Support Engineer

Musings

  • The support role is on both sides, support the users of the software product as per their/organisation needs and also support the product engineers interface with the users by providing them with actionable points on the use.

  • Always touch base on how a particular problem was solved and document if possible to aid in the iteration/ reoccurence of the problem.

  • Always reproduce the error with the system user whenever possible to get an idea of how they did it.

  • Encourage good design practices on side of developers, i.e good error messages, to aid system users

  • Set up detailed and clear monitoring, performance metrics and error rates.

  • Good documentation and an easy-to-understand operational model.

  • Takes up the role of both customer service and technical support, this is listens to the customer with empathy, focuses on friendliness and experience while also listening so a problem can be solved and focusing on resolving technical issues.

  • Main duties

    • Troubleshoot technical issues
    • Setting up accounts
    • Repairing and replacing
    • Training and assisting.
    • Logging and tracking issues
    • Documenting and maintaining processes.

  • Why is it needed?

    • Companies provide solutions to customers
    • Positive experiences lead to increase in business.
    • Companies with good support are regarded as more trustworthy leading to higher customer retention rates.
    • Support also help troubleshoot their own products contributing to product improvement which further leads to more desirable products.

  • Learn techniques for diagnosing and resolving problems.

  • Develop procedures for reoccuring problems.

  • Communicating with clients on updates and resolutions.

  • Learn everything related to the product/domain you are supporting.

  • Online/Live support.

  • Roles of technical support

    • Valuable help to clients and teammates
    • Good customer service skills
    • Strong critical thinking skills
    • Interest in new and developing technology
    • Ability to get to the root of the problems quickly.
    • Patience to help customers through a series of actions to resolve a problem.

  • Soft skills are positive behaviors and attitudes that are used to effectively communicate, collaborate and manage conflict.

  • Include customer service mindset, communicating, being organized, leading, solving problems and being flexible and adaptable.

  • Always learn how to improve soft skills.

  • Treat the customer as you would be want to be treated in that situation.

  • Technical skills are abilities and aptittudes that are needed for professionals to successfully work in a technical environment and may include familiarity with programming, operating system basics, application logs, servers, support ticket workflow, knowledge bases and more.

  • Additional skills include familiarity with virtual machines, VPNs, network security, enterprise h/w and monitoring s/w.

  • Analyze application logs

    • View information about events that have occured in an application.
    • Read and analyze application logs
    • Track information about the application
    • Includes timestamps for tracking issues.
    • Logs levels of issues with labels.

  • Server knowledge

    • Understand servers
    • Setting up and configuring servers
    • Updating server software
    • Monitoring and maintaining servers
    • Maximizing uptime.
    • Managing virtual servers.

  • Support ticket workflow

    • Create a ticket
    • Start ticket issue, with all relevant information and details.
    • Resolve issue.
    • Close ticket.

  • Using a knowledge base

    • Collection of a group's knowledge.
    • Search via it.
    • Read on the topic.
    • Understand topic.
    • Update/Improve knowledge.

  • Performance evaluation

    • P.E provide valuable feedback to employees about how they are meeting role expectations.
    • Managers will be evaluating your ability to accomplish responsibilites, serve customers, have a positive work attitude and set goals.
    • P.E show how you are performing in your role, provide an opportunity for recognition and set you up for advancement opportunities.
    • Define expectations -> Record performances -> Evaluate performance -> Provide feedback.

  • What to expect

    • Accomplishing responsibilities
      • Possess technical knowledge and skills necessary to perform your job.
      • Understand company policies and procedures.
      • Complete required records, documents and tickets.
    • Decision making
      • Evaluate issues
      • Work on our own
      • Recognize problems
      • Make decisions.
    • Productivity
      • Complete tasks in a timely and efficient manner.
      • Work according to instructions
      • Ask for help when needed
    • Customer service
      • Strong commitment to customers
      • Work towards a solution
      • Call recordings
      • Customer ratings
      • Time-to-resolve measurements
      • First-contact resolution and contacts per customer.
      • Average number of tickets handled.
    • Work attitude
      • Positive attitude for work and responsibilities
      • Effective working relationships with others.
      • Positive attitude toward suggestions.
    • Communication skills
      • You write clearly and effectively.
      • You understand written and spoken communication.
    • Goal achievements
      • Your new certifications and skills.
      • Achievement of professional goals
      • How you have improved.

