You could make a huge difference in someone’s life… or not.
This was an unexpected question I got the other day, and it really struck me as interesting.
What is Ask Leo!, after all, but a glorified helpdesk?
I have opinions. 
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Effective helpdesking
To succeed in helpdesk support, focus on your people skills, empathy, and resilience. Communicate clearly and avoid tech jargon. You’ll need to prioritize effectively. Keeping a knowledge base or FAQ can be very handy. Hone your research abilities and trust instincts developed through experience, but recognize they’re guides, not guarantees.
Helpdesk: it’s more about people than tech
I’ll assume that your protégé has the knowledge required to do the job. I have some knowledge-based suggestions, but honestly, that’s not the part that typically needs the most work.
If you’ve ever called a helpdesk or customer support center, you’ll understand that people skills are often lacking. When we encounter a shining example of helpdesk support, it’s the people skills we really appreciate.
So that’s where I’ll start.
Empathy
Learn to develop empathy for the people seeking your help. It’s important to understand that they’re just trying to get their work done, and technology has somehow interfered. They’ve probably already spent some time — time they likely consider wasted — to resolve the issue on their own before reaching out, so they’re often frustrated. The more you can show that you understand their position, the better received you’ll be.
Most aren’t interested in the whys and hows but just want an answer to their predicament so they can move on. If my drill stops working, I don’t want to know about its inner workings; I just want it fixed.
At AskLeo!, I answer questions and sneak in a little education when they aren’t looking. Education is often not what they want, but it can help them avoid future problems. When someone hands me my repaired drill and tells me that there was a way to easily resolve the issue on my own, that might be worthwhile even if it requires a little understanding of the tool. A little empathy can help a frustrated computer user be open to to a little education.
The curse of knowledge
“The curse of knowledge” is real. It’s easy to overestimate what others know because you know it and assume that knowledge in others. Most people are reluctant to admit they don’t know something, so you can’t assume they are following your response. An improperly targeted answer is as useless as no answer at all.
It’s also important not to come across as condescending. It’s a fine line to walk sometimes, but something that develops with experience.
Resilience
Do what you can to develop a thick skin.
People will take out their frustrations on you. The vast majority of the time it’s not about you — it’s the situation they find themselves in. Particularly if there’s no answer, it’s common to shoot the messenger. Empathy enters here again, but this time, use it to protect your sanity by understanding that it’s not personal, it’s the situation. (Yes, some people are a**holes, but they’re surprisingly rarer than you might think.)
Either way, you’re likely to receive some negative feedback from time to time about your company, the product you’re supporting, and yourself (trust me on this). You must be able to let that slide.
Communication skills
When I reach out to a helpdesk, I don’t care where they are or what they sound like. What I care about is that they can understand me and that I can understand them. Then and only then do I care about their ability to answer my question.
It’s all about communication. You need to use your customer’s language. I mean that both literally and within the domain of support you’re giving. It’s not helpful if you use domain-specific terminology your customer can’t understand. You might as well be speaking a foreign language because, in a very real sense, you are.
If they can’t understand you for any reason, you’ve failed before you’ve even begun.
Priorities
Related
Why Can’t I Talk to a Real Person?
There are many reasons you're more likely to be directed to online and self-help resources than talk to a real person.On a more practical note, prioritization will become a key skill.
Depending on the load (and what helpdesk isn’t overloaded?), some problems are more important than others. You’ll need to identify them and deal with them appropriately, but you’ll also need to gracefully handle the folks whose help is being delayed by higher-priority issues. You don’t want to leave the lower-priority folks hanging, but sometimes they might need to wait a little longer.
At an extremely pragmatic level, some people are more important than others as well. This verges on company politics more than tech skills.
Save your work
If you have the ability, create a FAQ or something like it so more people can help themselves. In many ways, Ask Leo! is just my giant FAQ, and I point people to existing answers here all the time.
Even if you don’t have a public-facing FAQ, it’s helpful to have a set of stock answers pre-written and ready to be copy/pasted (or tweaked if needed). I have several, and combined with some keystroke macros, they’re just a couple of keystrokes and/or clicks away.1
Along those same lines, invest in tools. Learn the tools you’ve been given and/or add tools (like keystroke macros) to make your job easier. Most helpdesks have a ticketing system of some sort, and I use something very similar for Ask Leo! questions. This allows me to track multiple simultaneous conversations without losing my mind, but it’s also designed for multiple agents so my assistants can help as well.
Research and gut feelings
Traditional advice is to develop step-by-step methodologies to diagnose problems. That’s great, as far as it goes.
