Every tech-focused real estate brokerage will (or should) have a support system full of people with great foundational troubleshooting skills. Some days, technical support may be like a puzzle – every issue is different and has a different solution. Other days, support staff may encounter the same issue over and over again, and before they know it, they are using their muscle memory to “fix” the issue, which leads us the first of our tech support pitfalls…
Pitfall #1: Going into autopilot
Don’t default to autopilot mode! This will lead to moving through issues out of habit and without careful thought. More often than not, there are variables that make each situation unique. As always, ask questions and gather data so you can properly analyze an issue! This will take less time than going back to clean up the mistakes you made while in autopilot mode.
Pitfall #2: Not finding the root cause
Getting distracted by small issues that pop up can be easy, but it’s extremely important to remember that there could be a larger problem at the root of all of these smaller issues. Instead of spot-checking and resolving the small ones right away, spend a little extra time investigating what deeper issues may be occurring. Employing this practice will further your own knowledge and can save time and effort in the future.
Pitfall #3: Long resolution time
This is one of the more common tech support pitfalls that customers will encounter. There are often valid reasons for this: Difficult or time-consuming troubleshooting is needed, there’s a bug that requires development time to fix, or perhaps you need to deal with a third-party vendor to help solve the problem. There are bad reasons too: Poor communication between teams in your organization. To avoid the bad, you can leave detailed notes after every call/email/chat. If you can’t directly resolve the issue yourself, make sure the right person knows about it, but make sure that person has a record of your request! Even if there are valid reasons for a delay in resolution, take responsibility of the issue and provide the customer with frequent updates.
Pitfall #4: Offering favors that cannot be done
There are technical limitations and restrictions to virtually every application out there, and most of the time there is policy that must be followed during use, especially in cases where you have entered a written agreement with a company. Sometimes, a customer will ask for a feature, design, or integration that falls outside of those boundaries. When this happens, it’s very important to not over-extend yourself, but also keep in mind that a customer’s overall satisfaction may drop if they hear that their request is not possible. You can still offer to help your customer in another way; this will show them that you are invested in helping them and are not just hiding behind technical limitations. Additionally, you can avoid letting down customers by keeping them as informed about your products as possible.
Be diligent in examining your tech support pitfalls!
Obviously, this isn’t a comprehensive list of all the things that can go wrong during technical support, but it’s a good start to thinking more about where your team can improve. At TRIBUS, we constantly have our ear to the ground; monitoring our customers satisfaction and listening to them, even when we can’t always directly implement their request. You can expect TRIBUS’ Concierge Support team to be diligent in avoiding these common tech support pitfalls, while always keeping an eye out for how they can improve.
