Paul's Tech Talk

4 ways to deal with difficult customers

PaulSeptember 22, 2021

Difficult customers

They are everywhere and nothing we can say sometimes will stop the difficult customer but that isn’t uncommon. When a customer calls because of something that has happened, you would probably also be mad. Either way, the probably is that you have to deal with them in one way or another and be able to listen to them and keep them calm. Even in IT, we deal with difficult customers. We all know those customers and they seem to always call when we least expect it. I even know that companies are scrambling to find coverage of people to cover the gaping hole for IT support. I guess this part, I am sure you’ve thought about. I guess it times to say that I got hired and have been busy with dealing with those really difficult customers who want to get the help they are paying for.

How to deal with them

So you have them on the phone or they are right next to you. Each technique can be used in any circumstance if you really think about it. These are just what I’ve noticed and seems to help with me. I know nothing I do or say sometimes will change how they will react or even deal with me but it does at least make it interesting to say the least.

Listen to them — This can be so difficult because of the way they customer is reacting to the situation. If you sit back and listen to what they are saying and make them feel like you are actually listening then it could help alleviate the situation and make the situation more bearable.
Tell them what you can do to help them — I’ve talked about this one but I will go back and talk about this. You tell them what you can do to help them and try to help them resolve their issues will help create a rapport for the customer and the problem. If you are there to help them they will make an effort to be more helpful to you.
Be Sincere — This one can seem almost like a given but you’d be surprised how people react to being sincere on the phone that you are trying to help them and be there for them. Once this one is good they are very likely to listen and stop being so difficult but that one might take some time to learn or know how to be sincere with customers.
Be ready to Apologize and say sorry — This is the best technique I could tell people because they really do want the company to apologize when the situation arises that even now. With having to deal with customers and not having enough staff that can help keep the customer calm or maybe it will calm them down even more because they wanted to hear that from the company.

Understand the situation

Now since we have talked to the customer and tried to actively listen to the customer, we are more likely to want to understand the customer. Have a script ready to ask the customers who are having a difficult time. The script is always a good idea. Here’s a good script that you can adopt:

How can I help you?
I am sorry for . . .
Let me create a ticket and schedule a time good for you to fix the issue!
While I am at it, can we get more information on what you might need and what created the issue?
Don’t forget to always thank the customer. If they feel we value them and listen to them, they will come back even if we have a bad day.

Once you have the script down and know what to go to when there are customers who might be a very difficult person. This can be a very interesting issue and can draw even more people into the bad day. Understanding the situation and listening will help you evolve to be a better support specialist. It just takes some time and know to be able to deal with those difficult customers.

Do you have a way to deal with them? Why not leave a comment and tell me what you do and how you deal with them? Is it something you’ve learned over the years or is it something you just learned last week? Why not comment and tell me about it.

So you failed one or both A+ exam Tests and Now what?

PaulSeptember 17, 2021

I failed the CompTIA A+ Core 1 Certification

I am sure you are so surprised that I am saying this with very little hesitancy. I figure those of use who had to hear the bad news should at least know we aren’t alone in the struggle of get the certification. You’re probably thinking Now what do I do? I figure you have a couple of options to consider and we’ll talk about some of the options and what you might be able to do about it. First thing you have to consider is was your score really low or just missed it like I did. I’ve been doing IT on the side for several years. You’d think I would pass it on the first try, I was so hopeful. I missed it only be a several points to get to the 675, If you’re score is really under a 100 or so, you really need to consider what you can do better next time and be more prepared. You may even keep failing CompTIA A+ for several times before you can get to the 675 or higher to pass the core 1 exam.

Now what are you going to do?

This might be the first time or even the second time that you failed the exam. You have to consider why you are doing and consider if maybe you’re not ready to get the certification. It could just be dumb luck that you didn’t get, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least consider these questions for myself and think hard and long about what I wanted and why I wanted it. I’m not sure what goals you might of set for yourself but these are some important to think about. You might even need to cry to get the frustrations and disappointment out to be able to think clearly. In the end, it’s all about how you deal with the situation that makes or breaks your intentions to get the certifications.

