{"id":941,"date":"2013-02-22T19:11:56","date_gmt":"2013-02-23T00:11:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/?p=941"},"modified":"2013-12-26T13:33:00","modified_gmt":"2013-12-26T18:33:00","slug":"rookie-mistake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/wrote-about\/rookie-mistake\/","title":{"rendered":"Rookie Mistake"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was reading A Rookie Mistake<\/a> over at Support Ops<\/a> today. Chase talks about an exchange with a customer that went like this.<\/p>\n

\n

Me: Where are you logging in at? I\u2019ll take a look and see what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n

Customer: My desktop computer.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This got me thinking about the assumptions we make with our customers. In the course of my job, I find myself in similar situations all the time.<\/p>\n

For instance, the newest version of the VPN client we use at work was updated and VPN<\/strong> is no longer in th name. It is now called Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

A computer savvy person wouldn’t find a huge problem with this. However, when I’m trying to explain to a customer they need to click the VPN Client icon and they don’t see anything that says VPN they become confused.<\/p>\n

Along with the name change, the icon also changes from a padlock icon to a generic looking bubble. So the customers who are creatures of habit and have learned what they need to click by name and icon are not completely lost.<\/p>\n

Working with customers who have varying levels of computer savvy and varying understanding of the English language means my job is part translator and part computer technician.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I must translate geek to human, other times geek to English, sometimes just plain English in terms my customer can understand.<\/p>\n

I try to keep a rule in mind when I am going to help a customer and that is simply to assume nothing.<\/strong> Don’t take anything for granted. Don’t walk into a situation assuming your customer knows anything. Start with simple questions and see where they take you.<\/p>\n

If the customer is computer savvy, you will quickly find out and can elevate the conversation. However, if the customer doesn’t know anything about their computer you don’t frustrate them further.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was reading A Rookie Mistake over at Support Ops today. Chase talks about an exchange with a customer that went like this. Me: Where are you logging in at? I\u2019ll take a look and see what\u2019s going on. Customer: My desktop computer. This got me thinking about the assumptions we make with our customers. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[38,427],"class_list":["post-941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wrote-about","tag-customer-service","tag-jargon"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=941"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1471,"href":"https:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941\/revisions\/1471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}