Hi Reader,

About ten years ago I was tutoring SAT and ACT. (Oh, interesting; this newsletter marks the first time I've combined all three things I do: tutoring, writing, and tech support.)

Anyway, I was done with my tutoring for the day when I was asked to stay late to help a student who came in for an unscheduled session. She was very determined to get a high score. I had worked with her on the English, reading, and science sections, but she wanted help with math. Now, I'm no expert in math, but I figured I could fumble my way through. Usually our other tutors would have handled the math side of things, but none of them were there at that time. So I told her all that.

And that's when I learned that in addition to her being very determined, she was also very anxious. She started to panic, getting red in the face and tearing up.

I had exactly the same reaction. I felt my adrenaline spike. I had no idea what to say. I thought, how can I help someone like this at something I'm only mediocre at?!?

It was very awkward and I immediately felt like a failure. It was awful.

I don't remember what happened next, but I'm pretty sure our director came along and rescued me, called in one of our math tutors or something. So I didn't need to try dealing with the situation while in a state of panic myself.

Whenever I encounter one of my junior tech support teammates having trouble handling an upset customer, this story is what comes to mind. The customer is not ok. My teammate is not ok. There's not much chance of getting to a resolution in this kind of situation.

Now, turn it around: think of a time you had a bad interaction with tech support or customer support. What was it like for you?

Take a moment to bring that experience back, and just be with it.

...

Now. What do you think it was like for the person whose job it was to help you? Do you think they were afraid, or frustrated, or exhausted? Maybe their apparent lack of caring was what they thought they needed to do to mask the way they were really feeling and get through the experience until you went away or someone higher-up came to rescue them?

Well, I know what that feels like. As I said earlier, it feels awful.

In one sense, the answer is to get better at solving problems. If I hadn't been insecure about my math skills, I wouldn't have panicked.

(Maybe.)

On the other hand, what I'll be proposing and outlining over the next few weeks is that part of any tech support person's job is to know what to do when they don't know what to do. To NOT panic. To be a source of calm, determined leadership in the middle of what feels like a crisis situation.

Maybe... to come home to themselves.

Getting better at solving problems is all about having access to more information or knowledge. That's great. Nothing wrong with that.

But I've also had some pretty rotten interactions with customers around features I know very well technically. And why? Because I was distracted or in a hurry or thought I knew what was going on instead of listening. All things that pull me away from being home.

So the theory I'll be exploring in this series is that the very best experiences with tech support don't come from a place of "more information."

So, what's next? Well, the first step to writing any whitepaper is to gather data, so that's what I have planned for next week.

It's going to be datastic! Databulous!