by Caroline Tigeress

Created on: June 27, 2009

Three Little Words: Climb the Ladder

May sound rude, but it's a truth, generally the people that work in customer service on hotlines have a very specific decision tree structure that they learn when they are trained. Oftentimes, when you get someone new to the position they will attempt to do everything perfectly, and use the limited tools they have.

This is when you need to politely ask for a supervisor or someone who may have been a bit more skilled with your type of problem. Often times there will be specialization at a call center, and that's why you have to do a bit of social rooting around to make sure the person that's helping you is the right person.

If you're on, say a Toshiba laptop, with a problem with windows Vista, and the person helping you is saying that Vista is Vista; do they really understand that's not the case? They have asked you no questions about your hardware configuration. They have asked you no questions about what sort of network connection you have. They have not asked you what service pack you're running.

At this point, these need to be tip-offs to you, the caller, that they aren't asking the correct questions in order to serve your needs as a customer.

This is the point you need to start climbing the ladder a bit.

Don't get me wrong, give them a chance to do their job, and always be polite even if they are rude and confusing, but a quick query to the likes of:

"Say, would your supervisor have worked with a Toshiba laptop before? Do you have a Toshiba specialist there?"

At that point, in time, you have established their inability to assist you, and you've firmly and politely asked for a supervisor.

They might grumble a bit, but as a rule, they need to turn over (especially in a call center), as many calls as possible on their shift. If they cannot do that, they won't make their bonus, so it is at that point to make the suggestion to go to the supervisor.

Sometimes you'll get someone in a foreign land answering the phone, and that can be very trying if they have a thick accent. It's not being racist to say that you're having a hard time understanding them, and could you please speak with a supervisor. Communication breakdown is a major problem when dealing in the tech world, as it is in any relationship.

Once you've climbed the ladder, tell the supervisor directly the problem, be brief, but not blunt. Explain that the person you spoke with wasn't very helpful, but you do not blame them as an individual, as they simply did not have the knowledge you needed to fix your problem.

Most professional supervisors will understand that, and probably have a larger knowledge base. This is what you're after, and that's generally the best way of getting better customer service in the technical world.

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