VoIP Troubleshooting techniques
Are you taking the right approach?
By the end of this reading ‘VoIP Troubleshooting Techniques’ you are going to be able to execute four of the most common and effective VoIP Troubleshooting ideas to help you solve the day-to-day break/fixes, and end-user VoIP issues.
Have you ever found yourself running in circles? – I certainly have and oftentimes coming to the conclusion that the answer to my problems was sitting right in front of me. Not so long ago, while working remotely, I had the opportunity to work with a particular client who was having issues with auto forwarding toll free numbers to Hong Kong from NYC. In the process of running multiple VoIP troubleshooting strategies I got myself wrapped up in something that should have taken an hour maximum, and it took me half a day. For this reason, I am listing these simple strategies that will help with VoIP troubleshooting.
- 1.- Pinpoint the goal
- 2.- Finding the core problem
- 3.- how long is too long?
- 4.- Which one to use?
Pinpoint the goal
Spend some time reading through the customer’s request and see what steps you can take before engaging the person in trouble. Preparing an early strategy will help you be prepared, sound more intelligent and more specific, and who knows maybe you can solve the problem without further course of action. I certainly have experienced this before.
Finding the core problem
After listening to your customer, explain his/her issues. Your job is to find what parts are the most critical for him/her, and what would happen if you can’t fix it. Now that you know what is the core problem, it is time to start troubleshooting. In my case, this customer had toll free numbers ringing in, and wanted them to be diverted to a different system, so I started by looking at the trunk groups and incoming-call-handling-treatment-tables.
How long is too long?
There will be times when troubleshooting will not allow you to complete your work, or satisfy your customer’s needs, for this reason always make him/her aware by providing status calls, emails, and by setting your expectations ahead of time.
The customer must understand what will happen if you can’t complete the task at hand. Depending on the severity of this issue, you may want to escalate it internally first, to get a different perspective, or fresh set of eyes to look over your progression.
In my case, I tried escalating it, but we all came back to the same conclusion, I needed the customer to take part in the testing process before I could implement my solution. This resulted in delaying the completion of service request.
Which one to use?
When having multiple ideas or suggestions, always present these to the customer and explain the Pros and Cons of each one of them. Always wait until you have a couple of good smart ones before reaching out to your customer. Now that he/she decided on which solution will be the best fit for his/her issue, it is time to implement it.
As a good rule of thumb, I like to walk the customer step-by-step through each scenario. By doing this you show them that you really care, and have put a lot of effort in to help them through the process.
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