General Probing Questions

Introduction

Why we need to ask probing questions

Customers call in regarding a need, that need is to fix a problem that they are having with their computer. Without knowing the problem how can we fix it? There is a set number of solutions possible for all of the various problems. In other words there is only so many options we have to try and fix a computer no matter how it is broken. If there is no idea what the problem is and steps are tried to resolve the issue eventually it might get fixed. How happy is a customer going to be if they call up state their computer doesn’t work and you just try a million steps and finally find one that fixes it? Sure some customers may just be happy with the fact that the system is working. The majority of our customers expect more from us like a quick and efficient solution rather than just shooting in the dark. This is why we ask customers probing questions. As soon as you understand a problem it limits how many troubleshooting options we have.

How a customer is our greatest asset

Obviously, you are going to be doing over the phone support. What does that mean in regards to the customer’s computer? It means that we will never see it or get to use the mouse or keyboard ourselves. If there is an error on the screen who has to read it? The customer has to read it and if they don’t read it correctly then we could end up troubleshooting the wrong issue and wasting the customer’s time and ours. Customers are our eyes, ears and hands. Without the customer working with us then every call will be much more difficult.

A customer calls up stating there is an error message that pops up on the screen. We are going to ask that they read it to us. What if they can’t because it is no longer on the screen? What troubleshooting options do we have? Without knowing what the error is then we can’t troubleshoot it correctly. This is where asking the customer to describe the situation to us comes into play. Having them tell us when it happened if they noticed anything peculiar before the problem began questions of that nature.

Another example of how you are going to have to rely on the customer is when the computer is having a problem that you know can be solved by changing a BIOS option. Looking in eMacInfo2 you find that for that particular system we don’t have the BIOS screen shots. This is a situation where the customer is going to play a very crucial part in the call because with us not knowing what is on the screen what do we have to do? Simply ask the customer to read it to us. Never be afraid of having the customer read to you what is on the screen because if you don’t know what is there then you can’t troubleshoot it.

Requesting information from the customer

QA covers the difference between open-ended and close-ended questions. There are many different ways to ask a customer a question. Questions can often times be asked as assumptions and that is one thing we will want to avoid at all costs.

Take the following as an example of how to request information from the customer. A customer calls in and states that they are getting an “invalid system disk replace the disk and press any key to continue” error message. The error means either the hard drive is completely blank of all information or there is a floppy disk in the drive. The following are all different ways in which you could ask if the customer has checked the floppy drive for a disk:

• You’ve checked the floppy drive for a disk right?
• Have you checked the floppy drive for a disk?
• Would you please press the floppy drive eject button and see if a disk comes out?
• Can you please try putting in a floppy disk in the drive?

Two of those four options are wrong. They are wrong because they either make an assumption while asking the question or are not specific enough. The first two are incorrect ways of asking. Take option one and assume the customer didn’t check the floppy drive for a disk and there is one. By assuming the customer checked the drive they are either just not going to check because they’d feel stupid admitting that they haven’t or check and feel stupid with how you made it sound like something they should have known. Option two is not specific enough. Many customers will simply say yes without thinking and then at a later date realize that they hadn’t checked and when they do will find a floppy disk in the drive and not be happy or just feel stupid. We always want to be careful of not being condescending to our customers.

Probing the Situation

Knowing what questions to ask is all a matter of experience. Without knowing all the possible problems it is difficult to ask the right kind of questions. Before you ever begin troubleshooting, no matter the issue unless they’ve called before, you should be able to ask at least four questions. A customer calls in saying that their monitor burst into flames. What are four questions that can be asked?

1. Have you unplugged it from the wall and is it still on fire?
2. Is it near any open windows where rain or water might have gotten onto it?
3. Is there any reason to believe that the vents might be clogged preventing the monitor from getting enough ventilation?
4. Have you had any electrical storms recently?

Notice that none of those questions have anything to do with if the monitor is defective. Part of why we probe the situation is not only to find out if something is defective but to find out if we should support it. If the customer recently had an electrical storm and their monitor burst into flames the same moment their light bulbs burst and they have a power surge would it be covered? The answer is that it would not be covered by our warranty and we’d refer them to the maker of their surge protector or homeowners insurance.

Remember that probing the situation is critical in order for us to troubleshoot the problem, determine exactly what might have caused the problem, and determine if it’s a problem in which we should cover.

Generic Probing Questions

There are a million different questions that can be asked in a million different ways so what needs to be focused on is the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the situation.

• Who uses the computer
o Might they have more information about the problem
o Maybe the kids use it more but it’s the mom calling in and she doesn’t know the problem

• What exactly is happening
o What error messages there are
o What is the description of the problem in their own words
o If intermittent what do they do to fix it

• When did it start
o When did the problem start will tell us what options we have as some are based off a calendar
o When does it happen?

• Where are they within the OS or where is the computer that it happens
o Customer can’t connect in one room have they tried moving it to another?
o Where on the screen does the error message appear?

• Why it is happening
o This is less something we are going to ask and more something we are going to inform a customer about
o We want to inform a customer why its doing what it is doing so they have a better understanding of what we are doing to fix it

• How did it happen
o How did the problem first occur?
o How if possible can they work around the problem

There are many more questions that can be asked but this should give you the general idea of questions to ask. QA will discuss further the situations in which to ask more yes or no type questions.