IT Fundamentals: Customer Service

Yeah sure, wake me up at 2 AM because your final doesn't print.

IT was never very far from me between College and my first IT job.  I was always being asked by friends, family and co-workers to fix little problems, or to advise them on which computer to get.  I think this consistent thought about various IT problems kept the spark going.  It did, of course, lead to some interesting situations (one guy threw his laptop down a hallway... another woke me up at 2AM for help during finals week).  It also helped shape how I think about IT, which is it is mainly customer service.

My first real boss (not mom or dad when I did chores) taught me one of the most important things I've ever learned about business.

Note: Not my boss.  The customers I would deal with. My boss was awesome.

If a customer is upset, or mad, they aren't upset or mad at you.  They're upset because they cannot get what they want.  And the good news is that you are the one who can help them get it.

I was working Point of Sale (POS) in retail at the time, and I would frequently have customers bust in and tear my head off (not literally thankfully) about finding XYZ part, or trying to return something.  In the beginning this was hard to deal with.  The more I thought about my bosses advice, the easier it got.  That advice completely removed me from the problem, and instead turned me into an ally for the customer, even if I was the source of the problem (forgetting to order some part, or losing an order).

The same holds true for IT.  Our customers are the employees at our business, our actual customers (for those of you doing break/fix), our family, our friends and others needing our assistance (another thing he taught me was never use "help".  "Help" implies there may be something wrong with them.  You "assist" people).  In my case, my current customer is the business I work for and it is my responsibility to assist the business in developing it's software.  When I was working part time in tech support my customer was whomever was paying the company for my services.

Percussive Maintenance at work

Regardless, I was the person who assisted the customer in getting what they want, whether it be a new RAID1 for their office, learning how to post on Facebook or squashing a virus.  In IT we deal with a lot of data, whether it be photos, tax returns or Futurama episodes.  To us, it's just data, but to that customer it is very important, and if anything threatens it they will get upset.  We also deal with expensive hardware, and no one wants to lose expensive stuff (of course if they're performing regular percussive maintenance.  

Our job working in IT, whether we're the newest Technician or the CIO is to serve the customer.  We will, of course, do this different when we are in different roles at work, but we are still responsible for providing quality customer service.  The hardest part for me is to just remember that I am not what is making the customer upset.