Customers: who needs 'em?

Last week was my turn to be in the Tech Support department of our company. Normally, our tech support people handle all interactions with our customers who have technical problems with our products. They are all very adept technically but they also have another characteristic - they know how to deal with people. Most of us in the software department don't do well with people. In the past, when our company only had 10 - 12 people, we all had to do tech support but now that we have over 130 employees, it was decided to only have people dealing with customers who wouldn't drive them away or insult them.

Since most of our customers' interactions with our products is through using our software, most of the problems our customers have are software related. And since our software is so complex, it takes someone who has worked on the code to really understand it. Thus, about a year ago, our supervisor decided one of us should be assigned to the tech support group for a week every 8 - 10 weeks. Previously, the tech support folks would do their best but sometimes they would get stuck on a problem and would come down to our area to ask for help. They wouldn't be sure who would know the answer so they'd either "announce" the problem so a number of us could hear it or they would work their way down the room until someone showed interest or could point them to the right person. This disrupted the whole group and was inefficient for the tech support person who needed our help. Now, there is a designated person they can go to who is sitting in their area. They don't have to leave their area and they don't have to waste time looking for the "right" person to answer the question. It helps them solve the problem quicker and makes the customers happy. Or at least as happy as a person with a problem can be.

But for us, it is always a trying week. We still have our normal tasks to do but, in addition, we will be interrupted an average of 4 - 8 times a day. We will need to spend a large portion of our time dealing with problems that don't move our regular work along. And, depending on how complicated the problem is and how insistent the customer is, we will have an increased frustration level for the entire week. I don't know how the tech support group stays so calm and nice. Even though we don't deal with the customers directly, I am sometimes ready to say nasty things to the customers and threaten them with physical violence. Our company, in its wisdom, doesn't allow us to deal directly with the customers, though. We are just there to support the tech support group and not start an international incident or lose our company a customer.

So, I'm actually looking forward to getting back to work on Tuesday (we have President's Day off - is that the official name for the holiday?) because I'll be able to get back to working full-time on the projects that have been assigned to me and I'll be able to, hopefully, get back on schedule for completing my projects.

Maybe, some time in the future, I'll write about a few of the fun things that we've been asked to do to solve a customer's problems.