How many of you hear "This is a work stoppage" from a ton of people?

At the help desk here, people don't like to be told that they will have to wait a few days before someone from field services can come out to assist them... They always throw "this is a work stoppage" at us. Everything is a work stoppage!! How often do you guys get this? And with what position do you work when hearing it? Do you really think that every single issue is a "work stoppage"?

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Repo Man

In my experience it depends on the company and job position of the user. For example the toughest people I've dealt with are always directors. VP and above are generally cool and down to earth but directors are always pushy. Figure it has to do with pressure on them from higher management.

Sales people in the field are also notorious for being difficult to deal with.

NOC-Ninja

yeah, it usually depends on how VIP the person complaining. If its a big boss like PM, VP, CEO, CFO, CIO then we usually deal with it ASAP even its just a small problem. lol We try to always make them special.

Essendon

You'll get that at the helpdesk. I worked at an ISP for 3-4 months (5 years ago) when I started my IT career. People would routinely say "O now I got to wait for the new modem to arrive" and "Heck, my line's dead and I dont have any internet" They always ended with "I cant do any work". In my first month or so, I'd get flustered and a bit scared, if you will, about not being able to resolve a customer's issue. I raised this my supervisor and he advised to just bounce off what customers rant about. I mean I had to do my job to the best of my ability but not get too worried about the issue and not take it personally. Worked pretty well for me, if a customer went "I cant wait 4 days for the new modem to arrive" I'd go "I can understand, but I'm sorry and that's how long it's going to be". If they mouthed off anything after this "I'm sorry but it's going to be 4 days". If they muttered the F word, I'd go "Thank you for calling Dodo (the ISP)" and disconnect. Then I'd go "Eff you, you SOFB" to vent. I recommend you do the same, ensure the call is disconnected though!

Hypntick

People want their issue fixed and they want it fixed yesterday. When that doesn't happen, they do get frustrated because they realize that they're not the center of the universe.

To give you an example, I work for an MSP, we do everything under the sun when it comes to IT stuff. We manage somewhere in the 175+ client range in our general area. Now when you have a nasty storm roll through the area knocking out service for 30+ clients that's going to be your priority right? According to this one user, apparently not, he needed his printer issue fixed ASAP. He even went so far as to call our CEO about it, luckily our CEO is on our side.

SteveLord

I've never heard it called "work stoppage" before.

Heero

You have to expect people to at least mention that their issue is a work stoppage. When it comes to support in general, everyone knows that you have to push some to get what you want. Don't get so worried over someone with a work stoppage issue. Generally when working support, you will have some SLAs and response time to certain issues pretty much set, either in policy or by the amount of effort required to fix an issue.

People know that technology breaks and there will be downtimes. Most people just want to make sure that their issue is being taken care of in a timely manner. Other people are assholes who think that their issue should cause a work stoppage on your part to fix immediately.

RobertKaucher

CodeBlox wrote: »

At the help desk here, people don't like to be told that they will have to wait a few days before someone from field services can come out to assist them... They always throw "this is a work stoppage" at us. Everything is a work stoppage!! How often do you guys get this? And with what position do you work when hearing it? Do you really think that every single issue is a "work stoppage"?

Suggest they eat more fiber.

powerfool

Sounds like an opportunity. Consider disaster recovery/business continuity and come up with a backup process for completing tasks... sometimes completing tasks without technology is required. They won't like it, but if disaster strikes, the business will continue to function.

pzero

RobertKaucher wrote: »

Suggest they eat more fiber.

^^ that would mean there is a work blockage

I once had a shift supervisor at a manufacturing company I worked for standing over my shoulder saying $1000, $2000, $3000, $4000 incrementing $1000 every second for the time a machine was down due to lost production. Thats not fun.

Mishra

My thought on it is simply just work the best you can and that's the best you can do.

It's up to management to determine how long the turn around needs to be and what they need to do to accompany it.

CodeBlox

There was one guy who called in and I had exhausted most of my resources troubleshooting for him... I told him I'd be escalating his issue(after being told to by a tier 2) and he asked "how long will this take" I told him I couldn't give him an exact time or anything but to expect them to be calling him about it. He then responded "Okay, this is a work stoppage. Does that help?" - _ -

ThePrimetimer

CodeBlox wrote: »

There was one guy who called in and I had exhausted most of my resources troubleshooting for him... I told him I'd be escalating his issue(after being told to by a tier 2) and he asked "how long will this take" I told him I couldn't give him an exact time or anything but to expect them to be calling him about it. He then responded "Okay, this is a work stoppage. Does that help?" - _ -

That sounds like it's something going around the office that if they just tell the helpdesk that its a "work stoppage", then it'll get done quicker.

CodeBlox

EVERYTHING is a work stoppage is all I'm saying haha. Even if it's the customers fault. Like the guy who decided to "switch the default certificate on his CAC(Common Access Card)"... After doing so, he couldn't log into his accounts. He also told me it was a work stoppage. He couldn't log in because "the system" was checking against the wrong certificate and he couldn't log in to change it back.

higherho

I typically get the feeling that most Non IT people treat their IT people like slaves or think they are lower than them.

alan2308

higherho wrote: »

I typically get the feeling that most Non IT people treat their IT people like slaves or think they are lower than them.

People think that everybody else is beneath them. Don't think you're special.

Devilsbane

CodeBlox wrote: »

At the help desk here, people don't like to be told that they will have to wait a few days before someone from field services can come out to assist them... They always throw "this is a work stoppage" at us. Everything is a work stoppage!! How often do you guys get this? And with what position do you work when hearing it? Do you really think that every single issue is a "work stoppage"?

It's something that your management team needs to figure out. You will first need to evaluate what type of service that you want to provide. Your options range from spending little money and having a several day SLA to spending lots of money and being there within the hour.

Whatever is decided to be best for your company, that time needs to be communicated to your customers (ie your business employees).

Where I work, we have an 8 hour SLA for our desktop support team. What this means is that somebody has to have reached out to you within 8 business hours. Because of this, staffing has been adjusted to provide service within this window (not right at the 8 hour window, but not instant either). Let's say your user calls the help desk because their mouse died (it happens). If you decided that your team has 8 hours to respond (and lets say they usually respond within 4) is this acceptable?

If not, then you need to develop some sort of expedite process. Again where I'm at, this process is simply telling them that it is an expedite. It doesn't change their SLA's at all. They try to bump these urgent issues to the front of the queue, but then you run into our current problem where every issue is urgent and has been requested to expedite.

This has lead to our management team trying to rethink this expedite process. Put some restrictions on who can expedite (I believe it will be limited to director and above) so that there is some sort of checks and balances to ensure that the issue really is something important and not just a user who procrastinated and is now stuck in a bind. Once we are able to limit our expedites, then we can demand some sort of higher service level for them.

I understand a user believes that 2 hours without a mouse is unacceptable, but if it is going to cost our IT department an extra $5 million to provide that service, then your 2 hours falls well short.

LordQarlyn

alan2308 wrote: »

People think that everybody else is beneath them. Don't think you're special.

This! We all are like that. Its part of being human lol.