Sometimes we are the enemy!

Growth Strategies are both consumers of, and providers of technical support services.

At peak semester we have several hundred participants in our online classes and 300 plus lifelong learning and community education partners who must interact with our software. This generates a significant amount of correspondence about symptoms that cause technical malfunctions.

There is no question about how much time we spend trying to visualize what might be happening on the other end of cyberspace. Sometimes it is very clear from the initial description of the symptoms, just what needs to happen to resolve the issue and we can immediately begin to suggest a fix. But on at least half of the technical support requests that we receive there is not enough information for us to get a clear picture of what is happening.Everybody wins when participant downtime is reduced

“I can’t get into my classroom” is not very much for us to go on. We either have to try to read minds or start a downward spiral of back and fourth emails, etc. with pleas for symptoms to enable us to diagnose. This is a lose, lose for everybody! Everybody wins when participant downtime is reduced.

On the other end, we are a consumer of technical. We have lots of glitches in technology that require us to communicate with technical support folks.

Recently we have had two lingering issues with software. In both cases the issue is unresolved after many days and several emails back and fourth. In an attempt to move things to resolution, I began to look back at my emails. Then it hit me, I am the enemy, guilty of providing fuzzy pictures of the symptoms of my problems. Those emails all made sense to me, but when I looked at them from the standpoint of being a technical support provider, they were wholly inadequate at providing information. Is it any wonder I am not getting answers.

It is time that we adopt a checklist to guide future technical support interaction. Hopefully, you all will use it as your guide when communicating with us.

Summary paragraph
First paragraph should contain a very carefully worded one sentence description of the failure or problem. It should be very clear to the reader exactly what the issue is. Assume the reader has only minimal English skills. The description of the problem may seem obvious to you, but remember the person on the other end must recreate a mental picture of what you are seeing on you’re screen. They cannot mind read!

The error message
Describe the failure in as much detail as possible. If you encounter an error . . . do a screen capture (alt-prt sc) and paste the error into your email. Make sure you give URL’s or the exact page you are having difficulty with.

Technical specifications
Provide the version number of the software, your operating system or browser, any virus checking software you might be running, are you on a network, behind a firewall, what type of internet connection you have, or any technical specifications that they can use to attempt to recreate the failure. Provide your username and passwords if appropriate.

History of the problem
Give as much background as possible about what lead up to the failure. What trouble shooting steps you have taken in an attempt to resolve the issue?

What resources have you looked at?
One of the providers we are struggling with has a standard reply to all technical support requests. It goes something like “this issue is addressed in our knowledge base”. . . of course it never is. So I can save lots of frustration by telling them that I have already checked their technical support documentation.

What hunches do you have about what might be causing it?
Many times your hunches can provide very useful clues as to what might be the sticking point.

Contact information
You cannot believe how many people never provide us a way to communicate with them. Come on folks . . . this is the 21st century every email you send should contain a signature including:

• Your work phone
• Your home phone
• Your cell phone
• Work email
• Home email
• Your IM address
• Your fax number
• Mailing address doesn’t hurt either

Organize your email

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