1

We have all been there, our users call to get an “easy” problem fixed but end up screaming at us or try to make us look bad.

I want to take this time to hear what people’s worst experiences have been and how you could have handled it better.

Background:

I have never taken a class or anything in customer relations. I have just picked up the “be nice no matter what” mentality while also putting my foot down when things are just too out of reach.

Help me learn.

Ready. Set. Go.

42 Spice ups
2

LOL. I do apologize for not having anything meaningful to contribute. Your first paragraph just make me LMAO.

Its part of the job i guess.

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3

I simply treat them how I would expect to be treated regardless what volume/aggression they may show. Sometimes it placates them, sometimes it makes no difference, but at least they can’t question your character or professionalism. I once had an A&E manager whilst standing underneath a sign saying “We do not tolerate abuse of our staff etc etc” virtually shouting at me as I couldn’t fit a serial printer onto a parallel cable.

I mean seriously. Whilst it shouldn’t be condoned, 5 minutes later he came back and apologised. Which I think deserves some respect at least. I consistently remained polite and was trying to help him, but I was unable for this particular issue. (It didn’t help his secretary didn’t understand pc’s at all - I have no idea how she was even in a job).

11 Spice ups
4

My worst one ever was trying to explain to a person that spoke nil or next to no English how to spell the day of the week I reset her password to and that Monday indeed only has 1 ‘n’ in it, and the number ‘1’ not the word.

No matter how hard I tried there was no way to get the point across so I managed to convey across to her to get someone else there so they could write it down and then she could change it.

Not really any way better I could have dealt with it bar posting it to her but at least she finally managed to login!

4 Spice ups
5

Kill them with kindness is my motto. If they yell, my voice gets softer. If they start screaming, I listen and remind myself they are not mad at me, they are just frustrated. Then you have to say to them “This is what I heard you say” and repeat back to them what the problem is. And if you promise to find an answer, you should do so.

But, if they get abusive, and do start a personal attack, I go to my manager, and on one occasion, went to HR.

12 Spice ups
6

I don’t do with yelling and tell people that. I’m not a doormat and am a co-worker of everyone I support. If they start yelling or cussing, I ask them to stop. Left a job because of that toxic environment of treating everyone like dirt and swore I’d never let myself be treated like the dog that everyone kicks because they are frustrated with a computer problem. No excuse imo.

12 Spice ups
7

Users are people too. They need to feel loved and respected, and I am not sure if i am in the minority here, but I treat them with genuine compassion and understanding, even for things i deem “stupid” or “simple”.

If you ask me anonymously or privately, do i think users should put in more effort to understand the difference between a computer and a monitor? Absolutely! But if they dont? Oh well, ill educate them if i can, if not, such is life. And when they belittle me (has happened several times before) or get upset, i politely inform them why i said no. Mad that a serial printer doesnt connect to a parallel port? “I’m sorry, but these two devices cannot be connected, they were not designed to, see?”. Then politely ask if there is anything else i can do. As long as you are being genuine, even if you arent as “nice” as i described, people will appreciate it.

4 Spice ups
8

Handling users? Best not to unless absoutely necessary :slight_smile:

5 Spice ups
9

buy a cattle prod.

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10

think of it like your dealing with a 3 year who is having a meltdown. They hate you, the world, the air they breath, and everything else within a 10 mile radius.

You have to stay calm and figure out the issue in between all of their moaning and crying. If you are unable to get to calm down and tell you where the boo boo is then you let your manager know there is going to be an issue and that you are going down to their desk to try and figure it out. Ask them to show you what they are trying to do and what is happening. also if the issue is consistently occurring.

if it is because they pushed the power button and nothing happened? look at the power cord and make sure everything is plugged in.
If not then plug it in stand up give them the FU smile and say glad I could help. Then walk away knowing they just made a donkey of themselves for not checking the power plug.

Yes i have had that happen more than once and both times they were electrical engineers!!!

