Delighting In Failure

I am going to say something that I've been holding onto for a long time, and it's going to piss some people off, and get cheers out of others.

Your mileage may vary.

The "You" in this is a general, not a specific. The "Me" is literally me.

You talk about "delighting the customer" as if you even know what that is. You don't. It's some jargon buzzword you heard from some leadership guru that gave you a happy jump in the cockles of your heart, and you realized that was a good buzzword and catchphrase that would make others smile, like you more, and either help you gain a higher management position, or retain the one you have. With enough repetitiveness, it might even get you into a C-suite somewhere.

You only know how it sounds, but not what it looks like in reality. It's all about you, you're just never going to say that out loud.

Customer Service and Technical Support are not the same. They cannot be analyzed the same, they do not function the same, and they do not have the same impact. Their leadership mentality and personnel cannot be put in the same basket without serious conflict and degradation of results.

I have 30 years in this business, so I say that with authority. I've watched this nonsense time and again.

There is a story about a man who unwittingly fell into a hole by a road. It was too high for him to get out of, and he couldn't figure a way out on his own, so, dejectedly, he called out for anyone who would listen.

Several people came by. They had things to say. They told him that while they had no clue how to get him out, he'd be okay. It shouldn't be that hard, and someone would figure it out. Just take heart, and have faith, and turn that frown upside down.

Thoughts and prayers.

In other words, "delighting the customer".

Then, an engineer came by, and he instinctively jumped into the hole with the unfortunate soul.

"What the hell are you doing, man?" He exclaimed at the engineer, "Now we're both stuck in here!"

The engineer looked around, surveying the hole, and with a grin of familiarity on his face, calmly replied, "Yeah, but I've been in this hole before, and I know how to get us out."

And he did exactly that.

Forward action and next steps > Thoughts and Prayers any day of the week.

Customer service has an important place, and that is generally to perform actions that will reduce a customer's anxiety. Usually, this is in lower-level issues, say a login problem, a connection issue, or a bill that wasn't right. The phrase makes sense here.

Technical Support is a different animal.

The customer, who is watching some portion of their business, sometimes in smaller cases, their baby, on fire with full flames, is in panic. They are just witnessing the combustion and seeing money they can't afford to lose fly away in the smoke and ashes. All they are seeing is the flame. No matter how big or small the fire may be to you, it's on fire, and that's all that counts to them. And rightfully so.

Customer Support, bless their hearts, witness the solicitude, and in an attempt to positively course-correct the situation, try to convince the customer that fires are sometimes cozy and that at least they are a little warmer now.

Technical Support examines the situation, grabs a shovel, and, with a knowing nod to the obviously shaken customer, tries to determine what exactly is actually burning.

So the phrase "delighting the customer" doesn't hit the same in my world as it does on the dog-and-pony stage. We call it "eliminating the problem that may cost my customer's kids a meal", and the personal proximity is very different.

Many of us have watched that fire before, many times on some project or endeavour that we were directly attached to. It gets personal way too fast, and then the other shoe drops.

If little Joey or Sally don't get their tater tots because of this fire Mommy or Daddy have to now watch, that onus is on us.

Not our C-suite.

I could write an entire book on how much I utterly despise metrics in support arenas. They are almost always misdesigned or applied in the wrong areas, and in most of the examples I've seen, with the wrong intent. In the many cases I have observed with colleagues throughout support teams across various industries, metrics are usually painted to be presented like a pig in makeup as something akin to Six Sigma, but it is actually a hard stick created to bludgeon employees with.

That's why I became a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, and an OPEX Expert. Seriously. That's literally the reason. I needed to know what we really should be measuring.

I'm sure it makes me very unpopular sometimes, and frankly, I don't care.

Because, tater tots.

My customer's kid's tater tots, specifically. And they only get them if I can find out what's burning, and either put out the fire, or find the right shooting solution and exit strategy for the customer. That's what's important. Not the numbers.

Your sheet of numbers will never buy the tater tots. Their no longer burning issue, however, will.

I get that I'm somewhat of a unicorn, and I try not to take that too much to heart. And I'm not alone. I can name two C-Suites with that laser focus, attention to detail, and desire for product stability that I speak of. The end user being impacted mattered. Those are two groups of people who had a positive impact on me and taught me even more about what counts at the end of the day.

One became part of HP OpenView, and the other affects any phone calls or network routing you make today.

That was back in the days when I was known as a Senior Network Engineer.

Maybe I come by this antagonistic attitude to support honestly. I'm a combat veteran and served through two conflicts. I have a foxhole mentality, much like the engineer in my story.

I'm also a paratrooper and Pathfinder, so in addition to the "First In, Last Out" mantra, I also operate under the realization that I am always behind enemy lines (the problem at hand) and no one is coming to save us (usually).

In conclusion, I'm not looking to "delight" the customer. In my experience, that's temporary mumbo-jumbo to make things softer than they are or massage them into something they don't want and never need. This whole conundrum is not new; I've seen it for the entire 30 years I've supported and troubleshooted various systems and software.

When you say we're going to "delight the customer," just understand that we are not the same.

My mission is to restore the customer. Make them whole again, or at least as much as possible.

I'll be the first to admit I don't always succeed in this. There is always something new, an issue that has to be discovered. I'm not Linus Torvalds, James Gosling, or even Mudge or Phiber Optik.

I'm Jay. Or in other arenas, Wirehead. And what I care most about when I'm working a support or admin gig is that your kids get their tater tots so my kids can have theirs, too.

If this resonates with you, feel free to let me know. We're probably of like minds and would get along great.

If this offended you, bless your heart.

Thoughts and prayers!

You're always welcome in the hole.