"DriveBy" Desktop Support Problem

[ISLarry]

Drive-By support is defined as: in the act of a support person moving from one location to another, a customer notifies them of a problem and desires that they fix it or provide a solution.
There is the impression by the customer that you’re there, you should devote some time to this because:
1. you are there.
2. you are a support person.
3. they have a need or a problem.
4. they perceive that if a problem or need is reported to you - it is expected that you will take ownership of that as the support person is tasked to resolve problems and/or provide the tools/abilities for the customer to do their job.

Problems presented by the customer’s perceptive in these scenarios:
1. The customer has an expectation of assistance due to their identification of a problem.
2. The support person represents IS in this matter.
3. The technician’s actual work load is perceived as secondary by the customer or is ignored totally.
4. The possibility that the customer’s need will be deferred to a later point causing the customer to develop a negative view of IS Support schemes.

The need in this situation would be to find a way to WIN the customer over without deterring the support person’s ability to manage their assigned tasks in a timely fashion. Should the support person allow the customer to place them in a situation where the support person feels that they will generate a negative perception by providing timely support to those persons that have followed proper procedures then that is a LOSS for both the technician and the customer. The support person loses because of the customer’s perception that their issue was identified and they were not helped. The customer loses because they are stuck with the issue until a later pointing time.

Is the proper process to assess the issue and bump them to the head of the line if it is an easily solved issue? Is the proper process to assist the customer in the entry of a ticket for future resolution after determining that the issue is not critical? Is the time taken to assess the issue well spent in as far as the process of assessing the situation is an unknown variable until completed.

Has anyone found a win-win method to address this issue? Is there a happy medium?

Regards,
Larry W.

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> There is the impression by the customer that you’re there, you should devote some time to this because:
Then change the impression. Manage expectations. Customers should know that when it's their turn, they'll be taken care of.

If a drive-by support person is approached by a customer not on the schedule, then the support person should help that customer get on the schedule. Provide them the forms and/or phone numbers necessary to get on the schedule. Explain how support calls are organized based on priority and need, and that is done only by taking all calls into account. The support person can acknowledge the problem and take the right first step without compromising the integrity of his or her schedule, or deviating from the established policy.

The most important thing is to establish that policy, and then all technicians must stick with it. Where you'll get into trouble is when someone deviates from the policy because that will be taken as precedent and you've now given a customer a false expectation of what to expect in the future.

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Good Luck
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[edfair]

I've spent 45 years making the next person in line understand that it is in their best interest not to panic if I have to deviate from the plans. Every situation is different but I fix what I can while I'm on site or make arrangements for fixing it later.
You can't waste 2( or 4 or 6 or 8) hours travel to return to a place you were yesterday to fix a machine you could have fixed while you were there. Sometimes this involves long nights to get both customers working but that is a price I gladly pay since those same customers are the source of the bread on my table. And driving in moonlight is pretty relaxing.
That second customer, the one that had to wait this time, will come to understand that you won't walk away for him in the same situation. And that relationship is worth gold.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[BocaBurger]

There is also the unwritten support policy called WSTC.

Who Signs the Checks.

Priorities shift like sands in the Sahara.



BocaBurger
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The pen is mightier than the sword, but the sword hurts more!

 

[BoxHead]

I used to work for an organization where the Technical Support Group (TSG) was mockingly referred to as TG because they didn't deserve to have the 'S' in their name.

Mission Critical objectives would routinely take a back seat to "TG Policies and Procedures".

One day they hired a tech who figured that since he had helped build and deploy the systems that were breaking, it was more of a Warranty issue than anything else. He'd actually apologize when you explained your problem to him.

The thing that really set him apart was that whenever he came into a building on a work order, he'd stop by all of the different department manager offices and say, "I'm here for awhile to work on <whatever>. If you or any of your people are having problems, call it in to the help desk and be sure to let them know Im in the building."

This became a new procedure. A lot of the time, the Help Desk tech could solve the problem over the phone. If not, they could rearrange the schedule or set up a call for another day. The last I heard, they were looking into sending automatic e-mails to managers so that they'd know when a tech was going to be in their building.

I had asked him about his approach because I saw how it transformed everyone's opinion of TSG. He said he preferred to think of himself as a 'problem-solver' instead of 'a guy who solved problems'. He figured he was hired to help everyone get their jobs done better - not just make his dispatcher's job easier.




Life is short.
Build something.

 

[j0ckser]

That second customer, the one that had to wait this time, will come to understand that you won't walk away for him in the same situation. And that relationship is worth gold.

this is an excellent way to divert them from their insistance that you divert from your plan to deal with the next person in line. however, the key to this philisophy (and policy) is to be flexible about how you apply this. if helping the second person can be done quickly, then by all means do it. however if it means the next person will be unduely (sp) delayed then refer them to the dispatcher.

per ardua ad astra