Cutomer service in the IT field

Customer service in the IT field.



This is one of the most missed skills that I see in our industry. Traditionally we were a culture of nerds and brains. Times have changed for a lot of us in this profession and from now on if we hope to be successful, we need to pick up this valuable skill of CUSTOMER SERVICE. I have been on several interviews and have been told by every hiring manager that they would hire a decent skill wise likable person over a 50 pound know it all Brain everyday. The goals of this blog is towards IT workers who are customer facing. I’m going to go over a few key points on the basics and we will build on these as time goes on. I’ll start with talking to others on the phone.


1. A phone call from a customer (notice I’m not using END USER) is not a disruption of your daily duties. If they weren’t calling you wouldn’t have a job. How you deal with people here is key. Feel genuinely concerned about their issue. Even if you don’t have time to address you can open up a ticket if you have a ticketing system or tell them a time you can schedule it on your calendar. Tell them there problem is important and we will jump right on it. Do not give out times to get their problem fixed unless it’s a scheduled time to meet up. If they ask what causing the problem tell them you are investigating. Keep them informed through IM’s emails or simple courtesy call. The phone call is not about solving the problem or showing off how smart you are, Its to get the customer to feel warm about the service you are providing and them not being afraid to call in or open a ticket. This was focused more towards help desk and NOC types, but lets talk about the advanced workers of this field who are some of the worse offenders

2. When you are calling out trying to find information please introduce yourself who you work for, and why you are calling. Give the customer time to digest that all. Don’t assume the person on the other end has any clue about the IT world. Ask them who can you talk to that would know the information your asking or requesting. Now their lot of times you would be faced with another IT guy/gal on the other end of the phone. This is where a lot of conflict can start. Be the nicest person you can be and address them with respect. This goes a long way. There was a time that I was taking over routers from one network to ours. Those people were scared that they would be loosing their jobs. You should expect to be met with hostility in these types of situations. Let them know you are just here to do a job and that they should talk to management if they have a problem with what’s going on. Sometimes you talk to these people on the phone and other times its our 3rd topic on site.






3. When you work on a customer’s site, there are all types of situations that you can deal with and encounters you have to be able to overcome. Hopefully your employer screened you well prior too you going on site, or they are just setting you up for failure. Some basic quick rules. 1. Be on time. Be on time. Be on time. If you have a set time that you are suppose to be at work be their 15 min prior too. If you walk in at 8:00 and you are suppose to start at 8:00 you are late. Make an effort to be there 15 min prior.

- Personal appearance. You don’t have to be Mr GQ, but you have to present yourself as neat and clean. For those on a budget Old Navy and Tjmaxx are good places to start. Make sure you have a haircut and a decent shave no matter what type of hairstyle, even if it’s a Mohawk, braids, dreads, or an Afro. Clip your nails and brush your teeth. These may seem so simple, but I see this everyday and its gross.

- Clean your work area. Make sure there is no old food or napkins laying around. Keep them tucked away and if you don’t’ have storage bring one in. Keep clutter on your desk to a minimum. People don’t go to the guy with the messy desk.



All and all these are just some of the basic things that will give you an edge from the other guys you work with. Being a person people won’t be afraid of or scared to call will take you further than the brain nobody wants to speak too. I can follow these up with detail later on if there’s interest.

Boson Netsim Tshoot Review

I seen this product and decided to give it a go. You get 3 exams each with around 8 questions and question 9 is the troubleshooting portion. You launch questions 9 and it has 12 trouble tickets each with 3 question a piece. So lets get started.

Installation was the usual purchase, download and verification. I installed it on windows 7 inside VMware on a MacBook Pro with no problems. For the review I will only go over 1 of the exams I took. The first 8 questions were about the covered exam topics as far as what the console errors mean, some NTP, and a few drag and drops that should be pretty easy for most engineers. Now onto the SIMs

When you launch the T/S portion the topology is very similar to the current Tshoot Topology that you have access to on cisco's website. You have several Vlans and a frame switch for layer 2. OSPF, EIGRP, BGP, are thrown in there for layer 3 all make there appearances for layer 3. IPV6, as well as Nat, HSRP, are well represented.

