phyllostachys 53: Minute Tech 38 show notes

38 - How do you answer a Help Desk call?

Good morning, this is Alex Landefeld with episode 37 of the Minute Tech podcast -

coming to you for Monday, November 26th , 2007

On this tech podcast about the broader meanings of technology, we'll mention:

- the youtube video "the office is closed"
- How do you answer a Help Desk call?
- the short-format podcast - listening to others.

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Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:

Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Wu Style Taiji - 9:30 every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA.
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.

And:

Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207@alltel.net.


Tech News:

(1) Have you seen the "The Office is Closed" youtube video? Greg Daniels and Paul Lieberstein, co-executive producers of the popular NBC sitcom "The Office" discuss the Writers Guild of America strike against their own show, detailing the lack of pay for internet distribution and production as the reasons why they are striking. Is this right? Should they be striking? Do we even understand what they're striking against? Actually, forcing the large content networks to quantify how workers get paid for online content could be a very good thing for writers and producers worldwide, as content creation and production will only be a growing phenomenon over the next several decades, so go WGA!


Tech Question:

The tech question for today, and essentially for this week, "How do you answer a Help Desk call?" is the culmination of the constant mental thrash of what to write about. In the end, however, answering help desk calls quickly, efficiently, politely and effectively is what I do and do well at the moment, so here goes. Today I'll just review for you a typical call; in subsequent episodes this week we'll review some of the techniques for helping the typical set of callers.

A typical call might go something like this:

"[current organization] Help Desk, Alex speaking, how may I help you?"

"Hi, I need help with this brief I'm working on, the lines aren't lining up with the line numbers."

"Okay" I say, "what's the document number?"

In my current work environment, the client has a firm-wide document management system, abbreviated as DMS. A document management system allows for all documents, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Visio, Adobe Acrobat and MP3 files to be stored on a network server that has nightly tape backups run, and for they documents to be catalogued in a database front-end that allows for easy categorization, searching and retention.

"999999999, version 12" comes the answer from the caller. Generally, I'd ask the user's login code to enter into my call tracking software program...but sometimes the flow of the call is such that I can get that code a number of ways. In this instance, as the caller quickly supplied a document number, I can get the login code from their document usage history on the DMS.

"Okay, I'm searching for the document now" I say as I choose which of the firm-wide document libraries the document might be located in. Each of the 20-plus offices of the client firm has a different document numbering schema, so the office location can be identified easily by mentally equated the doc number with the office.

"I've found your document. As you're currently in it," I say, seeing the tell-tale on the database front-end showing the document is in use, "I'll pull up a copy".

"That's fine" the caller says. "I just need a quick guide on this".

As I open the document, I see the problem. This is a court pleading with double-spaced paragraphs and special line numbering down the left-hand margin, which allows courts to reference sections of a document more easily. The paragraphs are not lined up properly with the margin lines, which can be a quick fix".

"I see that your document has no headings through the document, so, just change your paragraph spacing from double-spaced to Exactly 24 pts, and your text will line up with the line numbers".

The caller does this and notes happy surprise that this has fixed her document.

"Oh, thank you. That looks much better. Now we can file this document electronically in 10 minutes. What was your name again?"

"Make sure you save the document next," I advise. "My name is Alex. Please call us back if you need further assistance", I say, just before ending the call.

Podcasting - Blogging News:

The optimum podcast length and content model - what is this? Everyone has their own length, their own method for putting things together. My listening goal this next week will be to find a couple of other short podcasts and listen to their shows to see how they accomplish this format. I'll listen to some more of Christopher S. Penn's Financial Aid Podcast, and John C. Dvorak keeps mentions on This Week in Tech that he has a short-format podcast too. I think it's called Tech 5 - I'll download those shows and listen to them, too. John has a rather dry sense of humor and comes up with rather pointed opinions about technology...so this should be an interesting "listen".

Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com

"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"

- the youtube video "the office is closed"
- How do you answer a Help Desk call?
- the short-format podcast - listening to others.

Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.