Modern tech support is broken. Is it worth fixing?
When office computers first arrived on employee desks thirty to forty years ago, getting tech support used to be a simple process:
Call the phone extension for the computer support person
Explain the problem to someone they regularly see in the workplace
Receive the solution immediately over the phone, or the support would come to your desk to fix things in person
This was also known as the good old days. Now, workplace employees now have to endure any or all of the following:
Send an email to support@nameofcompany.com or visit a website to fill out a work ticket form
Wait for an unknown support person to magically fix their issue in the background
Receive a generic email response stating their issue has been resolved
Call a phone number provided by their company for technical support, listen to a recorded voice state, “…your call is very important” and rattle off numbers to press for categories that don’t pertain to the actual computer issue. Hang up, call the tech support number again to decide which number is closest to their actual issue, and listen to another impersonal voice state, “…you can reach support at www.nameofcompany.com/support.html to reach people ready to provide "outstanding customer service.”
Call a phone number, actually reach a live person, explain the computer issue, and raise an eyebrow as the support professional types your words into a “ticket.” Receive a ticket number for future reference, and is thanked for calling nameofcompany tech support
Receive the worst five-word response a professional tech could ever say, in an exasperated tone of voice: "Did you reboot your computer?"
Experience confusion and frustration trying to figure out where to click as the support person speaks 100 miles an hour reading from a script.
Experience confusion and frustration as the support person guides you through a path they see on their computer (a heavily-customized and modified desktop workstation where they have administrator-level rights) that differs greatly from your computer desktop which is “managed by IT,” thus prohibiting any customization on your part having standard-level rights.
Feel worse than before because the professional tech support "dumbs down" their directions after you weren’t able to fix your problem on the first try
Do be aware, this is only one perspective in the decades-long contentious relationship between expert and client. Professional tech support have been neglected by management, marginalized by customers, degraded by society, and undermined by peers. There is no such thing as a safe workplace for a tech professional. I should know; I have been one for over 25 years. It has never been easy to bring my authentic self to the workplace; an empathetic introvert who wants to be liked by people and simply help those who can use some help.
After years upon years of unkind treatment, it’s no wonder tech support professionals have developed an adversarial view of those whom they serve, manifesting itself in cheeky memes:
Although your customers won’t love you if you give bad service, your competitors will.
- Kate Zabriskie, Founder Business Training Works
So here we are: It’s 2023, and clients have no connection with their tech support professional. Clients rarely feel heard or seen as a person. Clients feel like it's their fault when the computer is acting up. Most of all, clients dread having to call IT for support. Conversely, professional techs encounter clients with heightened levels of anxiety and unkindness, are looked down upon in societal hierarchy, rarely feel like they are included in the overall workplace, and have limited opportunities for connection in the workplace.
In professional and personal realms, it's time to rethink, reimagine, and reconfigure the tech support/client relationship. I hope you will join me as we explore ways to rebuild bridges that were detonated in the past. I intend to share tips and suggestions in communicating with clients that will help de-escalate tensions. And I want to demonstrate how we can do better.
More to come…