Yelling at the Tech Agent Who is Trying to Help You Will Not Fix Your Computer

In short, users, customers, and callers should try to stay calm when talking to the tech support person on the phone or online because shouting or scolding him will never solve any computerproblem.

Also, not everyone is good at explaining technical computer problems, but the job of technical support persons is to listen intently and carefully to the caller or user. On the user’s part, it helps if the problem can be properly explained, so some advice may be helpful on this part.

Computer complaints, frustration and feelings of helplessness are pretty standard for people who spend their work virtually sitting in front of a computer for the whole day, 5 days a week. So, too, is the temptation to chew out the tech support professional at the other of the phone when you’re staring at a blue screen and you have a deadline coming up.

But before you bite off the head of the help desk analyst, consider that your actions might have consequences later.

People tend to be more emotive over the phone or in an e-mail than they would ever be in person. Especially on the phone, we say things that we would never say face-to- face. In the workplace, the customer is always right but sometimes, a customer can get out of hand and needs to be put in their place. Customers need to be careful because a comment you might call snide or just a way to blow off steam might be construed by a help desk attendant and the HR department as a rather serious workplace offense called bullying.

The customer might simply describe their behavior as being annoyed, dissatisfied or snippy. But the technical support person on the other end of the phone might perceive those comments as belligerent or bullying. If someone feels they are being bullied or intimidated or disrespected, they have a right to complain.

Tech support help desk analysts also complain that there are times when they have customers with high positions or jobs who demand things, demand them immediately, and demand them rudely. In those cases, the tech support can go to the supervisor and simply say: “This guy is really out of line.” Usually, that takes care of the problem, although it may involve a long drawn out out-of- court discussion between the customer and the HR department, and in some cases, even lawyers become involved.

People should realize that tech support call centers sometimes get backed up and need to prioritize the most critical problems first. So if every caller who can’t get her solitaire to work thinks it’s the end of the world, there is now a certain sense of entitlement. People think they’re paying for a service and can walk all over the people providing that service.

And it is unfortunate that 80-20 rule very much applies in these situations; 80 per cent of the calls come from the same 20 per cent of the customers. But if a customer gets belligerent toward one of the technicians, again remember that this has consequences.