Good Communication Prevents Frustrating-yet-Funny IT Support

It's frustrating to do things the hard way. Although sometimes, the frustration experienced by others can be pretty entertaining to watch. One of the ripest scenarios for frustration is bad IT service caused by poor communication. Having good communication tools can save both ends of an IT support call from getting frustrated.

Here's a short clip from "IT Crowd" that does a great job at showing us what a frustrating IT support call looks like when communication is poor.

At the core of this bad IT support call is the fact that the user, Judy, knows absolutely nothing about computers, and Roy, our long-suffering IT technician, needs to extract from Judy basic answers about her computer like, "It is a PC or a MAC?" If Judy cannot even communicate this basic information, then the support call is destined to fail.

Thankfully, Computerware uses a special communication solution for IT support calls called a Remote Maintenance and Monitoring (RMM) tool. With this tool, our technicians are able to see on their screen exactly what kind of computer the caller is using. This will save time from the technician having to ask the user twenty questions.

For the most part, Roy did a great job at keeping his cool, and he even asked Judy the right question when he said, "What is the precise nature of the problem?" Unfortunately, due to Judy's lack of technical knowledge, even Roy's calm demeanor and right questioning was not enough to be helpful.

Poor Judy believed that all she needed to do was tell Roy her computer experienced a "bing bong noise," and somehow, that would be all the information Roy would need to magically fix it over the phone. One benefit from good communication is that expectations are made reasonable, which helps to eliminate frustration from both parties.

If Roy would have had Computerware's RMM tool, then he could have not only seen what kind of computer Judy was using, but he could have also controlled her workstation from his end and determined that the "bing bong noise" was not related to e-mail, as communicated by Judy. Of course, our RMM tools would not be able to work on a computer like Judy's because the bing bong noise was obviously from an explosion. In a scenario like this (where the problem is hardware related) our RMM tool will be unable to connect to the PC (due to the bing bong explosion) and clue us in that the issue cannot be fixed remotely, and therefore, require this to send one of our friendly technicians out to your business.

At Computerware, we utilize the best communication tools to make sure that we understand your problem in order to avoid frustrating IT support calls. These same tools that allow us to communicate with you will also give us the ability to remotely maintain your computers in order to prevent issues that can cause damage to your system, like bing bong noises.

To take advantage of remote IT service from Computerware and save the frustration of miscommunication, give us a call today at (703) 821-8200.