Customer support: Resourcing for results

The last thing you want to hear from a colleague or client on a Friday evening is, “I’m sorry for any confusion this has caused”. Meaning, Monday morning you’re going to need to scramble to figure out how you’re going to solve this problem that has arisen. Whether the issue will be big or small, in customer support you have more than your fair share of problems already lining up to take a bite out of your Monday!

What do you do? Well, there are options.

• You can mark the e-mail as unread and add it to the queue for Monday… From what I have seen, this is the road most traveled. On Monday, you will rob time from Peter to pay Paul, Peter will become upset, but hey; you had a great weekend, on to the next problem.
• You can respond angrily to the bearer of bad news and unreasonably ask them to fix it on their own, thereby making the relationship uncomfortable and likely taking steps away from progress.
• Or! You can make a phone call and collaboratively figure out how you can best work together to get this problem fixed in the least amount of time and with the least amount of sad faces. The only answer for a few and not even a thought for the majority.

We all know in today’s day and age there is an expectation that paying someone assumes the person being paid will do a good job for you. The truth is, you’re going to get the best work and rack up the most favors from the people that you treat the best. When the people you work with find themselves walking on egg shells around you or dread the sight of your e-mail address in their inbox, no amount of money is going to fix it and no one is going to answer your call on Friday evening; in fact, they may not answer your call at all!

In IT, it is expect the unexpected. While you never know what’s coming, you should always have two thirds of a plan ready to go. Whether that be your systems administrator friend, 2500 miles away in Hawaii or the guy who generates license keys for that random but necessary software utility. Your success will accelerate through the company you keep and together you and your colleagues can achieve greatness!

Also, RSM provides managed services that offer 24/7 customer support, so you never have to worry about an unexpected issue arising on a Friday evening. We are always available to help!

RSM Staff