Tech Support

For those who don't know, I have managed to dive into yet another job, this time, tech support working from home.

So far it's been pretty all right, everything considered. I've been "on the phones" for a week now, and have to say that I've gotten pretty lucky with customers. My co workers are another matter.

There were several people in my training class that had worked from home in customer service before. For the most part, they're the worst about asking stupid questions. I manage to maintain a cheery facade all the way through the day, jolly customers out of cranky moods (well, yeah, they're calling because something is broken on a service they're paying for, of course they're cranky!) and end my calls on an up note. I'm not in the target range for call time, yet, but we're told to take our time until we get in the swing of it, so I'm not sweating that too much.

I've been assessed on one call, and missed a couple of things in the call flow, mostly because the call that they picked was so very simple that I simply handled the issue... the customer simply wanted to know where to find a piece of information that was available on her equipment. The answer was "pick it up, look at the sticker on the bottom, it will be labeled. Go ahead and look, I'll make sure you find it before we end this call so that you don't have to call back in."

Of course they didn't listen to the marathon troubleshooting sessions that ended with the problem NOT being resolved (it was something further up the line or something that I was unable to troubleshoot,) but the customer STILL thanking me profusely for my help. Or the customer that was on hold for twenty minutes in two minute bites and still made a joke about asking for my phone number at the end of the call. Ah well.

But really, the absolute best part of this job? My office mates. More often than not, Fuzzy Pup hops up on the footstool I have arranged by my desk for getting a little more comfortable in the chair I'm glued to all day, and snuggles up against my legs. Across the room I've got the fishtank, with my pretty fish swimming about being fish like. And Farmdog, well, she's not all that impressed with this whole me being home but not playing with her thing, but she just stares at me hopefully for a moment every once in a while when I'm between calls, and then sighs and goes outside, or to lay down somewhere and nap.

I'm still learning and still working, but I'm getting there, and doing the best job I can, and if I miss a few things on the call flow, well, the customer thanking me for giving them exactly the information they needed is validation enough for me. Eventually they'll pick one of those calls where the customer is absolutely irate when I answer, and by the end of it thanks me for my help, whether I've been able to solve their problem or not, and I'll get the recognition from the company that I already know I have from the customers I talk to. In the mean time, I'll keep helping little old ladies remember to plug their modem in after the storm, and reassuring them that there's no charge for calling in.