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Professional Nerd

3 min read

You must provide your clients the sense of professionalism and give them confidence that they are protected.

Honesty & Integrity

  • Don’t create Techno-babble
  • Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know”. Say “I don’t know, but I know how to figure it out”
  • Don’t talk about customer’s confidential information, even with customers unless prompted by them

Password Loaning

If you require a user’s password for one time, ask them to type it in If you must access something multiple times, ask them to change the password temporarily

Dependability & Responsibility

Dependability: Performs agreed upon actions Responsibility: Able to answer for one’s own actions

  • So important as critical data and expensive equipment are at risk
  • Always ask to make backups

Sensitivity

Ability to appreciate another’s feelings and emotions. People ask for your help when things are broken. You need to ensure they feel safe and that you are giving your full attention to the problem

Communication

Communication is hard but so, so important

Assertive Communication

Showing the other person that you understand and appreciate the importance of their feelings. “I understand how frustrating it is to lose data”. This communication is empathetic and consoling. It is the opposite of rude communication.

Respectful Communication

Always ask to do things. “May I work on the problem now?“. Dont listen, take notes. Repeat and rephrase the problem back to the customer. If they get angry at you, they are just frustrated. Life gets busy and frantic sometimes. Maintain your confidence and assure then that troubleshooting takes a while

Getting Answers

  1. Understand their story first
  2. Ask fact-seeking questions. “When did it last work?”, “Has any new hardware been added”. Ask open-ended questions.
  3. People want to understand what you are doing. Explain in analogies or use visual aids to make concepts clearer

Timeline

Give the customer a best guess as to how long the repair will take after you have diagnosed the machine. If you can’t make a best guess, then tell the customer what else you need to know before making your judgement. Provide status updates. People don’t hate delays, they just hate unexpected delays.

Options

Several ways to fix a problem. Maybe its buying new equipment or replacing entire devices. If there are different ways to solve the issue, explain them to the user and let them decide.

Documentation

After work is completed, create documentation that includes:

  1. Description of problem
    1. Time and day of work start
  2. Solution to problem
    1. Time and day of work end

  3. of hours worked

  4. Parts replaced

Follow Up

See if the customer/user is happy with your work by calling them at a later date. Ensure that no future problems have arised and that you can have a deeper connection with them

Privacy

If a client’s personal information is accessible for you to see, ask the client or somebody else to remove this information from your sight, so you will not be held accountable for any misuse of this PII

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