Competence means providing correct, knowledgeable service,
performed with accuracy and confidence.
Competence is a two-part process. You must demonstrate
competence in the way you do your job, but you must also
find ways to maintain your technical competence.
Demonstrating Competence
Here are a couple of good techniques to use to demonstrate
your competence.
Tell the user what you are going to do before you do it.
This technique is called headlining, in the sense that a
newspaper article's headline tells you what you are going
to read before you read it. As a user, it is very
frustrating to be dealing with a technical support provider
who does not tell you what he or she is doing. When there
is silence on the phone, the user may be confused, and this
does not assure the user of your competence. You know you
have not done a good job of headlining if, after a period
of silence, your user says, "Are you still there?" The user
does not feel cared for if she has to guess if you are
still on the line.
Headlining is the mark of a professional Help Desk
provider. It is easy and quick to do, and creates a high
degree of end-user satisfaction. Use headlining when you
need to take a moment to look up some information in the
database. You can say, "It will take me just a minute to
look that up in the database." This gives the user the
assurance that you are working on their behalf.
Another way of providing assurance to users is to build
their confidence in your ability to help them. This can be
done with a solution statement delivered once you
understand and have confirmed the user's problem. A
solution statement simply tells the user that you can help
them solve the problem. You can say, "From what you have
told me, I know how to solve the problem."
Maintaining Technical Competence
Our world in Information Systems and Technology evolves so
quickly that maintaining technical competence can seem
overwhelming at times. Here are four keys to maintaining
your technical competence:
Be curious. Curious people are always exploring. When
you're curious, life is more interesting and you find new
ways of doing things, you find things you didn't even know
existed, and you maintain a childlike sense of wonder and
awe.
Read...a lot. The fact that you're reading this article
speaks highly of you. It's not that you're reading this
particular article (as much as your author wants to believe
that!), but that you're reading any article about how to do
your job better that speaks so highly of you. There are
thousands, perhaps millions, of blogs and forums on the Web
dealing with the same technologies you support. Microsoft
and most other vendors provide extensive support
documentation at their sites. Microsoft even has free
hands-on labs and how-to guides. Get one of the O'Reilly
Cookbooks for the technology you support and work through
recipes that are most interesting to you.
Build a sandbox. I first heard of an IT "sandbox" when I
was working with some individuals from Kimberly-Clark
Corporation in a PKI training session. The IT "sandbox" is
another name for a testing lab where you can experiment
without worrying about system failure. Today, it's often
not necessary to set up a physical lab with multiple
physical computers. Instead, you can use tools like
VMWare, Virtual PC, or Xen to create a virtualized lab
environment in which you can test and experiment to your
heart's content without worrying about affecting end-users.
Some virtualization products are available for free;
others at very low cost. (I use VMWare Workstation.) Use
Google to learn more about virtualization and the vendors
who create virtualization products.
Get trained! As a training provider to the IT world, you'd
certainly expect me to make this recommendation, but it's
important. Training, whether in a college classroom, a
seminar environment, in a workshop, or at a conference
exposes you to new ways of doing things and thinking about
things. Electronic delivery of training can be an
excellent solution, but participating in in-person classes
allows you to interact with the instructor and the other
students. It's through such interaction that you discover
new concepts and new solutions to old problems. I
discovered when I returned to college that just being in an
educational environment got me thinking in new and positive
ways. Additionally, great teachers and trainers challenge
you and help you step outside your comfort zone which is
how you affect positive change in your career and in your
life.
Being great at your job isn't necessarily easy, but it's
immensely rewarding in terms of personal satisfaction,
career options, and financial rewards.
Next week, we'll talk about empathy and its importance as
part of the tech support process.
----------------------------------------------------
Don R. Crawley is president/chief technologist at
soundtraining.net (http://www.soundtraining.net), the
Seattle firm specializing in business skills and technical
training for IT professionals. He works with IT pros to
enhance their work, lives, and careers. For Don's article,
"Ten Ways to Delight Your End-User", visit
http://www.soundtraining.net/onlinestore/items/item241.html
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