1-9. Technical Support

1-9. Technical Support

 

Ken: Our quality control department is changing ourtechnical support from a help desk to a call center.

 

Monica: My internship experience was with email-basedsupport. It was difficult with a customer who had no technical background. Itonly works with system administrators.

 

K: Yes, and most of our customers want to call us directfrom the trouble spot rather than going through the system administrator.

 

M: How will you organize your call center? Around a hub,taking calls in turn?

 

K: No, it will be multi-tiered (多层次). The initial call will betaken by a Level-1 frontline technician (/tɛk'nɪʃən/, 技术人员) whowill decide how to handle it.

 

M: Can the Level 1 techie (/ˈtɛki/, 技术员) solve the problem if it’sa simple one?

 

K: Oh yes, 70-80% of calls will be handled quickly.Solutions like checking hardware, rebooting to clear the hard drive and see howthe applications come up…the basics are usually the customer’s problem.

 

M: So Level 2 is advanced trouble shooting? Does thattechnician go to the site?

 

K: Yes, but only if another check over the phone doesn’t work.Then the Level 2 person can take the right equipment to get the customer up andrunning fast.

 

M: What if that doesn’t work?

 

K: Level 3 is high end, when the team leader of the originalproject gets involved. He or she knows the history and the customer well. Theremay be need for further design and testing.

 

M: Sounds like I would start in Level 1, then?

 

K: Yes, part-time. We don’t assign any engineer to techsupport fulltime – unless you love it and want it! We want you working onprojects so you can do Level 2 and 3 eventually.

 

M: I like the plan!