Running a Technical Support Agreement? How to Deal with Problem Users

If you work on the basis of a technical support agreement with your clients, you are likely to have encountered “problem users” on some of your sites. These users always seem to have a problem with their PCs while everyone else’s works fine. These are the users who will send a print job to the printer ten times before looking to see if the paper has jammed.

It’s wise to have a strategy to deal with these problem users, who can become an unfair drain on the time that you allocate to work on your technical support agreement. Here are a few ideas:

Ensure Calls are Logged Effectively

Make sure that you have a call logging system in place that allows you to report back to your clients on all logged issues.

This will help you to show that certain users are draining your resources more than others.

Keep Documentation

Make sure that you keep an audit trail of your dealings with difficult users.

Most organizations have a few staff members that can be disruptive – ensure you can always “back your corner.”

Suggest Training

Often, users who have persistent problems with their computers are doing something fundamentally wrong through a lack of knowledge.

Don’t be afraid to discreetly suggest to bosses that certain users would benefit from some training – if anything, this shows clients that you take your technical support agreement seriously.

Keep Your Cool

Always remain professional. It is not your place to involve yourself in your client’s office politics.

If things ever get serious enough that you need to complain to your client, it’s quite likely that your complaint will come as no surprise – staff who disrupt the IT team are often disruptive elsewhere in the business!

Have you had problems with specific users while delivering on a support agreement? Share your horror stories in the COMMENTS below!

And to follow through on the tips introduced in this short article, especially if you also support SaaS and IaaS, be sure to enroll now in our free 7-day eCourse: Go-to-Market Strategy 101 for B2B SaaS Startups and Scaleups.