My users are tricksy!
Some background: We are busy slowly, replacing our old desk phones with new ones as the old ones die. Hear then this message on my phone. “For the past couple of months, my phone just randomly doesn’t ring. It doesn’t happen all the time, just sometimes. I think I need a new phone!”
Simple huh? But let’s decipher this message and see what the user is really telling me. “For the past couple of months” To the untrained this might sound fine. It’s not. Honestly! Would a user put up with an issue like this for a couple of months and not call me? Yeah right! This part of the sentence is actually there to make me think she has been waiting a long time and deserves faster service than anyone else in my queue. She is hoping this will increase the urgency of her request. Users do this often, try to really listen to what they are not saying.
Next is “my phone just randomly doesn’t ring. It doesn’t happen all the time, just sometimes.” The use of the word “randomly” ensures I cannot duplicate the problem, but the user can then insist that it happens when I am not around. This user is obviously a pro. She knows all the tricks.
And now we get to what she is actually saying. “I think I need a new phone!” The “I think” is an attempt to soften the demand of “I need a new phone!”
So what the user is actually saying is, “I want a new phone urgently but my old phone is fine but I want a new one because everyone else has a new one”
Marvelous! Here is a simpler example. A user walks by my desk and goes, “Hi, I am trying to print a document for *insert name of senior manager here* but the printer is not working” This one is all to common. Why not just say “The printer is not working”? Why drop the manager’s name in there? It’s a trick! the user is trying to impart a sense of urgency to their request. They are saying that they need the printer looked at right away never mind what I am currently working on. Nevermind the fact that there are other printers in the building!
Do you see the lies and tricks that they use! Keep your eyes and ears open. If you become pro enough, you could actually user their own techniques on them!
24 January 2008 at 6:27 am
I am but a young padawan learner but I’ve learned how to respond to some of these tricks the users throw at me. De-constructing what they’re saying is key in determining the actual priority of their request because, apparently, their request is more important than all other requests I have.
I often get people imparting all kinds of useless information in addition to their actual request, it’s like they’re ‘padding’ their request to appear to be more important than it actually is. There’s one guy I work with that always gives me this long song and dance and history lesson before getting to the ‘meat’ of the request. I don’t care about your personal issues or your years of experience, all I need to know is “What *exactly* is the problem, and does this impact you or an entire department?”
Most of the time they try their luck. This ability to see through their nonsense and read between the lines is a very serious gift that one earns after paying their dues in Tech Support…and hey, the skill is portable too!
22 February 2008 at 8:01 pm
[...] before carpet bombing you with 500 other requests. (See this article which breaks it down further: http://fuzzylogick.wordpress.com/2008/01/23/tricksy-users/). Anyway I knew that something big was up by the way the guy nervously twitched his right eye when [...]