How to Train Your Customer Service Agents for Tech Support

Con­trary to what some peo­ple might think, cus­tomer ser­vice and tech sup­port are not the same role. The type of train­ing and ser­vice offered are quite dif­fer­ent, though many of the skills — such as empathic lis­ten­ing, prob­lem solv­ing, and the abil­ity to de-escalate a prob­lem – are rel­e­vant in both roles.

If you need to ask your cus­tomer ser­vice agents to han­dle tech­ni­cal sup­port issues, make sure you take them through the appro­pri­ate train­ing so that they can suc­cess­fully help callers nav­i­gate tech issues. Below are five train­ing tips to incor­po­rate into your pro­gram so that your cus­tomer ser­vice agents won’t feel un-prepared when tech sup­port calls start com­ing in.

Step 1: It starts with the greeting

How a tech­ni­cal sup­port call begins is impor­tant. Have your team start the call off on the right foot with the cus­tomer by under­stand­ing how to deliver a greet­ing that is not overly curt, nor too lengthy. Here are a few pointers:

• Estab­lish in the greet­ing that the caller has reached tech sup­port. Have the agent pro­vide his or her name to make the call more personal.
• Don’t use greet­ings that are too lengthy – keep the greet­ing short, descrip­tive, and to-the-point.
• Coach your team to sound friendly and happy to help solve the issue.

Step 2: Active listening

Fol­low­ing the greet­ing, your agents should ask what type of issue the caller is deal­ing with. In this active lis­ten­ing phase, the agent should care­fully lis­ten as the caller describes the prob­lem. Make sure the agent gath­ers per­ti­nent infor­ma­tion, such as the soft­ware ver­sion the caller is using, the year/model, and any other tech­ni­cal aspects that will aid in diag­nos­ing and fix­ing the problem.

After the caller has described the issue, the agent should para­phrase the prob­lem back. This serves two pur­poses: It com­mu­ni­cates to the caller that the agent has heard and is lis­ten­ing, and it ensures that the cor­rect issue is noted.

Step 3: Apol­o­gize, empathize, reassure

In the third step, the agent will reas­sure the caller that the issue will be han­dled prop­erly. The agent should apol­o­gize only when your com­pany, company’s prod­uct, or a sup­plier to your com­pany is to blame for the prod­uct defect. Then, the agent can offer empathic words, such as “I know this must be really frus­trat­ing for you, and I’m sorry it’s tak­ing time out of your day to work on this issue.” Finally, the agent can offer reas­sur­ance to the caller, let­ting the cus­tomer know that the agent will per­son­ally over­see res­o­lu­tion to the problem.

Step 4: Solv­ing the problem

In great tech sup­port, the actual prob­lem solv­ing doesn’t hap­pen until the fourth step. This is when the agent will look up the issue and take steps to solve the prob­lem. If the agent needs to ask the caller to wait while the prob­lem is being researched, make sure the agent checks in peri­od­i­cally with the caller to let the cus­tomer know that the agent is research­ing and work­ing on the issue.

Step 5: Con­fir­ma­tion that the tech sup­port call was a success

The last step in a tech sup­port call is one of the most impor­tant steps: Ensur­ing that the caller believes the prob­lem was suf­fi­ciently solved. The agent should say some­thing like, “Did we solve the prob­lem that you were call­ing about? Is there any­thing else that I can help you with?”

Ask­ing this final ques­tion closes the call and gives the tech sup­port agent con­fir­ma­tion that the issue was indeed solved, and it allows the cus­tomer to con­firm that he or she feels sat­is­fied with how the call went.

Give your cus­tomer ser­vice agents con­fi­dence to han­dle tech sup­port issues

Tech sup­port and cus­tomer sup­port are tra­di­tion­ally dif­fer­ent depart­ments, but cus­tomer ser­vice agents can assist in tech sup­port when they under­stand the tech­ni­cal aspects of the prob­lem, and they apply the right prob­lem solv­ing steps to the issue.

With some train­ing and guid­ance, your cus­tomer ser­vice agents will have the con­fi­dence they need to han­dle tech support.