So when I 1st got to the sims I was upset that a lot of commands that I have become use to aren't' represented like using the | commands to get to what you really need. Traceroute seems to be hit or miss depending on the device and sim. Also I did get a lot of errors when I 1st purchased the test. Through a lot of the updates those seem to have been Ironed out. The trouble ticket themselves are very good. You get the report of what the problem should be and you use your knowledge of Routing and switching and IOS to find the problem. What I find the best about this setup is getting down a good T/S methods. I have only taken one of the exams, but I assault each ticket the same way. I start with the PC. Check setting and move on. If the trace route is working I go as far as I can or work my way back from the last device that has connectivity. I do the basic checking of layer 1 move up to 2 and onto 3. Using the top down method here really doesn't work since we have no access to the higher levels so I find bottom up the be the way to go. Also no real layer 1 issues found in my tickets so far, but that could change in other exams.


Over all would I purchase this? Yes I do recommend it cause it gets you familiar with how to take on each problem. A structured approach is the best way to solve this beast. With that knowledge ingrained in your head you should be able to do pretty well on the exam even possible answer some questions correctly without true knowledge of the real problem.

Just a Rant about being a MAC user in a PC world

In today's world we have a lot of options when it comes to owning computers. We have PC, MAC's and Linux users. All have there advantages, but sometimes people just make some things hard. I was able to get a legit copy of Office for my MAC for 10 dollars. However if I purchased the PC version I could get a upgrade to Visio for 5 extra bucks. WHERE IS THE DAMN MAC VERSION. A large number of us have bee switching to MAC's for quite a while and we still don't have VISIO, we still dont' have SECURE CRT, or Even PUTTY. we are left with Iterm, ZTERM and several 3 party clones of software we really need. Most of you are saying "just use VMWARE and get a copy of the software you need there" Thats insane. Thats too much money spent on software. Companies should just make the software we need and port it over if there is enough interest.

IPV6 in 2010

As most of us already know IPV6 is here. I passed the BSCI with only a few basic IPV6 questions, I didn't even have to lab anything up. Now in the TSHOOT world you can expect a few labs from it.

So what have I been doing?


I have been following cisco's guides to setting up IPV6 in a few of the operating modes? I worked basic connectivity between 2 routers then moved onto some of the tunneling methods and just getting a general understanding of it all. Below is the link that I used to setup some tunnels over RIP/OSPF and BGP. It all works in GNS3. I will post a .net file if there is any interest.



It all works pretty simple. I think the biggest hurdle is getting understanding of how the addressing works. All of our favorite IGP's have showed up in new form so get use to them all. Not too many major changes, What I like is that you have to enable them on the interfaces now. This saves a ton of confusion I think.




So far so good. I imagine that I will have to spend a good week getting a decent understanding and then another few days of labbing and I will be good to go for this section of the Tshoot exam. There is a decent amount of IPV6 in the CCIE, so its either study now or study later

Welcome

This is another blog about the day and life of a cisco engineer.

Why the name Urban Cisco Engineer?

I happen to work in the Washington DC area and deal with a lot of urban networking issues/

Current job?

I work as a WAN engineer on a decent size network in the city.

My past?

Served several years in the navy as a fire controlman. I have no idea how I got into being a network engineer. Since the navy I did my time at the NOC and moved on quickly to what I consider to be a dream job and I'm loving 95 percent of the days.


What to expect here?


I will write about new technologies as I learn about them and my work towards certification goals. I usually learn something new everyday and even if its something I should know at this level when the light bulb starts going crazy its a since of understanding and being able to apply that knowledge and I hope to share those experiences with you.



Current Projects

I'm currently doing the usual network engineer stuff. Turning up sites, invesitgating problems and providing Tier 3 support for the NOC. I do have a huge voip project cooking up and we already have 2 sites up. I hope to share some of the up's and downs with you.




Current certification goals



Finishing up my TSHOOT exam which will make me a CCNP.