Sometimes we all need a little help
 | by Drew on October 4th, 2007 |
I like to think that as the Community Manager I am as adept at answering Tech Support questions as the next guy. This is not always the case though. After all, I am only human. I make stupid mistakes and I field questions I just can’t answer. There is nothing worse than going to a friend or colleagues house to “fix” his computer only to find that I can’t. Sometimes it is a hardware issue and I simply don’t have a motherboard in my back pocket. Sometimes it is because I am just stumped. Even worse, sometimes I make stupid mistakes. For days now I have been trying to get Google Talk to play nicely with my Adium setup. 
Nothing would work though. I kept getting annoying error messages. Come to find out, I was getting those messages and not being able to login because I was entering the wrong password the entire time. I felt so stupid. But the process made me realize something. It isn’t always whether or not we answer the question at hand but moreso how we field it. When we start to get on live chats and actually solve peoples real problems there will need to be a huge emphasis on how we treat them. If I called in with this question and it went unfixed I would be frustrated, yes. However, if the person on the other end treated me with dignity and respect and was professional the entire time, I would turn my focus to the refreshing customer service I had just received. Not only that but I wouldn’t think twice about where to turn when my next problem surfaced.