Need Help with Examples of Angry/Difficult Customers for IT Helpdesk Interview Question

Llaruku on 17/07/2016 - 20:48

Hi guys, I need help with actual example of IT Helpdesk interview question "give an example when you deal with difficult/angry customer and what did you do to solve the issue?"

I have been working as IT support for short period and preparing for an interview, and to be honest I have not had any situation where I need to deal with difficult customer.

In the past I have tried to use below example, but I feel like it's not even a situation about difficult customer but more like the responsibility of helpdesk person.

"Service request was raised but still unassigned within few hours. Customer was not happy and he followed up. I realised at that time most of team members were busy and away from their desk.
I took the responsibility to assign the SR ticket under my queue. I rang the customer, listened carefully to what the customer had to say, I apologised and confirmed my understanding of his concern.
I explained the situation as we also had different numbers of incidents and SR which needed to be prioritised.
I assured the customer that the ticket in my queue and I gave him specific timeframe when the SR can be fulfilled, and he agreed that he can wait until the SR can be done."

Could anyone who have been working as helpdesk or support please share your experience.

Education & Work

Comments

  • skrep on 17/07/2016 - 20:58
    +1

    psexec.exe (computername) cmd
    format c:\

    close ticket and watch your count go up.

    • ulun-lpg on 17/07/2016 - 21:25

      antivirus usually picks up psexec.exe and block it from running. (Sophos did)

  • thatonethere on 17/07/2016 - 21:51

    If you are being interviewed internally - this question could be a TRAP. If you do use an example, make sure that the call records verify what you say in interview.

    This kind of question is pretty basic to respond to generically as you don't have to prove anything - the only test is whether you do what you say after a long day and the 100th time your team has abandoned a customer…

    I recently interviewed and hired a person - they said they could cope with pressure etc blah blah blah. References checks said yeah cool under pressure. Ok hired. First major incident they were vomiting and hyperventilating in the car park.

  • SnoozeAndLose on 17/07/2016 - 21:52

    Base on your described example you should not ever met any angry customer.

    What if the specific timeframe can not be met?? may be the SR is not bale to fulfill again and again. i.e. one week timeframe but three week and still not able to fulfill I am sure you will get an angry customer.

    I am not working as a help desk but I am a IT professional which need to rely on IT support to fulfill their ticket, most of the time they are OK but sometime take age with constant follow up, every time when I follow up they just said it will be escalated and will get back to me soon, which never did.

  • airzone on 17/07/2016 - 23:48

    Usual issues relate to why people cannot have a personal printer on their desk, or why they can't have admin rights, or why they can't use educational licenses in a commercial environment.. It's mostly an educational exercise, even if it doesn't work out in their favour.

    However..

    I had an angry guy steaming from the ears that spotify wouldn't work and he got busted by the boss with youtube - "so that he could listen to his music". The default configuration required firewall ports to be opened. I didn't exactly leave him as a delighted customer though.. lol.

    1) Spotify and youtube aren't enterprise apps, so we don't support them
    2) I'm not opening ports for non-enterprise apps as we won't tolerate the additional risk
    3) A search on google will show how to switch spotify to use tunnel across https, per point 1, you have to figure it out yourself
    4) Per policy, personal use should be incidental and not have an impact on business operations. Now you've brought your habits to my attention, I am rate-limiting your internet speeds on known streaming services so ensure no impact..
    5) If you have any problems with the above, talk to your manager.

    Anyway, I show this not as an example where keeping everyone is happy, but as an example of where being aggravating can be a useful tool - and in this case it was part of a longer term game plan to reel his loose cannon manager back into compliance.

  • pjetson on 18/07/2016 - 09:03

    I love to joke about asking the customer whether they still have the box that the computer came in, and if they do, to then ask them to carefully pack everything up and send it back with a note saying that they are too (profanity) stupid to own a computer.

    Of course, that's not going to get you the job :-)

  • davlap on 18/07/2016 - 09:18

    Keep getting told to use
    STAR - Situation Task Action Result
    for answering these types of questions.

    Your answer to me is just an average everyday event in a helpdesk. Try to think of something special, that you achieved something or went the extra mile.

    Not criticising, but I am looking myself at the moment and due to companies being overwhelmed with applications, you need to stand out.

    I find these questions a real pain 90% of the time, nothing out of the ordinary happens.

    Heres mine
    S Mr Angry calls; New version of app not working on his PC. Nobody will help him every time he calls, which from the call log has been a few times now.
    Has critical work to do, and crap app won't run when it was fine before.
    T Checked it out and according to spec, nothing much else can be (or has been) done Explained new s/w version which your company bought don't run grotty old Vista, needs to upgrade his o/s which is very out dated.
    A Told him I would look into it further, but no promises. Spoke with dev team who agreed to provide a work around.
    R customer happy as he has some urgent work to complete and told me his boss has agreed to upgrade o/s thanks to me explaining the situation properly

    Not great, but shows you don't just take the easy way out (like the others did), some initiative on your part, collaboration with other teams and a happy outcome. Maybe a bit too much story telling. Keep it short and sharp, but a bit of the critical need stuff, or them threatening to stop using the s/w etc makes the situation seem more important

  • [Deactivated] on 18/07/2016 - 15:40

    You should always sexualise your response with difficult customers, it gives your the upper hand.

    Example:
    Angry customer: You idiot my computer is broken.
    You: I am not wearing any pants.
    Angry customer: silence

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