Lesson #32 - Customer Relations

One of the hardest aspects of being a computer technician isn't the computer.  It's dealing with the people using the computer.  From the computer illiterate to the computer know-it-all, you'll face a wide range of people as a computer tech that will annoy, frustrate, confuse, amaze, and disgust you.  Knowing how to deal with each type of person not only will help you avoid being called into the boss' office for a chat, but will also make your job of working on the computer much easier as well.

This week we're going to look at how to set yourself up to work on location on a computer.  Next week we'll look at how to deal with different types of people.

Appearance

Everyone's heard the old adage "First impressions are the lasting impressions."  Unfortunately, this is extremely true.  Although there is nothing written in the COMPtia literature and nothing on the exam about appearances, I can tell you from experience how important they are.  As a former sales person, I dealt with this issue every day.  You could tell the difference between a day I was dressed up and a day I was a little rough.  If I hadn't shaved in a day or had on wrinkled clothes, you could guarantee my sales numbers were down.  I learned very quickly to hide when I felt ill, and to always dress as professionally as possible.

The same goes for on-site computer repairs.  If you come to a site dressed in torn jeans and a t-shirt, you're going to be treated like someone with torn jeans and a t-shirt; As a non-professional.  This doesn't mean you need a 3 piece suit to tech computers, but the standards of being clean-shaven, and avoiding casual clothing are pretty much standard.  If you have to explain the way you look before you can explain what you're doing, you're not going to get very far.

Another part of appearance is making sure your appearance is on time.  It's better to tell a customer "I can't get there right now but I'm available this afternoon" than "I'm on my way" and not showing up.  Don't make promises you can't keep.  People will be more upset that you don't show up than if you let them know you'll be there as soon as you can and show up when you promise.  And if you're going to be late, call the customer and tell them why and when you'll be there.

A good example of this is a corporate account I was attempting to set up.  On the way to deliver a computer to test to the client, I got in a car accident.  Because the accident was a little violent, I wanted to make sure the computer was okay, so I returned to the shop to test it.  I would have only been 30 minutes late, but I called the client and told them about the problem.  When I walked through the door, he was surprised I actually made it.  That simple phone call was much better than showing up 30 minutes late and saying "I had an accident", or even worse not checking the computer out at all.

Communication Skills

Another important skill you should possess is the ability to communicate.  Again, I'll go back to my sales person days to unravel this mystery.  For 95% of the people out there, communication involves talking.  The other 5% of us realize that listening is as important as talking.  The old sales person's adage says "You have 1 mouth and 2 ears, so listen twice as much as you talk."  This is true of computer repair as well.  You'll never know what's wrong with a computer until you listen to what the user of the computer has to say.  Sure, some times you'll get lucky and walk in, press a button, and walk out without talking to anyone.  This is rare though, and you should ALWAYS be prepared to listen to what the user has to say.

The user can tell you several things about a computer.  First of all, they know how the computer was running when it wasn't broken.  This will be important, because you may have thought you solved a problem, but only the user really knows.  Secondly, they know when the problem started occurring.  This can be important because they can tell you about the last software and hardware installations that they made, and what happened when the problem first occurred.  Lastly, they can tell you about the e-mail they opened , the liquid the spilled, or the file they deleted when the problem started occurring.

Although most people you meet won't understand the inner workings of the computer, they will have some ability to describe their problem.  Some of what you need to learn is how to understand what the user is saying and how it relates to the actual problem.  Many times users can only tell you the symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.  For example, the user saying "This game won't play" could be a video card, sound card, memory, or hard drive space error.  Try to talk to the user as much as possible to get their idea of what's going wrong before you actually sit down and try repairing it.  The user may be totally off-base, but they'll feel better that you at least talked to them first.

The last part of communication is feeling empathetic towards the user.  Computers are frustrating pieces of equipment, and a non-working computer can cost money, time, and sanity.  You have to be ready for irate, frustrated, ill-tempered people when you show up to fix the computer.  Most of that anger is towards the computer, but expect a good portion of it to be aimed at you.

The easiest way to defuse the anger is with two words; "I Understand".  People generally will lighten up when you empathize with them, because they understand that you are there to help them.  Sometimes they just need to get the anger out, and you're a convenient place to vent.  Saying things like "Wow, that's pretty bad" or "Let's see if we can help get rid of that problem for you" make the user feel that you understand what they're going through, and you're there to help.

Of course, sometimes you'll never make a user happy.  This calls for drastic measures.  If no matter what you say, the user stays angry at you, the computer, or the entire world, it's time to block that person out and solve the problem yourself.  This is a last resort only, and you should never ignore someone if you can avoid it.  But sometimes you'll hit that one person on that one bad day who has a report due in an hour that's sitting on the hard drive on the computer you're working on.......  you get the point.  Solving the problem will solve that person's problems as well, and probably make them much easier to deal with.

Maintenance

The last area of customer service we're going to deal with this week is maintenance.  You're probably saying to yourself "Maintain what?".  There's actually 3 parts to this section.  You need to maintain yourself, your relations with your customers, and the customer's computer itself.