Providing Technical Support – Three Key User Types

Providing technical support can be satisfying. At times, however, it is frustrating and thankless. This light-hearted article discusses three of the key types of users you are sure to encounter in the course of your work—and provides a few hints to help you to deal with them with minimal stress.

The Amateur Techie. The amateur techie is the user for whom the term “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” was invented. These users are typically enthusiastic, and can occasionally be useful if something needs to be done on-site when you’re not around. Unfortunately, the rest of the time, they have the tendency to tweak settings and play with things that they may not understand quite as well as they think. While it’s useful to humor these people and keep them on your side, it’s important you never let them learn the admin passwords!
The “Computer Hater.” There’s usually a common reason why people “hate” computers—they don’t understand them. They cover this lack of understanding with hostility and aggression. The best way to deal with these people when providing technical support is to discretely offer them hints or tips, and help them to increase their understanding without making them ask questions—something they are unlikely to do for fear of looking foolish.
Mr./Mrs. Impatient. There will always be at least one user in every office whose computer is never fast enough. These are the people who start trying to click things before their Windows desktop has loaded, and people who will send a print job 10 times if it doesn’t appear on the printer immediately. There’s not much you can do about these people—but you can largely ignore them. People who behave like this are probably the same in every element of their working lives, so you can at least count on knowing glances from the other people in the office!