What’s next?

Well for me, I’m going to have to take the test again for the Core 1 Test at least. I’ve scheduled the Core 2 for the next few weeks and intend to do that one just because I have already scheduled it and might as well see if I can pass at least one exam. If I can do at least the one exam the other one will be a lot simpler for me I think. You have to consider what you are wanting to do or if you think you can pass the next exam. I’m not going to give up just because I failed the first time. I’ve gotten this far and I won’t stop going farther. I know I can pass this exam if I just work on the questions and try to keep working to my goals. Some ways you can get ready for the next time:

I know I am not going to fail the next time and if I do, at least I have the experience to learn from and getting better. I am sure I am not the only one who has had this happen before. I’ve seen videos about people failing the CompTIA A+ certifications, so I guess it isn’t just me. This is what you need to learn for yourself that you’re not alone in the struggle of getting that exam certification and we all have had to do it at least once or twice. Hopefully this helps you to know you’re not alone.

A few facts about scripting language and Why you need to know about Scripting

PaulSeptember 15, 2021

Is scripting being used in automation?

Scripting can be a powerful tool for anything in the industry from building cars to even creating orders to ship. Each one has a specific reason to be there, in all there are many reason why it makes it easier for the user to have scripting. I know in my life, scripting can be used in many different reason. For one you could have a PowerShell script to automate a process to wake the daemon or make a service synchronize a service. In all even in the Microsoft world there are services that need to be restarted or maybe just synched due to the daemon not keeping up. Having seen this and having to do it from time to time or even create a script to run every hour to keep the what ever might need to be synchronized up to date. Is that something hard to do or easy, the real questions you should be asking yourself is can you really do it and not make any mistakes? After all, we are human and bound to make a mistake or two. So we have to at least consider how any script will affect us in the long run. Scripting can definitely make certain tasks so much easier when something arises that needs to be done to a server or even process.

What are the options for a script?

Before we begin the options we have to at least consider why scripts are so vastly different from applications. The short answer is that they can’t do nearly the things applications can because they aren’t integrated into the kernel or there might be processes that the script can’t do without SU permissions and programs can have SU permissions and run in the background without any need for verification from the user. Now let’s at least talk about the options for what a script be used for or how we should at least consider it to be used. First and foremost is to restart a process, and this one is the most common I have seen in the past. I used to have to restart the Xorg services or drivers due to how the applications caused it to crash for one reason or another in Linux. This was definitely when the drivers for Nvidia and AMD were still relatively new to the Linux environment. It would on occasion need to be restarted and people started to have script to use to do that so they didn’t have to write the same codes down each time to restart the service. This was truly cutting edge for Linux to be able to use a script to restart the graphics drivers and allow the user to continue to use their computer. Another good option for tasks that can be scripted is downloading files that you might use for Windows and have them update with newest version as they are coming. You could even create a script to download all the Windows Updates on Linux just like you can on Windows to be able to install them offline if the need arises.

Scripts are just Amazing!

As you can see, I really do love to use scripts and have in the past come up with scripts that can be used for the people who use Linux or might need a script for a certain situation. Each person can come up with some truly amazing scripts to share with others to help make working in the Linux environment even more better for everyone. Do you agree or disagree? Do you have a favorite script you want to share with others? why not leave a comment and let people know your script and tell them what OS it can be used on. I am going to link a few good useful bash scripts to let you explore even more.

How to install Notepad++ on Linux Mint

PaulSeptember 13, 2021

Using Wine

I like the Windows version of Notepad++ so I thought I would at least share with you my current shell script, I usually call it install_notepad++.sh but you can call it anything you would like to use for the shell script. If you want to understand shell scripting on my site, please visit my other pages. You’ll need to make sure to allow execution of the shell script before you can use it.

install_notepad++.sh

echo y|sudo apt-get install wine-stable echo y|sudo apt-get install winehq-stable xdg-open https://notepad-plus-plus.org Echo "What's the current Version of notepad-plus-plus? (example Current version 7.9.2)" |Read Version_number wget https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/releases/download/v$Version_number/npp.$Version_number.Installer.exe wine npp.$Version_number.Installer.exe echo y|rm npp.$Version_number.Installer.exe

