We are a software company building, selling and supporting our product RecFind 6 as an information management system and enterprise content management system. We have an in-house support department (we don’t outsource anything) and thousands of customers that contact it with questions and reports of problems they are having.

However, like I suspect happens at most software vendors, it is often very difficult for my support people to initially diagnose the real problem. Obviously, if there is an error message then it is easier to resolve but in most cases there is no error message, just an explanation of what a user thinks is the product not working properly.

If we can connect in to the user’s workstation using GoToAssist then we can usually ‘see’ firsthand what the problem is and then help the customer. However, this is not always possible and in a lot of cases my people are working ‘blind’ via phone or email and the only recourse is a question and answer dialog until we get to the point where we can define what the user thinks is going wrong and we can get the history of the problem. That is “When did it start to happen? What changed? Does it happen with everyone or just some users?” Etc., etc.

My people are pretty good at this process but even they get caught occasionally when the customer describes what he/she thinks the solution is rather than what the problem is. This usually takes the form of the customers telling us the ‘fix’ we need to make to the product to solve his/her ‘problem’. The wise support person will always ask, “What were you trying to do?” Once you can determine what the customer was trying to do, you then understand why they are asking for the particular ‘fix’. In most cases, the real problem is that the customer isn’t using the right functionality and once shown how to use the right functionality the need for a ‘fix’ goes away.

Problems also arise when my support people start mistakenly addressing the symptoms instead of the problem. In all fairness, it is often hard to differentiate the two but you can’t fix a problem by addressing the symptoms; you have to go back further and first define and then fix the root problem. Once the root problem is fixed the symptoms magically disappear.

For example, a customer reports multiple documents being created with the same auto number (i.e., duplicate numbers) as a problem. This isn’t really the problem though that is how the customer sees it. It is in fact a symptom and a clue to the identification of the real problem. In the above example, the root problem will be either an auto-number algorithm not working properly or an auto-number configuration with a flawed design. The former is what we call a ‘bug’ and the latter is what we call ‘finger trouble’; the configured auto number configuration was working precisely as designed but not as the customer intended.

Bugs we fix in code but finger trouble we fix by first clearly understanding what the customer wants to achieve and then by helping them to configure the functionality so its works as expected.

All experienced support people get to know the difference between:

What the customer thinks is the solution versus the problem; and

The symptoms versus the problem.

In my experience these are the two most common challenges faced when handling support calls. Recognizing both as early as possible is critical to achieving a speedy resolution and minimizing frustration. Not recognizing both as early as possible leads to longer resolution times and unhappy customers.

If we extend our support experience to real life we realize that these same two challenges face us in everyday life and in all of our social interactions. It why we often argue at cross-purposes; each party seeing the problem differently because of different perceptions of what the real problem is.

The challenges of misunderstanding are also often harder to overcome in real life because unlike a support call which has form and structure, our social interactions are mostly unstructured and opportunistic. We don’t start with a problem, we start with a casual dialog and don’t realize we are about to enter a conflict zone until it sneaks up upon us.

So if you find yourself in an argument please take pause and take the time to ask yourself and the other party, “Just what is it exactly we are arguing about?”  Which upon reflection, is exactly how we should handle each and every support call.

If we take the time to properly define the real problem we would spend far less time arguing and making people unhappy and far more time enjoying the company of our customers and friends. It is a no-brainer really, who wants to go through life in constant conflict?

For my part, I will just continue to ask to ask, “Before I address your request for a change would you mind please explaining what you were you actually trying to achieve; can you please show me?” And “What were you doing when you first saw that problem? Please start from the beginning and walk me through the process.” These two questions have worked for me for a very long time and I certainly hope that they work for you.

Almost every organization, commercial or government, needs a help desk. Help desks support either internal or external ‘customers’. Generally speaking the job of a help desk is to support users who have problems or questions about a product or service.

Help desks may run as either a profit centre or as a cost centre. Normally, help desks supporting internal customers run as cost centres (though maybe with an internal accounting function that attempts to allocate costs to all the departments that utilize the service) and help desks that support external customers run as a profit centre, charging for their services via an annual service fee or incident fee.