You’ll also want to brush up on your research skills. I can guarantee you that as much as you think you know, you’ll be asked something you don’t. Often. Knowing how to find those answers may be more important than how many answers you know. This is an exciting time since AI is proving to be very useful in hunting down answers from around the internet. It can’t be completely trusted, but that’s why you’ll always have a job: to vet these answers and translate them into something your customers can understand.
One other thing you’ll develop — perhaps you have already — is what I’ll call a sixth sense that will fly in the face of many of those methodologies and some of your research. It’s not uncommon for me to get a question and almost immediately think, “Oh, that feels like X.” This intuition allows me to bypass the formal steps and zero in on a solution more quickly. It’s a sense that develops with experience. I’m certain it’s the unconscious mind at work. If you feel it, learn to pay attention to it; but just as importantly, never assume you’re always right. You’re not.
Do this
As I said, Ask Leo! is close to being a helpdesk, and I’m excited you’re considering that role. I can tell you it can be exceptionally rewarding. Just keep in mind that while understanding what you’re supporting is critical, so is understanding and communicating with the people who come to you for help.
Maybe you’ll publish a newsletter! I do: Subscribe to Confident Computing! Less frustration and more confidence, solutions, answers, and tips in your inbox every week.
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Footnotes & References
1: As just one example, I get asked about Google account recovery all the time. Hence, three keystrokes and a couple of clicks gets me this:
(Sorry for the form response, but I get this question A LOT.)
Please review the account recovery options as outlined in this article: https://askleo.com/access-gmail-without-phone-verification/
If Google’s recovery process doesn’t work for you — maybe you don’t have the recovery email or phone — MAKE SURE to follow Google’s instructions CAREFULLY and COMPLETELY.
If the recovery process can’t be made to work, I know of no way to recover the account. If that’s your situation I’m very sorry.
If you DO recover your account you’ll want to check the steps in this article to prevent losing it again: https://askleo.com/google-account-hacked/
Good luck!Leo A. Notenboom
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“Communicate clearly and avoid tech jargon.” I’ll sometimes use tech jargon along with a definition as part of slipping in the education.
As for AI to help with your answer. AI tends to hallucinate the technical term is make s**t up. Check the results carefully.
I saw a video on Legal Eagles about a case where lawyers used Chat GPT to help with a case, and it fabricated two legal cases that didn’t exist and even included the law book and pages where the cases were supposedly cited. If you went to those pages, the cases weren’t there because they never happened.
I have read your article – and am commenting rather than asking for help. I can assure you that your function as a help desk is very, very important. I have been working with computers for decades. My first computer was an Apple II+. I have never before had the difficulty in moving up to a new OS as I am having with the upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11. Thanks for all you do.
Since moving to my older brother’s city 10 years ago, I’ve become the IT girl for him and all of his friends. I don’t mind, I enjoy helping people.
If it wasn’t for you, Leo, I would not be as comfortable around computers and tech as I now am. My 3 tech savvy brothers treated me so badly when I was a NOOB that I decided to research and learn on my own. That’s when I found you.
What I do when someone has a problem and they want me to fix something, especially with their iPhones but computers as well, is I search online to be absolutely sure I have the right answer ( I don’t trust the AI answers) and by the time they arrive to me or I get to them, I know what and where to fix their problem. I also show them what I am doing so they can see how to find menus and such on their phones if they’d like. Androids and from Win95 to Win7 are easy for me as all of my phones have been android since 2014 and my computers have been Windows since 1998. I always tell them I can show them how to find the answer themselves if they’d like but they never do.
I recently received a Win10 laptop from a family member that switched to a tablet. So now I am learning that as well to be better prepared and probably soon to Win11.
So a big THANK YOU LEO for all you do and all that I’ve learned from you and continue to learn from you.
With regard to your “sixth sense” or “gut feeling”, I suspect you are reflecting the processes used by medical doctors, (who have been most studied) but also by virtually every agent charged with problem solving. The vast majority of human activity is governed by “heuristics” – if this, then this – conducted without conscious thought. What you are reflecting here is the ability to discern when the heuristic is appropriate, and when it falls outside.
(Liked Peggy C’s comment a lot.)
At 59, after a career in the Army, I got my first help desk job. (I’d been a geek since MSDOS days.) Well, not help desk … deskside support.
I did later work help desk, or tried to, but left after a month of misery. Sitting in a cubicle, one among many, unable to clearly see the issue the user is having was frustrating beyond hope. On the other hand, to get out from behind your desk, as in that great serial “The IT Crowd,” and see the issue yourself was a pleasure.
