Work in online support. Work on the Internet

What does it take to be an effective technical support specialist, make a career and still be satisfied with your job? To a certain extent, it depends on your character, professional skills and attitude to work. But how do you know if it's right for you? Here are some signs that you are not ready to work in the technical support service.

1. You don't respect customer support. Start with your relationship with technical support specialists. When you call the customer service center or your ISP, do you treat the experts with respect, or do you think that they are idiots who read the prepared text? If you don't respect the helpdesk, no matter how well they do their job, you better not do it.

2. You view your support job as temporary. Is working in tech support what you were striving for or just a step towards something better? Unfortunately, in many companies, technical support is viewed as the bottom rung of the IT ladder, occupied by people with little experience who will move on at the first opportunity. Often, help desk candidates want to become a network or database administrator. And very few aspire to be technical support specialists. If technical support is not an end in itself for you, but only a means to advancement, you probably should not go to technical support.

3. You care about technology, not people. Ask yourself why you want to work in tech support. Unless it's because you love to tinker with computers, tech support isn't your best bet. In many companies, technicians spend most of their time focusing on users, which is the main problem. If you like helping people, looking for solutions to problems, you have endless patience and certain technical skills, working in technical support will make you a happy person.

4. You are behind the latest IT trends. The technical support specialist must have an interest and a penchant for technology. If this is not the case, a job in technical support is unlikely to be a good choice. A good specialist must keep up with modern technologies, but, unfortunately, not every company can provide the necessary time and funds for this during working hours. In order to remain competitive, you will have to spend some of your free time improving your knowledge and skills.

5. You don't care about the business you support. Technical support is needed in all areas of business - from hospitals to chemical plants. And although the basic functions of technical specialists in different areas of business are not much different, truly good specialists understand the industry they support. You don't need to pass a law exam to provide technical support to a law firm, but a little effort and understanding of the business will give you the information you need to prioritize and provide proactive support. A specialist who knows the functionality of the users he supports is of great value to the business, as he can tell them how to more effectively use the available technologies in their work.

6. You are unstable to stress. Another important factor is your response to stress in the form of irritated employees, angry bosses, or tight deadlines. If you're unable to stay calm and think clearly and logically to figure out why a presentation won't print, or how to recover an accidentally deleted file your boss needs, a career in tech support is going to cost you a lot of nerves. In such circumstances, you must show the user that you understand the need to resolve their problem as soon as possible, show your respect and professionalism, and not give in to panic.

7. You expect recognition and gratitude. Technical support specialists are often overlooked until something happens. Ironically, if you constantly care about users, you are less likely to be noticed than if you only show up in emergency situations to save the world. If you're lucky, you may run into users who appreciate that they never had to call you, or even a boss or colleague who will thank you for a great job, but these are more of an exception than the rule. If you need the approval and gratitude of others to achieve job satisfaction, tech support is not for you.

8. You lack self-control. Working with users requires a lot of patience and self-control. Some users make the same mistakes over and over and wait for you to fix them. Others require long hours of individual training to be able to perform at least basic tasks on a computer. Meeting the needs of these users requires patience, self-control, and empathy. One tech support person had a great reputation among users because he was willing to sacrifice his lunch break to teach or help solve any problem. After work, he went to the gym, took a racket and beat tennis balls against the wall. Each ball had a face and a username on it. Not being a very patient person by nature, he took out his anger on the tennis balls, not on the users.

9. You feel insecure when you face a problem. Solving computer problems requires a systematic, logical technique, and when logic does not work, then sudden insights. And while there is no single “correct” method for determining the cause of problems, the ability to think clearly and reason logically are essential qualities for a technical support specialist. If you don't have a natural aptitude for methodical problem solving, becoming a good problem solver takes a lot of time to develop complex problem solving methods that can be adapted to any situation.

10. You are shy or uncommunicative. If you are not communicative or have good communication skills, but prefer to hide behind a keyboard all day, the work of a technical support specialist will not bring happiness to either you or users. In most companies, the Help Desk is the face of the IT department. Sometimes the support staff is the only person in the IT department that users interact with. This means that the ability to communicate effectively with all types of users, regardless of their technical ability or position, is paramount.

