Discussion on:

The 10 worst ways to communicate with end users

with a practical field test afterwards. I know some local "Geek Squad", Office Depot & Staples techs that would fail miserably!

Although much of this article reads as "directed" common sense, it is definitely worth saying it. (Again & again!) We are all liable to fall into one or more of these traps, some of the time.
I might have put No10 up at No1. Not listening and jumping to the quickest reason that explains the first symptom the user reports is all too easy.

Great article, thanks Becky

Too often we don't ever take the time to comprehend how a user understands the technology. We can use every analogy we have ever found effective and it still doesn't fit. If the job is to make the technology useful, step one is understanding how the user..not only uses but how they truly comprehend it.

Great article, but kkaty_98, what does FORU stand for? That's an acronym I've not seen before.

This has to be the most well crafted article I've yet read here on TR. There's only one thing I'd suggest: you should make the text "babel fish" a link to the definition... in the event any non-geeks read this, which is likely.

Is it just me or does santeewelding's comment sound like a drug induced rambling of unintelligible thought?

I really can't grasp his point there. That is, if a point is intended or whether the author's intentions are to induce inflection in the reader.
It does appear to be a loosely associated (if only by words alone) paradigm.
Ha ha! Now I'm doing it!

Sovereign, or dominion, SanteeWelding?
Are you trying to imply that users should infact be considered paying customers, and that failing to support them effectively will directly affect their loyalty to you, which in-turn affects the security your role in technical support?
And that the users' stupidity is resultant of your failure to educate?
That these users are your property, if you wish, and you're fully responsible for their actions, as with man and dog?

Nah, you're still gonna have to explain it...

If you had one.

As any reader can see, I have no point to make, only questions to ask and assumptions to cast.
Perhaps your sovereignety could be your salvation in this sub-debate; take control of your destiny, please help us understand your words...

Is a poor word to use in reference to that which has no beginning, no end, and therefore cannot be relatively tracked and characterized.

leans toward the avant garde. One must examine it closely in order to garner the intent of the artist, although it is not necessarily true that one of lesser introspect could possibly seize upon the nobler aspect of deeper-than-thou thought. It is a challenge to consider, to fondle gently and then to discard with an all-consuming sense of loss. So there.

So, #1, santeewelding is claiming to not be human, since he/she/it isn't affected by "emotional imperatives". Which is ridiculous, as I sincerely doubt that TechRepublic has any AIs that are subscribed as members to the website.

As for #2, apparently santeewelding feels that other people shouldn't ever be affected by "emotional imperatives", since exception is taken with the article's statement "makes (users) feel stupid and insignificant". Although that seems hypocritical, given that there's almost an emotional flavor to the reaction.

As for the rest...I'm assuming someone's experimenting with their medication (too much, too little, it's hard to say which). Although, if taken literally, I suppose the stance being advocated is that each person should be the one responsible for coding & programming their own separate OSs & applications, so that we can all be "sovereigns" of our destiny. Which is just plain silly. I mean, if you're crossing the street with the green light in the crosswalk, & some idiot decides to ignore the red light & hit you... it doesn't matter how "sovereign" your control of your own decisions are, you have *no* "sovereignty" over the other person's choices. Nor can santeewelding have 100% "sovereignty" over their own life. At some point, someone else will be the one deciding how the work is performed, when the work is due, who will be on the team performing the work, & what computer hardware/software (if any) will be utilized in the work. Sure, one can always choose to quit & look for another job, but "sovereignty" won't put food on the table, money in the bank account, or gas in the car.

The question wasn't, "What do you feel about the points raised here?" The question was "What do you think about the points raised here?" The author wants to know if, in your opinion, are the points raised realistic.

I'm not certain what you are trying to say in your second paragraph. Becky is stating that being dismissive and condescending to the end user makes him or her feel stupid and insignificant. This is true and there are many studies to prove it. Remember the bad experiences you've had as a customer. How did you feel during those situations? You probably felt frustrated and that the support person was treating your issue as stupid and insignificant.

I think what you're trying to say in your fourth paragraph, is that a person shouldn't empower someone else to make him or her feel stupid or insignificant. This is true but not very realistic. First, it takes mental discipline to accomplish this and second, often it's used as an excuse for bad behavior.

