Troubleshooting and Soft Skills Training

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SOFT SKILLS and BASIC TROUBLESHOOTING TRAINING

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Objectives At the end of this course each participants should be able to: Define technical support. Understand the different skills needed to become a successful Technical Support Representative relative to the account. Demonstrate the skills required. Understand the basic troubleshooting steps, methodology and framework.

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What is Technical Support? Technical support (also tech support) is a range of services providing assistance with technology products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, or other electronic or mechanical goods. In general, technical support services attempt to help the user solve specific problems with a product—rather than providing training, customization, or other support services. This type of support, although technical in nature, still entails customer service.

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It is imperative that each Technical Support Representative should be able to understand, acquire and master the different skills needed to become successful in providing excellent service to our customers. We will be focusing on the following skills and processes for this particular module: Listening skills Paraphrasing Probing Empathy Willingness to Assist Minimizing Dead Air Positive Scripting Transfer and Hold Procedure Setting Expectations Skills and Processes

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Active Listening Listening is one of the most important skills you can have. How well you listen has a major impact on your job effectiveness, and on the quality of your relationships with the customers. The way to become a better listener is to practice “active listening”. This is where you make a conscious effort to hear not only the words that another person is saying but, more importantly, to try and understand the total message being sent.

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Becoming an Active Listener Focus and Pay Attention Put aside distracting thoughts. Don’t mentally prepare a rebuttal! Avoid being distracted by environmental factors. “Listen” to the speaker’s tone of voice and inflection. Show that you are listening. Encourage the speaker to continue with small verbal comments like yes, and uh huh.

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Becoming an Active Listener Provide Feedback Reflect what has been said by paraphrasing. “If I understand your concern correctly…” and “Just to make sure I got your issue right…” are great ways to reflect back. Ask questions to clarify certain points. “What do you mean when you say…” “Is this what you mean?” Summarize the speaker’s comments periodically.

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Becoming an Active Listener Defer judgment. Allow the speaker to finish. Don’t interrupt with counterarguments. Respond Appropriately. Be candid, open, and honest in your response. Assert your opinions respectfully. Treat the other person as he or she would want to be treated.

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Paraphrasing A paraphrase is... your own rendition of essential information and ideas expressed by someone else, presented in a new form. a more detailed restatement than a summary, which focuses concisely on a single main idea. Example: Customer’s Statement: “The charger is plugged in but it’s not charging also when using battery from 50% it would just go down to 3%.” Paraphrase: “Just to make sure I got your issue right, your battery is not charging even if the AC adapter is plugged in and when you are just using the battery, the charge goes down from 50% to 3%, isn’t it?”

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Activity Paraphrase the following customer’s problem perception. “Last Friday, this notebook was dropped. It was still working properly and then it just died. And I’m hearing a rattling sound from the notebook. Looks like something is loose inside.” “I have an extended warranty from Home Depot. My notebook was overheating and they fixed it and now it is overheating again. I called them and they told me to give you a call.”

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Probing When questioning someone, you may want at times to get into deeper detail about some particular issue or problem. This would help you create a bigger picture of the situation. Asking probing questions should be done in a linear fashion. This would prevent confusions on both ends and eliminate areas that are irrelevant to the issue. Succeeding questions should be based on the answers provided which should build the foundation for your action plan.

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Basic Probing Questions The following questions can be utilized to get and fully understand the customer’s concern: When was the notebook last working properly? What version of Windows are you using? Have you installed any kind of software/accessories lately? What is the exact error message? Are there any accessories connected to the notebook? What troubleshooting steps have you tried?

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Empathy Empathy is commonly defined as feeling or expressing emotion for another. Also, the ability to 'place yourself in another person's shoes'. Empathy is often characterized as the ability to in some way experience the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself, a sort of emotional resonance. Always be sincere in expressing empathy. When talking to customers, expressing empathy is not enough as this should be followed by an assurance statement, alternative option or course of action.

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Empathic Statements In showing empathy, you may use empathic statements. These are appropriate words, phrases, or statements that you use to help someone feel better. Some helpful empathic statements include: I do understand how you feel, let me go ahead ….. I do apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you, here’s what I’m going to do…. Important to empathy is the ability to acknowledge the person’s feelings or situation.  Conveying your empathy through active listening is also an effective empathic gestures.