Any technical support service is created in order to provide its customers with assistance in servicing and solving any technical problems that a client of an Internet resource has encountered.

A technical support specialist should give competent, understandable advice to the user. And not only. He must also provide the client with information: where and how to find this or that link or document.

In order to provide such assistance in a quality manner, a technical support specialist must thoroughly know this Internet resource, the subject on which he gives advice. This is the only way to gain trust.

The requirements are quite serious, so they are always specialists of a high category. The trust of the client, and even in the face of fierce competition, is very important.

For example, technical support of the site. Or customer support . Their importance cannot be underestimated either. Any site is a business card of the company as a whole, its face on the Internet. And customers need to be retained. They must be sure that they will receive an intelligent answer to any of their questions.

Site technical support

• This and uninterrupted functioning;
• This is the elimination of various problems with hosting;
• This is vigilant monitoring of site availability, download speed;
• These are the settings of various third-party Web resources;
• This is the installation of banners, updates;
• This is advising employees on adding information to the site or editing it;
• These are various changes to the site structure and customization;
• This is the installation of various analytical counters and scripts.

And that is not all. Sometimes it's the job of a support person to add news, graphics, articles, and other content.

Customer support

Everything is more complicated here. You also need to be a good negotiator.

Any client who contacts technical support calls in order to solve his problem, and people are different: someone frankly "runs over", someone is clearly "stupid", someone quickly speaks, so much so that you can understand nothing it is forbidden.

Under these conditions, the task of a technical support specialist is not just to solve the problem of the client, but to explain to the person so that he copes with his situation and is satisfied with the way he was well spoken to.

This is no longer just a well-versed technical support techie. This is also a psychologist (to some extent), and a negotiator who absolutely needs to adapt to the temperament and mood of the client, and this is difficult.

In any case, you need to “join” the client, feel his problem, listen, and have a sincere desire to help him. And without knowledge of the product that the company sells, knowledge of its features and subtleties, it is impossible to perform such work with clients.

Whether the customer's problem is big or small, it's up to the technical support professional to recognize its importance and focus on solving it.

Rules for a technical support specialist

First, he must follow the five precepts:

1. Respect the client.
2. A good specialist is able to solve any problem of the client.
3. The problem of the client is, in fact, not his problem, this is the problem of a technical support employee.
4. Feel the client and match him.
5. Meet customer expectations.

Secondly, a technical support specialist must have certain personal qualities.

Supporting its customers is an important process for the company, which greatly affects the attitude of customers and their number.

The client can contact a technical support specialist for help by e-mail, or by calling, or through the website. This is the first contact with the client's problem, which means the company. As a rule, the first contact is very emotional, not always positive. And all the flow of indignation and misunderstanding goes to the support staff (Support).

That's why With a technical support specialist, in addition to pedantry, knowledge of the professional direction, must have patience and emotional stability.

And in order for the work to be relatively calm and effective, you must adhere to certain rules:

By the way, in Western countries, customer support (Customer Success) is almost a cult. In Russia, the situation is also rapidly improving, because the business has recognized the importance of the customer support process.

How much do technical support specialists earn?

Salaries for junior technical support professionals with at least 1 year of work experience vary depending on the location of the employer. In Moscow, a technical support employee earns from 25 to 35 thousand rubles a month, in St. Petersburg it is 5 thousand less, in the regions the average salary is 18 thousand rubles.

If you are a remote technical support employee, then your salary will be from 18 to 25 thousand rubles per month.

Almost all network users at least once encountered problems that arise when working with a site, service, program, and in other respects with any subject of interaction on the Internet. Support always comes to the rescue. The main task of employees in this area is to help in solving certain issues that arise from users.