  • Benefits to performance evaluations

    • Your role performance
    • Recognition for your accomplishments.
    • Share your 'good job' moments
    • Discuss goals and ways to meet goals.
    • Provide opportunities for advancement.

  • Support channels

    • Self-support channels
      • Self-help
      • FAQs
      • Documentation
      • Wikis
      • Knowledge base
      • Discussion Forums
    • Email support.
      • Asynchronous support
    • Social media support
      • Asynch
    • Phone support
      • Synchronous support
      • Urgent issues
      • Sensitive information
      • Real-time support
    • Live chat support
    • Video chat support.
      • Virtual hands-on
    • Remote support
      • Host device on customer
    • In-person support.

  • Ticketing systems

    • Create ticket
    • Document, track and manage customer issues to resolution.
    • Convert emails to tickets
    • Log phone sessions
    • Users submit tickets

  • Remote support tools

    • Allow technical support controls another device, troubleshooting, installing software and providing instant support remotely.
    • Saves time and identify problems faster.
    • Attended vs Unattended remote support.

  • Tiered support

    • Tiered support is needed to route technical support issues correctly based on product, complexity and severity and to improve technical support training and upskilling opportunities for tech support professionals.
    • Route technical support issues.
    • Establish a timeline
    • Handle a large volume of issues.
    • Increase customer satisfaction.
    • Improve technical support training.

  • Levels

    • Self-service - product documentation, FAQs, Chatbots, Forums, Knowledge bases
    • Help desk - Basic troubleshooting
    • Product-specific - Specialised product/service knowledge, advanced troubleshooting and analytical skils.
    • Specialists - May be the ones who built the system.
    • 3rd party support.

  • Service-level Agreements.

    • Ticketing systems help you manage SLAs
    • Contracts between customers and companies that define quality, timeliness and availability of technical support, helping managing customer expectations.
    • Identify priority levels and establish response and resolution times.
    • Details
      • Agreement summary
      • Goals of business and users
      • Consequences of violations
      • Points of contact
    • Types of SLAs
      • Customer-based
      • Service-based
      • Multiple - combination of both.
    • Priority levels
      • Impact vs Urgency
        • 1 - Business stops
        • 2 - Disrupts business.
        • 3 - Inconvenience
        • 4 - Routine service.
      • Response SLAs vs Resolution SLAs
        • Priority levels
        • Impact to business
        • Response time
        • Resolution time

  • Escalation.

    • An escalation is when one support person is unable to offer a solution to a problem and transfers to another support person.
    • Functional escalation
      • Team or person ->Skills and Knowledge -> Issue resolved.
    • Hierarchical escalation
      • Unclear path to resolution.
      • Issue escalation to resolution via organisation hierarchy.
    • Automatic escalation
      • No response.

  • Escalation matrix

    • An escalation matrix is made up of a series of increasing levels of support based on severity and priority.

  • Handoffs in technical support

    • Help to resolve an issue
    • Encourage information sharing
    • Prevent incomplete documentation
    • Lead to faster resolution.

  • Ticketing systems

    • A support ticket records the interaction between a customer and a service respentative.
    • Documents issues and their progress/resolution.
    • S/w used to systematically document, track, manage and resolve customer issues.
    • Features
      • Ominichannel support
        • Consolidate issue specifics, customer conversations, customer profiles.
      • Ticket routing
      • Ticket categorization and tagging.
      • Tracking and management
      • Knowledge base management
        • Sometimes customers prefer to serve themselves
        • A knowledge base system allows customers and agents to research issues.
        • A knowledge base system allows sumarizing large amounts of information
        • Searchable, linked databases
        • Assist agents to find answers for customers.
        • They require updates to keep content relevant.
      • Automation
        • reduces time spent on repetitive tasks, making agents more engaged and productive.
        • helps get to the right person at the right time
          • Assigning tickets
          • Sending responses
          • Escalate issues
          • Pulling customer data
    • Provides
      • Automation
      • Collaboration
      • Integration
      • Channels
    • Lifecycle
      • Create a ticket
        • typically contain basic information.
      • Assign and start ticket issue.
        • placed in queue or assigned manually/automatically.
      • Resolve issue
      • Close ticket
    • What to look for
      • Agent productivity
      • Customer interactions
      • Metrics
      • Continuous improvements
      • Foster internal collaboration