Germans
OK, I’m going to try and explain this for people that don’t work the same company that I do, and without doing something that would get me fired.
I work support.
I have to deal with customers from all over the world, and I have to deal with internal people from all over the world.
One of these internal people is German, and he is the rockiest roxor that ever rocked!
If a customer complains about the service, they generate a Critical Situation, or a crit-sit for short.
This person is the crit-sit manager, so he has to deal with and keep on top of these situations.
We had a phone meeting today to talk about one of these situations(all internal employees, no customers).
Some background on the situation:
1. It was not opened by the customer, it was someone internal that opened it one the customers behalf
2. A crit-sit has to be linked to a trouble ticket
3. A priority 1 ticket generally means that the customers system is down or on fire
4. Tickets are opened for potential defects, not Q&A(although I am happy to take Q&A tickets because they’re easy)
5. When I called the customer about this crit-sit, he was half-drunk and on his way to a Christmas party – read, not concerned about this ticket
6. When Monday rolls around, the customer calls me up and asks to move the ticket to the lowest priority possible(their words exactly). This is a 4/4, which means I’ll get back to it….someday.
So, where was I?
Yes, we have the big phone meeting and the roxor starts out by saying that a crit-sit that’s set to a 4/4 is stupid.
He then goes on to ask who opened the ticket, and the poor guys on the phone have to start peddling fast to get themselves out of trouble.
They know they did something stupid, and they’re just digging a big hole.
The roxor really doesn’t let them continue, and corrects their thinking in the same manner a stern parent would. It was magical.
You could almost hear the tears on the other side of the phone.
I was grinning from ear to ear ^_^
He ends the call with “You will no longer abuse the ticket and crit-sit system. Am I making myself clear!?”
All you can think of to do, is bow your head and say “Yes Dad…” in the most sheepish voice ever.
And for the most part, that’s what the other guys did.
Again, magic.
It made my week.
He’s getting a Christmas card.
Filed under: Blog - @ November 23, 2005 1:13 pm