As for your closing paragraph, I'm not certain you understood the nuance of the term "realistic" in this context. Think of probable versus possible; is it possible someone will give me a million dollars? Yes. Is it probable? No. In the context of Beckys article, "realistic" is used in a similar way. Certainly it is possible to utilize all of Becky's suggestions. The question is, given whatever circumstances there are surrounding the technician, is it probable? Thats the opinion Becky is requesting from each person.

Was changed to, "think", sometime in the two days after my comment.

One of your milder, not to mention more understandable posts. Nothing particularly insulting, along with thought provoking comment. I guess folks just don't like to think. Why am I not surprised?

Those big words yes do the job, but do the job and dont make people feel bad with those big words you Know!

I will use small words, one part each, to lead them as though by a ring through the septum (oops!).

OK, I don't think sesquipediality is the defining factor of condescension. Many people understand the meanings of complex words. It's the context and syntax that make the difference.
It was Baba Ram Dass who once said "Only that in you which is me can hear what I'm saying". Basically, only you fully understand your intent. You cannot assume anyone else to. That said, the ring through the septum part is a little less cryptic. We still need some clarification on your theory of sovereignty.

Your bit about, "only you fully understand", runs smack into sovereignty. Would that I fully understood my intent, and whatever else goes on between my ears, I may only claim that knowledge of myself for myself. No way in hell do I claim to know that of another, and certainly not for need of "we", which you do.

This does not forbid that I conjecture. Thing is, I know I guess.

What are you doing?

I'll leave the pieces of your "theory of sovereignty" for another time, it having suffered a head-on collision, too.

...applies to those of us who have expressed our incomprehension of your comment. I make no claim to another's opinion, I merely state a fact of common interest.

"We" just don't get it - sovereignty in the classic sense is territorial control, it almost seems as though you're implying another meaning.

Whatever the case, a comprehensive median has not been attained in this matter and I fear never will be if riddles ensue.

One thing we can agree on, is that this post has crashed and burned...

They arise as consequence of speaking without using the word, God.

Very nicely done.

Wow,good points u raising for us.Most of the time we tend to rush through to provide the solution for the user without even asking them what really went wrong....this will not only allianate us frm the user but lead to dissatisfaction

I actually had a user praise me the other day because I am not afraid to tell people "I don't know, but I will either research it or put you in touch with someone who does know/can help you".

It is impossible, or at least impractical, for every tech to know everything. The important skill is knowing where and how to find information or the right person for the job.

As a software developer, I am continually trying to broaden my knowledge so as to improve the software I develop and expand my potential and frequently I have occasion to use 'Help' which all too often tells me what to do but not how to do it, the latter being the more important. A classic example of really bad 'help' was when I finally succumbed and bought an iPod Touch in January this year. It took me a whole evening and part of the following morning to figure out how to use iTunes to put my music and photo collections onto the iPod. I ended up having to use Apple forums because the help was so useless. May I suggest that every 'help' article has "how" links throughout so that the text isn't overburdened with detail unnecessary to the more knowledgeable, but for complete newbies who need the fine detail, it's there at the click of a mouse? I must add that I've been full time in IT since 1978 and have worked in many different software environments so for a program to have me stumped it must be really badly designed. I'm absolutely astonished that the company that produced the delightfully intuitive iPod Touch could have produced the mess that is iTunes.

Most often, I lose patience with myself. If I'm not effectively communicating with the user, I get frustrated with my inability to express the concept in terms he or she can understand. That frustration is easily mistaken for anger and a lack of patience with the user. I'm aware of it, but often not until I'm already doing it.

I worked in Microsoft tech support for over 10 years and even with all the training received on both the products and how to deliver support, one of the most important things was to be patient. Sometimes it was the lack of knowledge of the caller, sometimes it was the perceived amount of knowledge of the IT expert who had an issue, and sometimes it was just being able to deal with the unknown. (I'll be the first to admit that there were a lot of bugs, er, I mean, design features in the products, and being patient while the customer vented was very important, too.)

One of my favorite memories occurred when walking a Mac user through a series of steps and he couldn't locate the button he was supposed to click...