Going to the user was often helpful beyond what the user said the problem was. I might find a network cable not seated or the connecter broken (Army boots under a desk), the computer “not working” because the monitor wasn’t turned on, the networked printer not working because the user’s computer was pointing to a different printer. On and on. You had to be there to see it yourself.
That first job was in Iraq, and later I worked another year in Afghanistan (all wasted, we see now) plus stateside jobs supporting Army intel units. Lot of mundane cable repairs and building desks, etc, but all in the job.
The only thing I can add to Leo’s excellent (as ever) advice is to create your own reference guide, an organized and condensed set of notes in MS Word that records the fix for an obscure problem. Because months later, the details long forgotten, that problem will reappear, and this time we’ll be ready for it.
I still do this at home, with a one-page info sheet folded neatly under the Roku box for when my wife’s beloved YouTube stops working or starts working oddly. Knowing what has worked in the past is a source of strength trying to make it work in the present.
In summary, to all the aspiring help desk techs, it’s a great field requiring constant self-education. Do everything Leo said, and create your personal info guide.
I worked as a tech support agent for ATT@Home until the @Home service went out of business. Then ATT started up their own ATTBI Internet service, and the help desk firm I worked for got the contract. A bit later, ATT sold their ATTBI service to Comcast, and I supported their customers for a time, until the firm I worked for moved the local office to Canada.
At each stage of this progression/evolution, the rules of my job changed. With ATT@Home, the job was “Get the customer off the phone ASAP”. During that time, I tried to help the customer as much as company guidelines allowed.
Under ATTBI, things improved a bit, with the job being “Fix the customer’s connection issue, only if a service call isn’t required, but do so fast”.
With Comcast, the job finally became what I expected when I started. The job was then, “Try to achieve a one call resolution to the customer’s issue, if possible”.
Through all of this, I had limitations on what I could help with. I was required to only deal with the customer’s Internet connection. Anything else was outside the range of what I could deal with, so when I encountered such an issue, I tried to identify essentially what the issue was (computer, etc.), then directed the customer to the proper help desk for continued support. GNU/Linux was not supported, so I wasn’t allowed to help those customers, although the macOS was supported, so I had to learn about working with the MAC of the time, so I worked to develop a sort of support guide, not only for the MAC, but for Windows too.
One thing that surprised me was the range of attitudes I encountered, from the customer who apologized for being unable to fix their connection, to the one who was absolutely certain that their connection issue was with the service, not their computer. These users were often computer science students, or (less frequently) IT professionals.
In all cases, I informed the customer that I was required to guide them through a series of steps to confirm the issue, and fix it on the spot if possible/appropriate, or set up a service call to get a technician onsite, then I’d proceed to guide them through the steps in my guide document. Apparently, I did such a good job working with my customers that I had one user who said he wished I lived closer to Chicago, or would be willing to move there so he could hire me to work on his company’s help desk.
My personal fundamental code of conduct regarding customers was simple. Listen to the customer, and empathize with their frustration, while working on sticking to the procedures I’d set up in my guide. Remain organized, and calm, never taking anything the user said personally, knowing that (s)he was more angry about the inconvenience of their issue than with me. Hopefully, I achieved these goals.
Ernie
Agrees with my history. I was on phone support for about 3 years all together when I started, at AT&T WorldNet and Epson Connection. I was “level 2 support” (hired as 2nd level there) at Epson (through a contractor). They had me doing front line pretty much the whole time I was there. So much for being 2nd level (escalation support), lol. I had a 90%+ first call answer rate in the call center that had an average down around 30% at the time.
(noting Steve_k2 above) A major issue with telephone support is you _must_ visualize what the user is seeing and doing, you _must_ have the flexibility to pivot if you hit a wall and you’re like “they said this… that’s not possible where they’re supposed to be… they’re not lying… what else can it be??”, I believe “patience” was left out of the list. You have to have patience and you have to focus. Telephone support (without remote desktop) is definitely the most challenging type of support. It should be higher than some of the others.