The Internet profession of a help desk agent is very popular today and usually does not require special knowledge, as in the work of a video editor. Administrators and Web project managers spend good money on supporting their clients, which creates vacancies. Such activities can be performed in different ways depending on the functionality and requirements. You can work in online and offline modes. It looks like this: you sit on Vkontakte and wait for someone to write to you. And clients who want to clarify some point in the work or ask a specific question will write. Also, you may have to answer questions using a special web interface or by email, maybe skype/whatsapp/telegram. It is highly likely that there will be several tools to perform support functions. Many employers give additional tasks, such as administering groups on social networks and filling the site with content, there may be receiving calls and applications. This happens if there are few calls to the support service or in order not to hire additional staff. All this is discussed in advance, and you will obviously not be left out of additional employment.

Working in a help desk requires certain skills. Such as:

1. Knowledge of the language at the native level. You will be able to work only if you can speak and write in the language in which the target audience and customers address you.
2. Awareness. You need to have detailed and reliable information about the product or service you provide.
3. Fast reaction. As soon as a question comes in, you need to quickly read it, understand the meaning, find the answer and correctly state everything.
4. Stress tolerance. Different clients come across, there are dissatisfied or those who do not reach the first time. And in conjunction with a sedentary job, such a profession can get on your nerves. Therefore, it is necessary to be able to "just do your job", not to take anything personally.

Advantages of this Internet profession:

• Work at home or in the office.
• Often free schedule.
• High salary, relative to the average value.
• A simple and understandable area of ​​activity.
• Possibility to combine with another job or activity (for example, work on our earnings schemes).
• In most cases, special education is not required.

Of the minuses, I see only a sedentary lifestyle, but, again, it all depends on you. You can even answer the questions asked on the treadmill.

How to get such a job?

First of all, I recommend that you write a resume correctly and determine the direction of your activity. What basic knowledge do you have? It can be auto business, photo business, fashion, technology, work with programs and code, cooking, construction, law, medicine and much more. When your resume is detailed for each direction in which you want to prove yourself, then feel free to submit ads to bulletin boards and business forums, also go over the sections “Required” and “Jobs” maybe someone is already looking for you! If there is no answer in the next week, then we begin to monitor various proposals. Go to the websites of large companies in which you want to work. Go down to the footer of the site and look at the links “Work with us”, “Jobs”, "We need". Go to these sections and get information about the work. Usually there is a special contact form or contact information. Feel free to write to the administration, tell everything about yourself as it is, agree on wages and start making money.

People exchange sharp words
- said Loki, - but these words do not weigh anything.
A person has a lot of them in his mouth.
"Empire V", V. Pelevin.

The first line of defense on the business battlefields is technical support service. Support is the first to meet adverts, the first to take on the flow of indignation in the event of failures, weed out people who are left for business and, solving 90% of the problems of partners and clients, bring to the management only a concentrate of the most important, requiring his direct participation.

Who works in support services? What should be the support? How to be a good supporter? You will learn about this in this article.

The first half of the article is intended for those who want to organize a help desk for their Internet business. The second one is for those who wish to find a job in support.

This article will not build your helpdesk for you. And will not provide work in support. But there is more than enough information to think about.

So get comfortable and let's get started.

How to recruit tech support staff

It doesn't matter what project you manage, be it a design studio or - your users (advertising, clients) will most often communicate with the support service and, most likely, only with it. It depends on the support what first impression your project will make and how it will be treated in the future. Therefore, this link in your business should be no weaker than all the others.

Many project managers don't bother building a help desk and aren't willing to hire an individual for the job. Perhaps they are right. If the project does not involve a large number of participants and is well automated, then it probably does not need a separate support service.

But this happens extremely rarely and, most often, the owner has to perform the support functions himself. Do you have enough time and patience to do this job? Will this approach pay off in the long run?

Most likely, an attentive attitude to partners, promptness in solving their problems, competent communication with experienced advertisers, advice to beginners and saving the time of the project manager will more than pay for the supporter's modest rate. Don't underestimate the face of your project, even if it's just words in the ICQ client window.