Me: "Look at the lower right corner of the dialog box."
Customer: "Is that your right or mine?"

Patience!

excellent article,accurate, i personally have made all the mistakes in the article. another tech told me to tell the customer to
"Toggle the Master Re-Boot Modulator " ( the power-switch ) hee hhee

Great article and I believe that I even made many of these mistakes along my career. Interesting is the lying issue because sometimes I find myself blaming Microsoft, especially when for example, the user tries something with IE9 and it does not work on but it does work on Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, etc. You see the point But I will curtail that explanation after reading this.

The one point I wanted to make was that I have one person who is above me in the chain of command. She is not a tech but more of a liasion between me and the company's VP. She has a total negative view of computer "users" and in fact, has a large sign in her office that says "The only good computer user is a dead one". Can you imagine she still has a job? Anyway, I take pride when the "users" call me and refuse to call her.

Thanks again for the article.

I used to be an elementary school teacher, and most of what I learned about dealing with children applies in my tech job as well. Patience, listening, and REPEATING what they said to you in your own words will often help clarify the problem. Example I had: CLIENT: "I need all my employee's contacts put in my Outlook" ME "So you are asking me to copy all the contacts from this persons's Outlook address book into yours?" CLIENT: "No, I want the contacts that AREN'T in their address book." ME: "Give me an example of a contact you need that she has." CLIENT: "When my employee starts to type in the email, it pops up! I want those" ME: "OK, that's her autocomplete file and I can copy that file to your workstation." My client didn't have anything in her own NK2 file yet, so I copied the employee's file over, even showed her how to add them to contacts for better safekeeping, and she was happy.

Communication is a 2 way process and still has pitfalls that make most communications fail. It helps to be aware that people are not neccesarily stupid, most do not have the depth of knowledge you have and more important you do not have the depth of knowledge the client has. Techs tend to use acronyms and jargon that are incomprehensible outside of geekdom.

I was taught a concept called the customer retention cycle. In this model, the customer can be an internal or an external customer. An example of an internal customer is you boss, your co-workers and other people in your company. An external customer is what we think of when we think of customers.

The cycle begins with a greeting. Techs tend to skimp on this point (I am guilty of this too) but the idea is to let the customer shift gears and be involved with giving information. The next step is to gather information, define the problem and ask questions to narrow down the problem. Skimping over data gathering will increase the probability that the solution will not work. Diagnosis and solution is the next step, if the solution does not work then more information is needed or a different approach to the problem. Verifying with the customer that the solution fixes their problem is the next step followed by asking if there is anything else that you can do for them (this invites the customer back into the cycle).

The idea of the customer retention cycle is to take more effort to provide service to the customer so that they will be happy to use your services and, more importantly, refer other people to you. Also, the idea of internal customers is helpful to understand how effective you are for your company.

Why would you assume that this article did not have some bit of fresh information for someone else?

You need to to something about that, "So glad to be me, so sad that you're not!" attitude. I can just see your users cringe when they hear your smug voice on the line.

I'm not having any trouble believing there are still people who already [think they] know it all...

Communication skills cannot be over-emphasized in the IT Industry. These rare "people skills" translate into job security when ability alone would not be the case.

..you need to be more patient when handling end users cause we need them in our job..you need to teach them how to teach us..

Best and most practical TR article I've read in a while.

Some people really regard this as a threat to their jobs, even to help their fellow support team members. It happened to me once in a company where some smart guy would always refuse to explain new procedures or introduce new technologies.

When can we finally say, "either learn up or get out"? I'm one of two "tech's" where I work and lets just say with my experience, I frequently feel like I could qualify for a daycare job. My fellow tech doesn't even keep his own workstation in good functioning order. I feel like I'm pulling dead weight and our superiors seem completely oblivious.

I don't mind sharing corporate "secrets"--company specific information that is needed for a job. I _loathe_ being treated like some genie bottle just because I happen to love learning. I want to see at least a minimum of effort from my colleagues, particularly my fellow tech.

There has to be some give and take, or eventually you get to a point where you say, "uh-uh, sorry, non-sufficient funds. you've overdrawn your account."

-Frustrated

Agreed agreed agreed. and furnished some of my skills in this.