s still an issue.

Granted, the digital divide really isn’t an issue in most office environments — you can expect your colleagues to have experience with computing and the Internet. But the fact that it still exists, even when computers are so inexpensive and ubiquitous, should remind us that we are not all at the same level, and it’s not always for lack of interest or aptitude. Read more…

admin Computer Literacy Bing, CAPTCHA, digital divide, Google, Greater Philadelphia Cares, lingo, Microsoft, Office 2003, Office 2007, spam, Yahoo

Life is better when it’s in layman’s terms. I learned that in college, in a macroeconomics class. My professor (who probably never wanted to be a teacher anyway) would lecture straight from the textbook, and, in between bites of soft pretzel and nips of Diet Coke, prattle on about the conceptual and empirical linkages between mass-market foodstuffs and taxable intoxicants.

Think about the last time you called the help desk. Did you need two hands to count the number of acronyms used?

I was in danger of failing the class. Plus, he made me feel stupid.

It’s only when he began to teach theory using everyday examples, like pizza and beer, that I began to grasp the concepts. (Not that I am a fan of either.)

The very thing that inspired (or didn’t inspire) the aforementioned Temple University economics professor’s pedagogy is alive and well in some of the folks who staff your corporate IT department.

In a recent post, TechRepublic head blogs editor Toni Bowers explains that knowing how to explain jargony subjects without jargon encourages IT/business alignment, which, she writes, is becoming increasingly important with the growing reliance on fewer workers for the same amount of work, social networking and Web 2.0.

Think about the last time you called the help desk. Did you need two hands to count the number of acronyms used? Did you walk away feeling empowered? Will you be so quick to call back when your Excel formulas rebel? Read more…

admin Customer Service beer, lingo, macroeconomics, pizza, TechRepublic, Temple University, Toni Bowers

Help desk techs are geeks who use jargon to make themselves feel superior, and delight in torturing users with basic computer skills. Customers who call help desks are governed by superstition, are unable to understand basic logic, and think that computers will take over the world some day. Read more…

admin Rants cow, hamburger, Help Desk, lingo, rebooting, superstitions, TechRepublic