You can easily remove

Echo "What's the current Version of notepad-plus-plus? (example Current version 7.9.2)" |Read Version_number

if you want to use the shell without that could, You can add:

"$1" = $Version_number in the first line of the shell script. echo y|sudo apt-get install wine-stable echo y|sudo apt-get install winehq-stable xdg-open https://notepad-plus-plus.org Echo "What's the current Version of notepad-plus-plus? (example Current version 7.9.2)" |Read Version_number wget https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/releases/download/v$Version_number/npp.$Version_number.Installer.exe wine npp.$Version_number.Installer.exe echo y|rm npp.$Version_number.Installer.exe

then to use the shell script you can type:
install_notepad++.sh (insert the version numbers you are wanting to use)

Once you launch this, notepad++ will be installed. It will be under the Wine menu but can be launched like any other Linux GUI program.

Notepadqq

The next one is notpadqq which is a really good version of notepad++ but I like the look for Notepad++ better and can be used just like everything else. To install notepadqq
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:notepadqq-team/notepadqq sudo apt-get update |sudo apt-get install notepadqq

Then it will be installed in the Linux. You can also create a shell also or just copy and paste this one into the terminal. Each one of these are really useful with programming and writing scripts of many different programs.

What is your favorite program in Linux to edit or code with and why? why not leave a comment and tell people what you’re favorite editor is.

Getting the interview and how I will be ready for those questions

PaulSeptember 10, 2021

Getting that interview

I talked about the job market and how that will be more difficult to find a job. That seems to be changing for me. If you didn’t read my post about Tuesday’s call, I will go back and say it was quite a surprise to get a call 30 mins after I applied a a technical support specialist job. Fast forward two days, they call me and setup an interview time for Next Day. This would be the Thursday after the call on Tuesday and my Interview is Friday. So that’s been my week this week. I am not sure what to think, but I thought it would be a good idea to at least talk about how to know what questions they might ask me or what even if I should have questions to ask them.

Questions and Answers

Some of the questions I saw and looked over came from Indeed and other hiring sites but I compressed them into a small subset of questions and you can go back and see what they might want to ask you in your interview if you ever have one for a technical support specialist. Although this won’t be exactly what they might ask you but you should at least be somewhat prepared for the questions they ask you and have a few good answers waiting to give back to them. I am sure what you do is going to be a little bit different from company to company but you should at least have a few good answers ready.

What made you get into technical support?
What is your troubleshooting process? (see some of how I troubleshoot motherboards post issues)
Where do you see yourself in five years?
Why are you interested in Technical Support?
Why should we hire you?
What do you feel your strong Points are?
What do you feel your week points are?
What’s your strength
Why do you want to work here?
Why did you apply to our company?

These are just a few of the questions that they might ask you for a technical support job. I’ve went through as many sites as I could just to see what they might ask you but every site including Glassdoor has many different questions that might be relevant or not. No matter how well we prepare, there will be that questions that might be a surprise to you and you should approach it with the best intentions. Always remember that you are there for a reason.

Tell me about yourself?

That’s either where it begins or it ends depending on the interviewers point or if they need to know a lot about you. The one thing I can tell you and know it works is being yourself and always smiling. If they are going to hire you, that because they see potential in you. That’s pretty much how I see it. They are looking for the ideal employee but in life we rarely find that perfect person to fit the job description. This is why you should always apply for jobs that might not seem like your a good fit. You’ll know when they call you, take the ques from how they communicate with you. Are they trying to be helpful? are they trying to learn more about you? are they open to your questions? Sure you’ll have questions and that is a good sign that you want to know more about the company. Also do some research on the company and be prepared to know more about it and that way you could be ready for those types of questions.

As you can see it is a whole new world for people to hire employees but most of the time it’s just takes a little bit of effort to do the job right and nothing we say or do will ever make the greatest impact that knowing we are making a difference each and every day in someone’s life. What’s your experience been with interviews? How’d that go for you? why not leave a comment and talk about it with others who might want to know what to expect.