Leo is spot on. I would provide emphasis on “Traditional advice is to develop step-by-step methodologies to diagnose problems.” you really need to have these skills throughout your carreer, but what he says about the 6th sense will especially show up in an encapsulated environment (they only have so many programs and hence tend to have certain issues with certain symptoms). And besides that, your 6th sense is sometimes wrong. . . then you fall back on Traditional. But 6th sense will be achieved more broadly as well with time. Do not make the mistake at first of “oh I did X when that happened last time” and go do it if it’s only the 2nd time.. I’d wait until you have some practice with the issue (10 or 20 times) or you have broader knowledge over-all of your environment. (do Traditional a lot, especially in your first year and especially in the first 3 months when you switch companies)
FAQ — definitely. I was never really in a place to publish answers really, I kept a text file, and I tried to document tickets well because our help-desk software at Amgen, Inc had the ability to search previous tickets. So, while that’s not a very handy feature (or wasn’t at the time) it might help someone in a jam. I kept an MS Word document, and occassionally sent an email with things I found to other techs, I spoke with techs in my area once in a while. Also I was answering some questions by email with step-by-step (snag-it screen shots, pasted in) so I would copy my sent emails into a series of folders I had in Outlook .. organizing by name of topic. Once in a while I’d end up using that for myself, and also once in a while (more often) I’d send those on to someone who asked a question. You have to realize that the emails have a shelf life though. The environment changes and they’re either no longer relevant, e.g. your company switched OS’s the process to answer is different, etc… (or the software changed)
When I started at Amgen, I had assumed they would want me to limit myself in certain ways to certain answers, and I had to ask a few times “where’s the limit”… Basically with time I found that they had no limit as long as you stayed to solutions within their environment. (at that time 2010-2017, I have no idea what they do today) Also “no limits” is within reason — I knew they were keen about security, so I tried not to touch their security software much. For example, they had Office for everyone, you wouldn’t go download Free Office. . . You’d just fix their MS Office. They had about 3 versions to choose from though, at any moment . . . (the last one, the current one, the one they were testing for future deployment) Amgen has/had a 30,000+ system deployment though. They had a good sized budget and a catalog of 100’s of software apps.
As per the topic of research — google has changed with time, it used to be pretty easy to hunt down issues. If you keep in mind if an app is more than a few months old, someone has very likely already come across your problem. If it’s years old, you likely never have to ask on a forum. Find alternate ways to ask questions about problems and consider your question carefully, and consider the titles carefully. I’d often open a variety of stuff around a topic and start by skimming a couple of them then read the one that sounds like it converges the right concepts for what I thought the problem was. Use that middle mouse button (open in new tab).
Also on the topic of research — You should be doing less of it with time, _especially_ in an enclosed environment, and _especially_ if you’re learning your profession. Learning doesn’t mean memorizing. (to heck with that, my whole life my memory has been bad, I have high IQ, low memory, and can’t stand memorizing anything rote.. lol) “knowledge worker” yah right. not memorized knowledge.
One last point that I got screwed on. Don’t stay in a low position for more than 2 years. Probably not in any position. Get a raise, at least get a position bump (level 1 to level 2, etal..), then when you hit the higher echolon of pay lay off ladder climbing so much and look around carefully. The next positions up might be a lot more work than the additional pay is worth, if that’s the case make sure there’s something after that that is worth it.
Hope this all helped someone and gave you a perspective.
I worked in tech support at Microsoft for 10 years. There were many times I was ready to get up and walk out due to the lack of tact and knowledge of the callers who prefaced their issues with, “I’ve been in IT for X-number of years and I know what I’m doing. Your software is a piece of –!” I found the best course of action was to sit quietly and let them vent, and when they were done I’d ask if they’d done whatever I knew to be the answer. Sometimes I’d hear, “Um, no,” and then I’d walk the caller through doing it and the caller would be dumbfounded when it resolved the issue. Sometimes I’d hear something like, “Why in the world would I have to do that?” I’d respond by suggesting we try that to see if it helps. In both cases, sometimes I’d get a “Thanks, sorry I yelled at you,” and sometimes I’d get blasted about “my” stupid software.
The “trick” to being successful in tech support is to be knowledgeable, empathetic, patient and also to have a thick skin.
And to Listen Very Carefully to exactly what the customer says they’ve done, then walk them through step by step, never making any assumptions about things that are so automatic they don’t think to mention that they did or didn’t do this. If they say “I already did this and it didn’t work” then maybe there’s something they do or don’t do that they didn’t even notice – even silly things like forgetting to press the Enter key.
Classic case from way back in my past, a customer complained that their Intel development system wasn’t working & did an expensive call-out. Intel engineer walked in, switched on the mains supply to the extension chassis and walked out again.
I would be the customer calling the Help Desk, and this is how I try to behave.
If I get someone being sharp with me I try to imagine they may have just got off the phone with someone who thought yelling was the way to go. My mom always taught me that honey will get more than vinegar.
When they ask me to reboot,unplug, count to 10 etc. I just do it now, even though it was likely the first thing I tried. No point arguing.
And I am always thankful and express my gratitude when they fix it for me.
It was super interesting reading the Help Desk experiences of Leo’s readers.
Before requesting help, I first research and try to find the answer, usually looking through forums. If the question hasn’t been asked, and there’s a suitable forum will post my question there.