Workshop

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Socializing a Solution: Basic Call-Handling Techniques
Let’s go over the basic call-handling techniques that are applicable when you’re not presented with a
clear picture of what’s going on. Assuming that that user is having unspecified application problems,
how do you probe for more information? Don’t forget to apply the SOAP theory—getting as many
objective facts as possible about any type of trouble can only help you. Ask the user as many factual
questions as you can. Here are some examples:
• What happened?
• When?
• During what? With what applications loaded?
• What were you doing right before the problem?
• Was idle time involved?
• Has this happened before? How was it resolved?
Asking about previous instances of the current problem is really important. Sometimes the history behind
the problem will make the problem come into focus for you. For example, someone might tell you that the
problem happens repeatedly at the same time every week—a major clue. Sometimes, the user might go so
far as to tell you how the problem was fixed last time. A doctor friend of mine says that history is ninetenths
of diagnosis; he’s not too far off.
This whole process—particularly if you’re not at the workstation involved—can be like groping in the
dark. If you don’t have a basis for your questioning, it’s hard to know which questions to ask.
Sometimes, you simply have to go see it for yourself (particularly when the problem being reported is a
local problem). Before you do, however, you might want to try to reproduce the problem from your desk.
For example, to rule out operator error, you can have the user at the other end of the line reboot the
problem workstation—soup to nuts. Have the user power down and ask him or her to describe to you
what’s happening at each stage of the boot process. When it’s time to run the application, bring up the
same application on your workstation, and have the user talk you through what he or she is doing to get
the error; at the same time, you do the same thing on your end. This process can be tedious, and it takes a
bit of practice, particularly if you’re familiar with the application but the user is not (or vice versa).
A better option, particularly if it’s problematic for you to get across town to a user’s workstation, can be
to invest in one of the many network remote control packages out there, such as one of the following: