Teaching customer service skills to IT professionals
Many IT professionals begin their working career on a help desk, hired because of their computer knowledge and formal education. Partly because of the aptitude that got them the job, they may be less socially accomplished, and unable to clearly communicate their outstanding technical knowledge to a stressed and confused user on the phone. This is broad generalization, particularly considering the increased penetration of technology into society that has drawn many different types of people and personalities to working with computers. Even so, there is value in examining the particular problems that IT professionals as a group may face when customer service is critical to their job.
Growing up geek
Some people are attracted to working with computers precisely because technology is relentlessly logical. Often stunningly intelligent, these “geeks” may have chosen a less social life or be naturally introverted. Software is largely predictable and will not suddenly start making its own decisions, unlike a person or bureaucracy. Their dreams of getting paid to create great code can be dashed when the only entry-level positions are on the help desk or in other user support functions. Paying their dues by working with the less technically-inclined can feel almost impossible.
Giving them the skills
Intense interaction with people who only phone when they have a problem is a difficult job for anyone, but without training or natural aptitude it becomes unsustainable. Those with a strong customer service background can always use a refresher or a different way to look at giving people what they need. Training in listening is the number one need for every customer service representative. Training should also help IT professionals learn to embrace unpredictability and ambiguity, two things that computers rarely display.
Learning to listen
The challenge of teaching listening skills is that most people believe that they are already excellent listeners—after all, they do not know what they missed, because they did not hear it! Rather than creating exercises that prove how easy it is not to listen well, concentrate on teaching techniques that make customers feel heard, such as acknowledging, mirroring, summarizing and asking good questions. These active listening strategies can be presented as helping customers, yet they also help the listener concentrate fully on what is being said.
Dancing with dinosaurs
The gulf between an IT professional's computer knowledge and that of a customer who has been dragged kicking and screaming into the Information Age can be profound. Stories of people who call because they cannot find the "Any" key, or who have cleaned their discs by a good washing with soap and water, are not just urban legends. Teach IT professionals to make no assumptions about technical skill and pay attention to the words callers use; their comfort with acronyms and jargon will be very telling. Matching their language will help them feel respected and understood.
If/then could be if/elephant
Just because something seems obvious and logical to one person, there is no guarantee that it looks that way to anyone else. Using some simple games from theater training like basic word association, WAAT or SPIV, demonstrate the astounding variation in how people think. These games also encourage listening, focus and working with whatever comes up. The outcome, and the process, are highly ambiguous and can help the players learn to tolerate this tension.
Supporting supporters
The real key to helping anyone improve is kind, detailed and specific feedback. It is impossible to change when we are unaware of a problem. IT professionals are often very analytical and can usually apply this focus to their own behavior when directed, sometimes obsessively so. Applaud what is good and allow some things to be just good enough. A perfect system is impossible; any system involving people is going to be chronically imperfect. Customer service skills are always evolving and should be presented as a journey, not a destination.
