crossposted - on communication
Once upon a time back when I was working tech support for a hospital system, we had an important call, where a significant part of the system was down such that the hospital couldn't use it*. Several of us spent the next hour trying all manner of different things documenting extensively, probably (this is well over a decade ago) talking back and forth with the network people on the site as well. Our boss called us into his office to talk with him. Asked us how the call was going. We told him everything we'd been trying and how we'd been working on nothing but this call since it came in. We were a bit confused as to why he seemed unhappy.
When was the last time we'd talked with the actual customer?
Um.
Looking through the call log, apparently not since the call first came in.
Which would explain why the customer was livid, and had escalated to our boss, thinking we'd been ignoring their problem, even though we'd been doing our best to fix their problem from the moment they reported it.
It was an important lesson. Customers aren't psychic. Neither are most people you encounter. It doesn't matter what you know you're doing or thinking - they won't know until you tell them.
It's why keeping people posted is important. And why I try to remember to send a note when I think of people, even if I don't have all that much more to say (not that I've been good at this of late.)
Need to run off to a parade, now.
*I may be misremembering what was wrong
This entry was originally posted at https://vvalkyri.dreamwidth.org/1646985.html. You can add to the
comments there using OpenID, or here is okay too.
When was the last time we'd talked with the actual customer?
Um.
Looking through the call log, apparently not since the call first came in.
Which would explain why the customer was livid, and had escalated to our boss, thinking we'd been ignoring their problem, even though we'd been doing our best to fix their problem from the moment they reported it.
It was an important lesson. Customers aren't psychic. Neither are most people you encounter. It doesn't matter what you know you're doing or thinking - they won't know until you tell them.
It's why keeping people posted is important. And why I try to remember to send a note when I think of people, even if I don't have all that much more to say (not that I've been good at this of late.)
Need to run off to a parade, now.
*I may be misremembering what was wrong
This entry was originally posted at https://vvalkyri.dreamwidth.org/1646985.html. You can add to the
comments there using OpenID, or here is okay too.