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Willingness to Assist Customers who call into the center, expect that the representative that is going to receive the call would provide them assistance in some way. Although it is the agents’ goal to assist customers with their issues, verbalizing one’s willingness to assist sends a positive signal. This should imply that you understood the issue and set expectations that you would help them resolve it. Also, stating your willingness to assist assures the customer that you are personally going to take care of the issue and would take ownership of the call.

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Minimizing Dead Air Dead air is defined as a a gap of silence, it could be uninformed or informed. 15 seconds of uninformed silence is considered dead air. 30 seconds of informed silence is considered dead air. Dead air is defined as a a gap of silence, it could be uninformed or informed.

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How to minimize dead air? Build Rapport Update customer with the actions you are taking or simply tell them what you are doing to resolve their issue. Verify customer’s progress with regards to the troubleshooting steps. In cases, where customer is working on the notebook (e.g. restarting, doing system restore, reformatting hard drive, etc.) provide the customer their reference number and educate them about the support site. If you think you would need more time to research on the issue, put the customer on formal hold. Minimizing Dead Air

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Building Rapport Having rapport as the foundation for any relationship means that when there are tough issues to discuss, you can more easily find solutions and move on.

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Building Rapport Quick ways to sharpen your rapport: Take a genuine interest in getting to know what's important to the other person. Start to understand them rather than expecting them to understand you first. Pick up on the key words, favorite phrases and way of speaking that someone uses and build these subtly into your own conversation. Respect the other person's time, energy, favorite people and money. They will be important resources for them. Avoid starting conversations with topics like religion, politics, sex, and other sensitive topics.

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Positive Scripting/Phraseology 4 Cardinal Rules to Positive Phraseology: 1. Avoid Giving Orders To Your Customers, Treat It As A Partnership Rather than: “You have to…” “You must…” Use these phrases: “If you will _____, then we can “In order to _____, we need…” “Let us try _____”

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4 Cardinal Rules to Positive Phraseology: 2. Focus On What You Can Do NOT What You Can’t Do Rather than: “I can’t do that…” “We don’t do that…” “You can’t…” Use: “Here is what I can do for you…” “Let’s see what we can do in this situation.” “Here is what you can do…” Positive Scripting/Phraseology

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4 Cardinal Rules to Positive Phraseology: 3. Be Careful Not To Criticize or “Blame” Your Customer Rather than: “You should have…” “We never…” “You failed to…” Use: “Here is what I can do for you…” “Let’s see what we can do in this situation.” “Here is what you can do…” Positive Scripting/Phraseology

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4 Cardinal Rules to Positive Phraseology: 4. Show Your Customer That You Are Knowledgeable And Willing To Help Rather than: “I don’t know.” Use: “I’ll be happy to check that for you.” “Let me find out for you.” Remember, no one can undo what has been done, but you can control future actions. Positive Scripting/Phraseology

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Convert the following statements using positive scripting: We do not support MP3 players. Your notebook is no longer under warranty. I can’t help you because your issue is already out of scope. Go to Control Panel and look for Power Options. Positive Scripting/Phraseology 5. This is the first time I received that Wi-Fi issue. 6. We do not deliver to P.O. box and military addresses.

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Transfer and Hold Procedure IEATT Inform Estimate Hold Time Ask the customer for permission Thank the customer Thank the customer for holding Note: When refreshing the call, thank the customer and give them immediate feedback.

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Troubleshooting Troubleshooting is a form of problem solving. It is the systematic search for the source of a problem so that it can be solved. It is often a process of elimination - eliminating potential causes of a problem. General troubleshooting is the identification or diagnosis of "trouble" in a system. The problem is initially described as symptoms of malfunction and troubleshooting is the process of determining the causes of these symptoms.

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Troubleshooting Methodology Phase 1: Discovery. Gather information about the problem. Phase 3: Problem Isolation. Isolate the variables that relate directly to the problem. Phase 2: Planning. Create a plan of action. Phase 4: Analysis. Analyze your findings to determine the cause of the problem. Phase 5: Execution. Execute the appropriate course of action to resolve the issue.