http://www.serviceuntitled.com/use-outsourced-staff-to-your-advantage/2007/05/01/ The blog about customer service and the customer service experience. Fri, 10 Feb 2012 08:35:59 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.serviceuntitled.com/use-outsourced-staff-to-your-advantage/2007/05/01/comment-page-1/#comment-471086 Service Untitled » The Technical People Barrier? - customer service and customer service experience blog Fri, 07 Mar 2008 01:07:19 +0000 http://www.serviceuntitled.com/use-outsourced-staff-to-your-advantage/2007/05/01/#comment-471086 [...] One of the most unique challenges that was my mentioned at my workshop was this one: technical people don’t like interacting with customers. I think I laughed out loud when I read the suggestion (the person who suggested it was someone I knew from before the conference), but I then remembered just how true it is (in some situations). We’ve all seen the funny videos on YouTube and similar sites making fun of socially awkward customer service (especially technical support) representatives. They don’t know what to say or how to say it, but they do know their stuff technically. The question is: how do you get them to work with customers effectively? My usual suggestion for companies dealing socially unadjusted technical support representatives is to work with them in the same way that they would work with foreign customer service representatives. Because the foreign reps don’t usually speak English as a first language, it is often difficult for them to communicate and interact with American customers naturally. The basic premise is the same; neither group is good at interacting with customers for one reason or another. [...] [...] One of the most unique challenges that was my mentioned at my workshop was this one: technical people don’t like interacting with customers. I think I laughed out loud when I read the suggestion (the person who suggested it was someone I knew from before the conference), but I then remembered just how true it is (in some situations). We’ve all seen the funny videos on YouTube and similar sites making fun of socially awkward customer service (especially technical support) representatives. They don’t know what to say or how to say it, but they do know their stuff technically. The question is: how do you get them to work with customers effectively? My usual suggestion for companies dealing socially unadjusted technical support representatives is to work with them in the same way that they would work with foreign customer service representatives. Because the foreign reps don’t usually speak English as a first language, it is often difficult for them to communicate and interact with American customers naturally. The basic premise is the same; neither group is good at interacting with customers for one reason or another. [...]

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