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- 10 career lessons from country music
- Okay, stop snickering. Although this article discusses country music, it nonetheless can help you. Yes, I know all the stereotyped themes of country music: She leaves him, he cheats on her, his dog dies. And of course, let's throw in Chevy trucks and the Tastee-Freeze. However, if you get beyond...
- Tags: Career, Customer, Music, Chances, E-mail, Online Communications, Calvin Sun
- Blog posts 2008-03-11
- Tips on avoiding hand and wrist pain while keyboarding
- If you're like me, you spend hours at the keyboard. You probably, though, don't think of yourselves as classical pianists such as Andre Watts, Lang Lang or Phillipe Entremont. Nor do you likely equate your keyboarding with a Beethoven concerto. However, you may have experienced the pain...
- Tags: Keyboard, Dr., Muscle, Wrist, Keyboards, Hardware, Peripherals, Calvin Sun
- Blog posts 2007-12-05
- Shrink-wrapped aggravation, part I
- The absence of shrink wrap nearly cost me $30. I didn't realize it at the time, and naturally became upset when I learned about it. Fortunately, though, I believe I will resolve the matter successfully. My first week of classes of the fall semester...
- Tags: Book Store, Workforce Management, Product Marketing, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Human Resources, Marketing, Enterprise Software, Software, Calvin Sun
- Blog posts 2007-11-14
- Have you ever been "burned" by navigational technology?
- Many times, as support professionals, our customers sit in areas known to us, or at least in the same building or campus. Sometimes, though, we may have to visit unfamiliar locations -- perhaps a remote office of our own company, or the office of an external customer. For...
- Tags: Technology, Web Site Development, Web Technology, Channel Management, Internet, Marketing, Calvin Sun
- Blog posts 2007-11-11
- Publicize your prohibited applications
- For a good part of last Friday, I felt like the Allison family on the Titanic. First class passenger and investment banker Hudson J.C. Allison and wife Bess were traveling with their children, three-year-old Loraine and one-year-old Trevor, and with the children’s nurse, Alice Cleaver. After the collision...
- Tags: Temple University, Skype Technologies S.A., Security, Calvin Sun
- Blog posts 2007-11-05
- Avoiding the two extreme errors in explaining things
- What possible connection does Greek mythology have with desktop support? Plenty, in terms of avoiding problems when you have to explain a technical concept to your customer. In his classic work The Odyssey, Homer described two monsters who sat on opposite sides of a narrow strait...
- Tags: Person, Construction, Application Service Providers (ASPs), Web Hosting, Business Services, Internet, Calvin Sun
- Blog posts 2007-10-29
- Handling the misdirected call
- Telephone Courtesy -- Being nice and helpfulHaving the barrier of a telephone often lends itself to people forgetting common courtesy. If someone accidentally walked into the wrong office, most people would be helpful in directing that person to the right one. And most people will gladly give directions to someone...
- Tags: Joseph_R, Calvin, Calvin Sun, phone
- Discussion threads 2007-10-24
- Handling the misdirected call
- Have you ever called a company but reached the wrong department? Annoying, isn't it? However, if the person you called takes time to get you the right area, you feel better. Conversely, if that person proves to be useless, or transfers you to a second wrong department,...
- Tags: Department, Caller, Help Desk, Call Centers, It Operations, Calvin Sun
- Blog posts 2007-10-21
- Make your error messages meaningful as well as accurate
- You or your system may issue error messages, but it's important to keep in mind how they're received. Taking this into account can help smooth transactions on both ends, eliminating confusion and further calls from customers for assistance. Consider these real-life examples of clumsy error messages I've received lately. ...
- Tags: Message, Phone, Error Message, Telephone Number, Telecom & Utilities, Calvin Sun
- Blog posts 2007-10-15
- Handling the drive-by interruption
- It probably happens more than you want: as a desktop or field support analyst, you're visiting a customer location to resolve a problem, having been dispatched there by the help desk. This visit is only one of numerous other tickets you have to resolve, and the clock is ticking....
