It seems medium sized companies are full of bad support departments. During a speech in Chicago recently, a business owner of a decent sized company asked how he could make his support department do better work. He described them as sullen and unconcerned about how others in the company were helped, or not, by their department.
Surprised, I wondered to myself why he didn't just fire them. Isn't desktop support tech an entry level position in your company? If someone isn't working out, why keep them?
The man told me some of the things he tried. Tying job performance to the number of closed calls made the techs rush through things and close tickets before user problems were actually solved. Having users fill out evaluation forms after each service problem didn't seem to make an impression on the techs, either.
Hmm. Obviously he doesn't want to fire them, for some odd reason. The techs care not if users dislike their performance. If the techs ignore him now, adding bonuses for better performance probably wouldn't help, either. Why pay techs a bonus to get them to meet the minimum requirements for their job?
I know support jobs stink at times, and "user" is a four letter word. But we can't let the users hear us say that, can we? We can't ignore the users and blow them off and not worry about repercussions, can we?
Frankly, I didn't have a good answer for the owner, except to say that behavior problems would only be solved by working on the people, not the technology supporting them. A new tracking application won't help if the techs don't worry about losing their jobs. The only answer I could muster on the spot was to get the techs to understand where they fit into the business, learn to appreciate the users as people, and do good work so their new friends could get their own work done rather than fight their computers.
Do you have better advice? What does your company, or you, do if a support tech ignores their job description and sows ill will rather than solve problems? Let me know and I'll report the best solutions. And I'll send your suggestions to the poor guy in Chicago.