• Do not hire so-called "students" for technical support(young men and women with unformed psyches, communication skills and a sense of responsibility. There are still. It’s better not to deal with these at all.).
  Underpaid "schoolboys" in the support service is the most common mistake. The person of the team must have sufficient qualifications, because nothing spoils the impression of the company as much as illiterate technical support. Or inadequate. Support has access to confidential information, constantly communicates with your partners and clients, on which the fate of the project depends. Therefore, saving on professionalism, you risk not only your reputation, but also the fate of the entire project.


• An adequate person.
  Pleasant in communication, sympathetic, with a competent language, clearly explaining his thoughts - these are the necessary characteristics for a good user support worker.


• The support person must be an experienced professional.
  Being able to speak politely, smile and tick the boxes in the admin panel is far from all that is needed from a support employee. He must be a professional who is familiar with the entire business of the company and is familiar with at least the basics of all the nuances of the industry. If you have an affiliate program, then the support employee must be an experienced webmaster. If you sell a software product, the support service must be technically literate.


• Do not take unknown people to technical support.
  The support team has access to confidential information, sometimes even to accounts in . Therefore, check how well-known in the community your candidate for the position of "supporter" is. Does he communicate and what feedback does he have? Recommendations from famous people will also not be superfluous.


• A bad reputation of a technical support employee is the key to the failure of the entire company.
  If you have found an excellent professional in technical support, but he has tarnished his reputation in the past, then it is better not to cooperate with him. Such a support service can discredit the entire project, even if its owners are well-known and respected people.


• A customer service agent must be available.
  If there is only one person working in the support desk, he should be able to be at least 12 hours a day. And preferably 14-18 hours (with a not too tight load). If the workload is heavy, it is necessary to organize shift shifts. But the main thing is that the support service should be available most of the day. Users should not "catch" it. Well, for example, 24/7 technical support (24 hours 7 days a week) has long been a generally accepted standard.


• Some work for yourself is not a hindrance.
  Do not prohibit a technical support employee from working for himself a little. If he in free time develops a couple or writes, then this will not interfere with the work in the support service. But he will support him in good professional shape and help financially.


• Don't anonymize support staff.
  As surveys have shown, it is more convenient to communicate with a support employee if he has a normal name (nickname). That is, the nickname in ICQ “John Smith” is much better than Support Unit 1.”


• An interview never hurts.
  Speak carefully with the candidate for the technical support position. Give a test task. For example, if he must support advertisers, you can show him any sales page and ask him for some recommendations to improve productivity and increase sales. By his reaction and the result, you will immediately understand the level of his knowledge.

Now about what qualities are needed in order to get a job as a user support employee.

What do you need to work in technical support

With a stable salary, working in a strong team with famous people - these are the bonuses of working in a support service. True, a lot will also be required of you: attentiveness, pedantry, good knowledge of the professional field, patience and much more. I summarize the main points below:

• Professionalism.
  The idea that any newcomer can handle the duties of a support worker is a deep delusion. You must be sure that you are able to answer almost anyone in the right area. And if not, why are you here? It is impossible to know everything, but you are obliged to freely navigate the issues of our industry and have practical skills. Technical support is needed to help in word and deed in the problems that people working with your project have. And this requires knowledge and experience.


• 12 hours a day - minimum.
  The support team should be available most of the day. She is really valuable when you can turn to her for help at any convenient moment. Therefore, you should be able to be online for at least 12 hours. And 16 is even better. Of course, sitting around all this time on the spot is unrealistic, so find a way to do other things and be online at the same time. You can carry your smartphone with you. You can just turn up the volume when doing household chores, and resort to the workplace when you hear the familiar “knock-knock”. Be prepared to get up in the middle of the night. And who is easy now?


• 90% of problems are up to you.
  Technical support should and can solve 90% of adverts' problems. This is so, because 90% of calls to the support service are connected precisely with simple problems that are solved immediately on the spot. Be prepared for the fact that you will not only chat in ICQ, but also really help people in various situations, difficult and not so. Transfer the unresolved issue to other authorities (administrator, management) only when you are sure that there is no way to solve this problem on your own.