- Tags: Customer, Help Desk, Call Centers, It Operations, Calvin Sun
- Blog posts 2007-10-08
- Help your customers to give you the information you need
- A few weeks ago, before she was to leave for college, we discovered that our older daughter, Elise, needed a medical insurance card. I logged onto the Web site for Independence Blue Cross IBC, and it prompted me to enter information about my daughter. One particular piece...
- Tags: Independence Blue Cross, Customer, Membership Number, Web Site Development, Insurance, Financial Planning, Social Security, Web Technology, E-mail, Internet, Business Operations, Corporate Insurance, Finance, Government, Online Communications, Calvin Sun
- Blog posts 2007-10-01
- Using the "80-20 rule" to help set priorities
- In a previous blog, Joe Rosberg discussed the "importance vs. urgency" matrix, as explained by Steven Covey. Another useful tool for setting priorities is the "80-20" rule. I first learned about it years ago, from a book entitled How to Get Control of Your Time and...
- Tags: Help Desk, Call Centers, It Operations, Calvin Sun
- Blog posts 2007-09-24
- Do you leave your ATM card in the ATM?
- At least five times it's happened to me: I go to an automated teller machine ATM to get cash. I leave with the cash, but without my ATM card. Now, I'm not the kind of person who goes around making excuses for myself or...
- Tags: Card, ATM, Automated Teller Machine, Calvin Sun
- Blog posts 2007-09-17
- Don't Band-Aid your problems
- Disease. Sickness. Illness. Few people like to discuss these things. I'm sorry to do so, but no other area comes close as far as an effective analogy. Suppose you had some really serious illness -- one that required immediate medical attention. Suppose further that...
- Tags: Phone, Caller ID, Analyst, Help Desk, Calvin Sun
- Blog posts 2007-09-10
- Lessons from a fire truck
- Recently I learned, from a fire truck, about a key truth in communications: namely, how two people can interpret a situation completely differently. I was driving to a meeting in Washington, D.C., at a university there. The meeting was scheduled for 8:00 a.m. at the library, but I...
- Tags: Library, Librarian, Calvin Sun
- Blog posts 2007-08-27
- Keep customers happy: block the primrose path
- The end of August draws near, and with it comes the time to finish packing to send our first daughter to college. Move-in day is this weekend, and we are planning to stay over for at least one night. We have a reservation, but out of curiosity, a few days...
- Tags: Link, Calvin Sun
- Blog posts 2007-08-21
- That feeling of being abandoned
- Have you ever felt abandoned? Distressing, isn't it? It happened to me twice, in different locations and settings, but the feeling was the same.The first incident happened on June 23, at Lincoln Financial Field, in Philadelphia. I was attending the Kenny Chesney "Flip Flop Summer Tour." ...
- Tags: Lyric, Calvin Sun
- Blog posts 2007-08-12
- Security and customer service: Why they go hand in hand
- On July 30, The Wall Street Journal published an article entitled “Ten Things Your IT Department Won’t Tell You." The article discussed ways users could circumvent IT security and other restrictions, in the interest of getting their work done. Reaction came swiftly, in particular from TechRepublic editor Jason Hiner, in...
- Tags: Security, Customer Service, Information Technology, Help Desk, Calvin Sun
- Blog posts 2007-08-06
- Anticipating customer questions makes your instructions more credible
- A month ago, I had the unexpected good fortune to be able to attend the Philadelphia appearance of singer Kenny Chesney, who brought with him Pat Greene, Sara Evans, Sugarland and Brooks & Dunn.  When tickets originally went on sale, in March, they sold out in half an hour. However, a...
- Tags: Help, General, Free Tech Support, Customer Relations, support, Helpdesk
- Blog posts 2007-07-27
- 10 telephone blunders that could hurt your image
- This information is also available as a PDF download.In part one and part two of a previous article, I discussed e-mail blunders. Frankly, I was shocked at the heavy positive response to that article. I guess everyone is as annoyed as I am at the practices I described there. To...
- Tags: 10 things, Career
- Blog posts 2007-07-25
