- TechRepublic Author Biography
Sometimes the users drive you mad but would we have it any other way?I work as a field service engineer in England. My experiences of Helpdesk and customer service date back over 15 years and I have personally experienced every helpdesk 'Urban Legend' there is. When I was the Helpdesk...- more about Jeff Dray »
TechRepublic Resources
- Expect the unexpected
- There was a ripple of consternation around my team this week, I was despatched to look at a printer that was apparently freezing up after just a few pages. The type of printer was one that doesn't normally give us much trouble, apart from wearing out after a very...
- Tags: Board, Coin, Printers, Corporate Governance, Hardware, Peripherals, Business Operations, Corporate Law, Jeff Dray
- Blog posts 2008-05-09
- Being part of a team
- When you work on the road, you spend a lot of time alone, and it is very easy to forget that you are part of a team. I am reminded of part of a poem by John Donne (1572-1631) English metaphysical poet: No man is an...
- Tags: Team, Call, Team Management, Recruitment & Selection, Management, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Jeff Dray
- Blog posts 2008-05-02
- How much do you use role play in training?
- The thought of role play sessions on training courses often makes the blood run cold, especially when it is employed to teach soft skills. I remember doing a course on phone skills when the trainer recorded role play phone calls. Unfortunately, she played them back to the whole...
- Tags: Role, Board, Student, Training, Corporate Governance, Workforce Management, Telecom & Utilities, Business Operations, Corporate Law, Human Resources, Jeff Dray
- Blog posts 2008-04-25
- 10+ dangerous species of help desk callers
- During my years working in IT support, I have become more and more interested in the many types of people who call IT help desks. Like a biologist, I have found that having a classification system is critical in understanding the users I help on a daily basis. With this...
- Tags: Caller, Species, Computer, Expert, Userus, Pig Pen, Help Desk, Call Centers, It Operations, Jeff Dray
- Blog posts 2008-04-25
- Recognising the signs of help desk burnout
- Do you find help desk work to be a chore lately? Is it hard to get up in the morning and get yourself into the office? Are you finding it harder to pick up the phone and sound cheerful and interested? Do the users get on your nerves these days,...
- Tags: Help Desk, Call Centers, It Operations, Jeff Dray
- Blog posts 2008-04-18
- Giving support can be a two way street
- I've been knocking around in the support world for a fair few years now, and the more I learn, the more I realise that I don't know it all. I suppose I have my own way of working and my own habits. I use a PC in much...
- Tags: PC, Windows Key+Break, Microsoft Windows, Desktops, Productivity, Operating Systems, Software, Hardware, Jeff Dray
- Blog posts 2008-04-10
- Streamlining support, getting the job done
- This week I witnessed IT support as it should be. Last weekend Britain switched from Greenwich Mean Time to British Summer time, a painful annual event that deprives us of an hour's sleep during the last weekend in March. Most Windows-based PCs will, unless other controls...
- Tags: Job, PC, Information Technology, Recruitment & Selection, Microsoft Windows, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Operating Systems, Software, Jeff Dray
- Blog posts 2008-04-05
- 10 ways for support techs to stay healthy and safe on the job
- As winter gives way to spring, many people are struggling into work with colds and influenza, which they may pass along to co-workers -- and to you. In fact, as a deskside tech person, you could easily become infected yourself and then pass the bug on to the next user...
- Tags: Job, Cold Calling, C, Vitamin, C/C++, Sales Tools, Recruitment & Selection, Programming Languages, Software Development, Software/Web Development, Sales, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Jeff Dray
- Blog posts 2008-04-02
- Are you a good listener? How can you tell?
- Some of the skills you need on a help desk aren't immediately obvious, a good working knowledge of the technology and the company that you are supporting is a given, but the smaller stuff counts for a lot as well. Take the call I made today, where...
- Tags: Job, Phone, Call, Telecom & Utilities, Recruitment & Selection, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Jeff Dray
- Blog posts 2008-03-26
- Removing the human element from customer service removes the intelligence
- As with many organisations, ours has adopted an automated system for distributing job tickets to the field force. It is mostly a clean and efficient system and passes the calls to the correct person but, being a computer program, cannot take the human element into consideration. ...