The only true measure of the worth of a help desk is the level of customer satisfaction and this is very difficult to measure other than in an anecdotal way. This is because of human nature; customers who are happy with the service rarely take the time to write to the help desk manager and tell him. The same is true of customers who are unhappy with the service; most just make a decision not to use that product or service again. A small number of very disgruntled or even litigious or nuisance customers will complain repeatedly in the most vociferous and rudest manner but will largely be ignored as repeat offenders or the usual suspects.

Trying to get a reading across the customer base by using a survey rarely works either as most won’t respond  and the ones that do respond are usually from the two extremes, the really, really happy customers and the really, really dissatisfied customers. Plus, we all know that a survey is like a poll, if you design the questions in a certain way you can always get the result you first thought of.

Because it is so difficult to obtain enough customer input to be able to rate the help desk we usually fall back on internal metrics. Such things as how many calls did we receive last week? What percentage was closed within 1 day, 2 days, 3 days, etc.? How many are still outstanding after 7 days? How many had to be escalated?

The problem with internal metrics, like police reports on crime statistics, is that they can be manipulated to produce the result you first thought of. Remember that old saying about statistics, "Lies, damned lies, and statistics." A smart and politically savvy help desk manager will always find a way to guild the lily and dress up the stats so he looks good.

So, how do you know if your help desk is working and servicing your customers to the highest standard? There is only one sure way I know of and that is to ring the help desk yourself (incognito I hope, calling up and saying this is the CEO won’t really give you a fair reading about how ordinary customers are treated), or organize a team to call the help desk with a list of known issues and test the responses.

This sounds like it should be a business opportunity; a kind of reverse outsourced help desk, an organization that specializes in testing help desk services. All you have to do is provide them with scripts and a way to measure the effectiveness of the responses. However, I don’t know of any organization that provides this service just as I have never met a CEO lately who seems to know or care what is happening with his help desk service and this is the real problem.

You can always tell the company with the disinterested CEO because there is no way to contact him or her on the website. Companies that aren’t interested in supporting customers always make it almost impossible for a customer to provide feedback. Unfortunately, this ‘we are hiding from you approach’ is becoming the norm as companies remove all contact information from their websites and force customers to endure long waits and rubbish ‘service’ from outsourced support centres.

The executives don’t receive negative feedback because they make it so difficult for customers to reach them. Personally, I think this is a short term and eventually damaging practice as customers tend to have long memories and frustrated, dissatisfied customers will make it their business to tell everyone but the company’s management team (because they aren’t able to contact them) about the rubbish product and the shoddy way they were treated.

Before you ask, let me explain that we do have a support centre but it is not outsourced and we make it as easy as possible for customers to contact us by web form, email, mobile device or toll free number. Please see the links below:

http://www.knowledgeonecorp.com/support/contactinghelpdesk.htm

http://www.knowledgeonecorp.com/contactus/emailus.htm

http://www.knowledgeonecorp.com/contactus/Contact_By_Mobile_App.htm

http://www.knowledgeonecorp.com/support/freeemailsupport.htm

support@knowledgeonecorp.com

Just so you know that we practice what we preach.

Paradoxically, I believe the reason that I get so few complaints (apart from the high standard of our support services) is that I make it so easy for customers to contact me or any other executive in my company.

We also use our own product RecFind 6 as our help desk software so we are able to build in all the alerts, escalations and reporting we need to manage each and every support call to the best of our ability. And finally, my office is just 20 metres or so from the support centre so I make it my business to be in there talking to the support staff at least 4 or 5 times a day.

I am a CEO who is vitally interested in his customers and the quality of support they are receiving and not just for altruistic reasons but for sound business reasons.  Happy customers stay with us and invest in our products and services year after year. It is quite simple really; I invest in my customers so they will invest in my company. It works for us and I wonder why other CEO’s don’t understand this very simple message.

The relationship between a vendor and a customer should be a mutually beneficial partnership; it should not be an destructive, adversarial relationship. In my opinion CEO’s who do not allow their customers to contact them and deliver either a complaint or a compliment are fools and bad business people with a strictly short term view. It is a formula for more short term profit but less long term customers. We opt to spend more money and time on support so we can foster better long term relationships. I think in the ‘old days’ this used to be called service.