Mind of a technician – The Art Of Working Under Pressure.

In this post I’m sharing the “Art Of Working Under Pressure”  6 techniques that I use and work for me almost all the time no matter the situation; from 10% to 100% system severity. There could be multiple causes to why a working system is no longer working the way it should. For instance the client will call for service and expect to fixed on the first try with no further issues or no more bad news!… it never fails.

My 6 Techniques are:

1. Communicate with your teammates.
2. Punctuality.
3. Take a moment to review.
4. Dealing with the inevitable.
5. Developing a Plan.
6. Concluding your site visit.

1.- Communicate with your teammates.

Call your service dispatcher or implementation manager to fill you in first on what is going on with the angry customer that wants your antiquated system ripped off the wall and replaced right away. You need to know exactly how severe the situation is, before getting there.

2.- Punctuality.

Give yourself half hour to start getting ready to tackle this issue. If for some reason you find yourself stuck in traffic or any weather related issue stop you from getting there on time. You have the right to call your customer to give them the heads up. Always important to gather their contact information such as cell phone numbers or building management/maintenance numbers to be able to get hold of them.

To be able to talk to them will ease the pain a bit. I go as far as emailing them so they have my email in case they rather use this method of communication.

3.- Take a moment to view the situation

Come up with the best way to start tackling the problem. Always good to relax and put yourself in your customer’s shoes to better understand how stressful this is for them.

Quick test tips=

• Check power
• Dial extension to extension
• Dial voicemail (keep in mind if they have an automated attendant answering all calls and the voicemail is bad, it will cause busied signals when calling the main number)
• Check Trunks and Smart Jacks.

4.- Dealing with the inevitable.

As a technician/engineer you will find yourself dealing with problems out of your reach. Here is when the pressure creeps in causing stress, bad judgement and an sometimes we can react in a negative way causing a bad customer experience. I will suggest an overview of the situation and develop plan of attack, then comeback to update your customer with the prognosis.

5.- Developing a Plan

You most likely might need replacement parts unless, the problem was related to an environmental issue or Service Provider related. Here is your to do list=

• General Outage
• For Service Provider Issues – Request a copy of the phone bill to collect account numbers, verify that there is no general outage in your area.
• Environmental Issues
• Electric, Battery Backups, Overheating due to bad HAVC equipment.
• Defective Equipment
• Have the AE (Account Executive) call the customer with pricing and part replacement quotes if there is no maintenance agreements in place. You should never get involve in updating the customer in how soon the equipment will arrive or ordered, and pricing.

6.- Concluding your site visit

By now you should have a happier customer with a fixed solution or at least a game plan to get them back up and running.