- Tags: Customer Service, Call, Process Improvement, Team Management, Quality, Business Operations, Management, Jeff Dray
- Blog posts 2008-03-19
- 10 ways to improve your deskside manner
- When you go out of the office and meet a customer to resolve a fault or issue, it's important to use soft skills to get the customer on your side. It is a given that you will have the technical skills, or you'll know where to find them. But the...
- Tags: Customer, Honesty, Recruitment & Selection, Mice, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Hardware, Peripherals, Jeff Dray
- Blog posts 2008-03-17
- Be aware of security issues
- A lull in work caught me daydreaming yesterday afternoon. I was thinking back to my first job in IT and in particular the interview for that job. The person who became my first manager in IT asked some fairly deep-reaching questions, one of which I much...
- Tags: Computer Security, Job, Tape, Computer, Productivity, Help Desk, Recruitment & Selection, Security, It Operations, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Jeff Dray
- Blog posts 2008-03-15
- 10 ways for support techs to stay healthy and safe on the job
- As winter gives way to spring, many people are struggling into work with colds and influenza, which they may pass along to co-workers -- and to you. In fact, as a deskside tech person, you could easily become infected yourself and then pass the bug on to the next user...
- Tags: Job, Jeff Dray, Sales Tools, Blogging, Recruitment & Selection, Strategy, Sales, Internet, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Management
- Download resources 2008-04-02
- Logging the same call 300 times is no help to anyone
- Following on from my last posting, where I described the reasons for using the helpdesk to log calls, we had a bit of a run on help desk tickets this week. The PDA phones that we use in the field run a call notification program that displays...
- Tags: Help Desk, Call Centers, It Operations, Jeff Dray
- Blog posts 2008-03-10
- 10 ways to improve your deskside manner
- When you go out of the office and meet a customer to resolve a fault or issue, using soft skills can help get the customer on your side. It's a given that you will have the technical skills, or you'll know where to find them. But the way you deal...
- Tags: Customer, Jeff Dray, Blogging, Internet
- Download resources 2008-03-17
- Why users should report problems to the help desk
- Why indeed? On the team I work for I am often called upon to help with technical problems, despite the fact that I escaped from the help desk some years ago and went on the road. The usual reason given for calling me directly is that it...
- Tags: Team, Problem, Help Desk, Call Centers, It Operations, Jeff Dray
- Blog posts 2008-02-27
- 10 ways to convince your staff to use the help desk
- Help desks should constantly strive to improve their methods of client interaction. Users must feel comfortable with the help desk and know they will receive prompt, courteous, and effective support. Here are 10 practices your help desk can use to strengthen user relations and improve client utilization. ...
- Tags: Help Desk, Call Centers, It Operations, Jeff Dray
- Blog posts 2008-02-21
- 10 things you can do with unwanted computer equipment
- If your equipment cupboard is anything like the ones where I've worked over the years, you will have a good-size room stuffed with old cases, dead keyboards, broken mice, and a selection of superannuated monitors whose primary function seems to be to provide opportunities for you to stub your toe...
- Tags: Hard Drive, Performance, PC, Training, Computer, Data Privacy, World Metal Price, Desktops, Workforce Management, Hardware, Human Resources, Jeff Dray
- Blog posts 2008-02-21
- What else can the help desk do?
- The help desk does not have to confine its activities to the traditional roles of reporting faults, password resets, change requests, software advice and so on. The great asset of the help desk is that it is manned during all working hours so that if any thing...
- Tags: Help Desk, Call Centers, It Operations, Jeff Dray
- Blog posts 2008-02-17
- Outsourcing, good and bad.
- In all walks of life, services are being sold out to private contractors, IT support is outsourced, and customer service is taken out of the country on a regular basis and taken on by call centres in parts of the world where they have probably never seen the products they...
- Tags: Network, Outsource, Help Desk, Call Centers, Outsourcing, It Operations, Business Operations, Outsourcing & Subcontracting, Jeff Dray
- Blog posts 2008-02-12