• Never be rude.
  You will be rude, rude and even insulted. A wide variety of people live in it, and not all of them are distinguished by intelligence. No matter in what tone and what content you were asked a question, you should always remain extremely polite. You were sent - answer: "Thank you for paying attention to me."


• Never ignore.
  Never, ever ignore messages! The support worker is obliged to respond to all requests, whether it be ICQ, e-mail, tickets or telephone. It doesn't matter if you think the problem in this message is important or not, because for the advert any problem is extremely important. It must be resolved and, if possible, quickly. Moreover, more often than not, the lower the issue price, the greater the likelihood of a scandal. So, for example, when payments are delayed, partners who have barely earned the minimum wage worry many times more than large advertisers. For beginners, their first $50 makes a huge difference. Don't let them start a buzz somewhere on the forum.


• Be attentive and flexible.
  Technical support is the face of the company. Therefore, communication with her should leave a pleasant impression. Be polite, considerate and always try to adapt to the person who has contacted you. If they turn to “You”, say “You”, if they “poke”, conduct a conversation in a friendly way.


• Take the initiative.
  It's good when people feel your presence. Resolved the issue - knock and report it. If the problem cannot be fixed yet, say that there is a delay, but they are working hard on a solution. But do not overdo it, do not knock on everyone and tell “about the weather”. Nobody likes bores.


• Support worker shown public life
  Chat on the forums. An additional signature will have a positive impact on the development of the project and the mood of the employer in the same way as your virtual presence next to the people you work with.


• Continuous learning.
  The support team should always be aware of all the changes in the industry. Otherwise, very soon your knowledge will lose relevance and you will not be able to do your job efficiently. Is there a new script? Read about him, take a look at his work, etc. Has a new competitor emerged? Browse his sites, analyze his advantages, identify disadvantages, etc.


• Keep your mouth shut.
  Technical support is trusted with confidential information. So don't talk too much! Even in secret to friends. Turnover, the number of adverts, hidden statistics - anything can play into the hands of competitors, and ruin your business reputation forever. Professionalism is also the correctness of behavior.


• Avoid negativity on the forums.
  The lack of negative feedback on the forums is a good job of technical support. Never bring it to public hearings, even if you are 200% right in the dispute. As one of the classics of marketing said, “no one has yet won in a dispute with a client.” I would add that in a dispute with an advert, too.


• Instruction is not everything.
  There are no perfect tips and instructions. And these are no exception. Always be adequate and soberly assess the situation. Remember that the technical support service works with real people. Try to understand them and enter into their position.


• You are a team member.
  Never forget that you work in a team and must protect its interests. No need to publicly complain about your management and admire competitors, even if they are objectively better. The opinion of a technical support employee is always in sight. And they listen to him.


• Work on two fronts.
  The two fronts are the project participants (advertists, clients) and its organizers (owners). The support service should not only help adverts solve their problems, but also, among other things, protect them before the project management: for example, reduce the minimum payout if they ask, raise the percentage, seek additional promotional packages, and. Remember, your task is to make the work of partners as convenient as possible.
  At the same time, the support person is that important member of the team who works to indirectly increase the overall profitability of the project. And this means that it is necessary to ensure an increase in turnover and try to reduce costs. Learn to keep a balance - do not indulge too greedy and capricious adverts, so that the project does not go into the red because of this. But do not forget to provide comfortable working conditions for sane partners.

Contrary to the opinion of many, work in the support service is not empty chatter in ICQ for those who can't do anything else. The opinion of the community about the project depends on the quality of this service, which ultimately affects whether adverts will remain and continue to work with it. The number of customers and much more depends on technical support as well. A good customer support service will not solve all the problems that arise on a thorny business path. But it can reduce their number many times over!

Qualitative technical support service is high-class specialists, who are subject to serious requirements. Their work is responsible and not at all easy. The demand for this specialty is not falling, and salaries are only growing. Become good professionals in your field, and many famous teams will be glad to see you in their ranks.