Over the years, certain steps – are ubiquitous – whether troubleshooting a technology issue or assessing a patient. Of course there is an emotional component in assessing a patient that usually does not exist in the realms of IT support. Sometimes, it is also necessary to shut down the emotional component of nursing – but I digress.
When a call comes in or a situation arises regarding technical concerns, there are a few things to remember.
- The user does not always say or understand what they need. Have them clarify with examples.
- Example: “My monitor is broken.” > It wasn’t plugged in.
- Example: “I can’t log into my computer.” > Actually, the user could log in to the computer, but couldn’t log in to a particular application.
- Example “My internet is too slow.” > Actually, the computer is running slow, because Excel caches files that have been recently open and depletes memory. Also, perhaps neither Excel – nor the computer – have been restarted in weeks.
- Are others around you having this issue?
- This will determine if the potential issue is system wide or localized to one user.
- Can you reproduce this issue?
- Was it a fluke – or is it an issue that will persistently interrupt your work?
- Ask the user to get a screen shot or video – when possible.
- Show the user how to take a screenshot or record a video.
- How long has this been happening and have there been any changes?
- The duration of this issue may shed light on the cause – as related to part b of the question.
- Have there been any recent changes?
- Ask the user and yourself this question.
- Were there updates, password changes, new implementations, name changes, release items, hardware changes, job role changes, changes in credentials, changes in location, etc.?
- Does anything make it better – or does the user have a work around?
- The cure may lead to the cause: “When I don’t have too many open tabs it doesn’t happen.” > Might indicate that this an issue with clearing cache or cookies.
- Does it happen in other applications?
- Example: “MModal works in everything except…” > The … application may not support the latest version of MModal.
- Ask others and read documentation.
- It can speed things up to ask others – if they have any knowledge or awareness of a certain issue.
- Depending on the company, documentation may explicitly and exactly have an item of concern named within the table of contents. Other companies may have no documentation.
- A good way to teach yourself how to fish is to ask: “Where did you find that?” or “How did you learn that?” – as a follow-up question, when asking others for help.
- Learn workflows.
- If you understand the workflows, user errors can be more easily detected.
- Also, if you don’t want to annoy your colleagues – or get poked fun at, don’t forget:
- Did you turn it on and off again?
- Did you check if it’s plugged in?
IT support can be a very rewarding undertaking that may months to gain proficiency, but a lifetime to attain mastery.