How to Handle Customers

There will come a time when you will face satisfied customers, confused customers but above all, angry customers. This is an article written out of experience for technicians who either have trouble with, or will be facing these customers. This article is about how to handle customers, not how to handle PC problems.

Primary points

– Always make the customer feel at ease.

• Listen
• Keep them updated
• Don’t lie
• Be confident

– Aftercare

Always make the customer feel at ease:

When you’re at a large company, I reckon customers rely on their computers way too much, which means they will be outraged when it suddenly stops, slows down or worse, loses data they’ve been spending some time on. Ofcourse not everyone will burst out in fury, but there will be customers who do that to you. Whenever this happens, don’t start yelling just because they’re yelling at you. It’s -your- job to make them feel at ease.

-Tell them you’ ll do everything in your power to solve the problem.
-Ask them what happened. Even if you don’t think that’s what happened, don’t go against it.

After they’ve done their story, check the computer. Even if you know right away what the problem is, don’t walk away without telling them what you know. This will leave them in doubt because they don’t know what you’re going to do and if you know what’s wrong. If you don’t know what’s wrong, tell them, don’t lie. You’ll be an even bigger ass if they find out you’ve been lying to them. If you don’t know what’s wrong, tell them you don’t know and tell them you’re gonna get a colleague. If you don’t you’ll lose time and the customer will get even more angry.

If you’re in a big company, there could be problems you on your own can’t solve, which means you’ll have to escalate the problem. Inform the customer about this so he knows what’s going on. Keep him updated on progressions and he’ll be more happy than when you finally show up after 3 hours ‘YAAY! I KNOW WHAT’S WRONG!’. By that time they’ll probably have walked by 3 or 4 times because they stilll have the same problem. So keep them updated, happy customers is all you need.

Be confident, nobody likes people who are ‘supposed’ to be professional but all the time keep saying ‘well, maybe this solves the problem, I don’t know but we can give it a shot’.

After you’ve done all that, we’re up till the last part. Aftercare.

You’ve done everything in your power to help, got colleagues, phoned around, everything. The problem is finally solved. That doesn’t close the case. If you’re a professional helpdesk you -always- walk by again the next day, or give them a phonecall about how they’re doing. Ask if they have any questions and if they still have the same problem as the day before. If not, they’re happy, you did a good job and they’re once again glad they called you. This is good for you, your helpdesk and your status at your helpdesk. If you’re not on a helpdesk, this is good advertisement for you, good job.