3 Spice ups
11

Give respect but also demand it. I make it a point to let them know if they cross a line with me personally. There is no room for making it personal. If this does happen I politely excuse myself and walk away straight to my boss’s office and explain why “so and so” didn’t get their issue resolved. I value my skills and time to be confident enough to find another position but luckily I do not have to deal with this very often at my current job.

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Kill them with kindness is my motto. What would piss you off more, than someone smiling and being chipper while you’re raging? Makes you look awful to a point of total anger at yourself, resulting in a sincere apology for their relentless acts of aggression. If they ever have to deal with you again, they can rage, feel bad, rinse wash and repeat, or treat you with total respect and patience. Being nice forces someone to be nice eventually.

3 Spice ups
13

Or as I like to say, being aggressively nice.

3 Spice ups
14

I was asked yesterday “what does it mean when it says my battery is dead”, so smiling through BS I’m great with :-P.

3 Spice ups
15

I’ve had an occasion where a user called because they want to bypass some functionality of a software. By bypass, they don’t want to type their account number for some billing information. They wanted it to be filled out automatically. Unfortunately, that’s impossible due to security reasons imposed by the software.

So this guy started screaming out of his lungs… Fortunately for me, the big boss happened to walk by (a few blocks away and heard him). I was able to walk out of there without saying a word. A week later, this guy got a heart attack. My first reaction was: “Who did he yell at this time?”.

Also, unfortunately, being nice to this guy does not and will not make this guy nice anytime. I think he just has something against my IT department.

16

Forget the fake-n-bake niceness approach. Instead learn to involve your users in IT. Sit down with someone in each department, each month and discuss the issues that they see with the network / IT resources in your environment. The reason that most users complain about IT is that we are often viewed as “outsiders” who are not actually a part of the team - like building maintenance and lawn care fodder. Injecting yourself into their world and reviewing the pain-points for the users will allow you to see IT through their eyes.

Create a list of projects based on their concerns and begin addressing them along side the regular “back-end” projects that you have going. This way, when small things come up users will know that you are already working on bigger concerns that they discussed with you, and will cut you more slack while you try to juggle the various issues.

I have implemented this strategy in MSP and in-house IT settings with 100% success. Even the ornery users become supporters of the IT Team, and your easy going users become your loudest cheerleaders. Current company went from 4/10 approval rating of the IT Department to 9/10 in just under 8 months.

edit: if you don’t have the staff to make this happen, then you’re department is short by at least 1 member.

8 Spice ups
17

Well some people have no sense of feeling bad for acting like a fool or treating someone badly. To me that’s why killing them with kindness doesn’t always work but telling them they need to calm down removes all confusion of what is or isn’t acceptable to treat someone like.

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If you ever have training for dealing with people they teach you the adult child relationship. Regardless if they treat you like a child, you still treat them like an adult, and force them to treat you the same. If you start treating them like a child, they will do the same back.

There Is a big difference between bullying and consistent abuse/volume/ from users and 1 off however.

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19

Tell the truth, always. If they are the cause of the problem you have to tell them that, albeit in a nice way. You can’t let your fear of them being mad at you stop you from actually addressing the cause of the issue. I always address it as a teaching opportunity. I often say “oh I see what is happening, let me show you what you need to do to avoid this” then I walk them through the proper way. Most of the time they walk through the proper way and then they say “oh so when I was doing this the other way I was doing it wrong?” You let them come to the conclusion it was them that was messing up and then it is awesome. No one likes being told what they are doing is wrong, however they are more willing to accept it if they come to the conclusion that they were wrong on their own terms. Lets face it, most of the problems we solve are not because the computer is messing up it is because we are messing up with our input into the computer. We also have to accept the fact that there are people that are always jerks and will never accept responsibility for their own actions. In those cases you document everything so you can bury them when they complain to your supervisor.

4 Spice ups
20

Anyone that has ever dealt with attorneys knows EXACTLY what he is talking about.

2 Spice ups