Support from a remote office - useless or useful?
I'm back in Roseville, MN for a week's worth of training, so I can (hopefully) go back to Seattle and start supporting this hugely complex product. My friend in the UK, also my coworker, has basically been doing what I'm about to start doing - supporting a product from many many many miles away from the larger organization without the benefit of someone in a cube next to him he could pester when problems inevitably arise. I'm pretty sure he had my desk phone number on speed dial.... and man I would have hated to have seen that phone bill :-)
Since my previous employer was acquired, I've been tasked with integrating myself into the acquirer's organization while at the same time continuing to support the products that I've been supporting for almost four years. Being thrown in the fire this week (aka, taking phone calls) has reminded me greatly of what it was like when I first started in phone support those years ago. It's a nerve-wracking experience to learn all the little gotchas and features of a version 6 product. Luckily, it seems that most customers are using either v5 or v6, and the two are similar enough for me to barely get by. At the same time, the training I had three weeks ago was for v6, so sometimes it's a bit of a shock to see the differences between the two versions. There's still a lot of "please hang on as I ask a co-worker" in my phone calls. It's going to be worse when I leave from here.
I wonder how successful this remote tech support thing is going to be. Am I constantly going to be phoning the home office for help, or will I eventually learn enough to get by. Will I be kept up-to-date as well as the people in Minnesota, or will I be one (or a few) steps behind?
Seattle's a good place to find support talent, and part of me hopes that they'll try to expand the support organization out there. But Minneapolis is, as Nicole told me this week, the most literate city in the country so I know Seattle's got some competition.
Any other support monkeys with remote support experience? Any suggestions?
Since my previous employer was acquired, I've been tasked with integrating myself into the acquirer's organization while at the same time continuing to support the products that I've been supporting for almost four years. Being thrown in the fire this week (aka, taking phone calls) has reminded me greatly of what it was like when I first started in phone support those years ago. It's a nerve-wracking experience to learn all the little gotchas and features of a version 6 product. Luckily, it seems that most customers are using either v5 or v6, and the two are similar enough for me to barely get by. At the same time, the training I had three weeks ago was for v6, so sometimes it's a bit of a shock to see the differences between the two versions. There's still a lot of "please hang on as I ask a co-worker" in my phone calls. It's going to be worse when I leave from here.
I wonder how successful this remote tech support thing is going to be. Am I constantly going to be phoning the home office for help, or will I eventually learn enough to get by. Will I be kept up-to-date as well as the people in Minnesota, or will I be one (or a few) steps behind?
Seattle's a good place to find support talent, and part of me hopes that they'll try to expand the support organization out there. But Minneapolis is, as Nicole told me this week, the most literate city in the country so I know Seattle's got some competition.
Any other support monkeys with remote support experience? Any suggestions?
Labels: Work
posted by Bernie at
8:45 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home