I’ve been spending a lot of time complaining about and illustrating stupid stuff that various clients who have the mental capacity of five year-olds like to dump into mine and every other Tech Support/Customer Service rep. on the face of the earth.
While that’s all fun and good, I wanted to give praise to clients who make our jobs bearable.
These are the kinds of clients who do things like the following:
- Have a sunny disposition despite problems that may be ongoing
- Have done research on their own problems before contacting us
- Take the information we give them and thank us
- They are understanding where there are things that are outside of our control
- They’re on top of their accounts and know when their bills are due
- They own up to their mistakes or shortcomings *This is a BIG ONE*
Imagine how it feels to spend your day getting calls that go something like:
*client*: “My site is down, is your server having problems?”
*tech*: “I show that your account was suspended due to non-payment.”
*client*: “Well if I pay it now will it come back up?”
*tech*: “Only our Billing Department can re-enable sites that have been shutdown due to non-payment.”
*client*: “I NEED MY SITE BACK UP NOW!”
*tech*: “I’m sorry the Billing Department is only in the office during the week.”
*client*: “I HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL MONDAY?!!! WHY? THIS IS THE STUPIDEST THING I’VE EVER HEARD! YOU’RE THE MOST WORTHLESS HUMAN BEING ON THE PLANET!” *click*
(A note here: generally in cases like this, the clients are MUCH more abusive/abrasive)
It would kind of start to grate on you I’m sure.
Now image you get someone like this:
*client*: “Hi, my site is down.”
*tech*: “I show you’re account was suspended due to non-payment.”
*client*: “Oh, it looks like I forgot to update my credit card information. Is there anything you can do?”
*tech*: “The Billing department will have to take care of this, but they won’t be in the office until Monday unfortunately. You can e-mail the directly through *email address* they may come in over the weekend and see it.”
*client*: “Oh really? I will go ahead and do that. Thanks very much for your help!”
Which one would you be willing to go out of your way to help?
You’d think stuff like this would be common sense/courtesy, but I guess neither are very common anymore.
So all you clients out there that are nice and do some of the leg work or at least own up to your own limited understanding or your own mistakes, I salute, and thank you for making our jobs more laid back and easier to handle!
Related posts:
What’s Shakin?