10 Things I Hate about End Users
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Original Post: MSP Blog
Working in IT, you have a love/hate relationship (I'll let you mentally fill in that ratio) with your end users. Curious about the most common grievances, we reached out to the online tech communities of Spiceworks, Mango Lassi and Reddit to ask members what irked them the most about the end users whose sites they support. It turns out you all have a lot to say on this matter because the responses flooded in! After three very entertaining and enlightening threads, we've narrowed it down to the biggest offenses in a list we're calling 10 Things I Hate about End Users.
If this name sounds familiar, a tip of my hat to you for recognizing it! With it being February, we're celebrating the season of love by putting a managed IT services spin on some of the greatest rom-coms. In this latest installment, we celebrate the film adaptation of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, 10 Things I Hate about You.
1. When they generalize every issue, saying there's a problem with the Internet or server
If you've ever faced a similar situation, this can definitely be frustrating. Just know, however, that your end users are rarely going to understand the technical aspects of their business. If you need them to provide you additional or more specific information in order to deliver stellar support, you have to ask the right questions and be able to translate the state of their environment in terms they'll understand so that they learn for next time.
2. When they don't bother to learn - they've been fated to never be "good at computers"
Man, this one's frustrating! It's as if they think computer skills are just something certain people are born with. Good thing it's in your genetic code, or you'd be out of a job.
3. When they think they can do your job better than you can
It can be tempting to lose your cool, but don't. Yell at them in your head.
4. When they think you can fix anything, and call upon you to fix EVERYTHING
This idea that techs are seen as the go-to people for everything also came up in our previous blog post, The Biggest IT Myths in Need of Busting: Can You Grant My Every Wish? One tech even admitted he was called upon to fix a stapler.
5. When they don't give you any head's up about change requests
As Regional Sales Manager at Continuum, Matt Hubbell warned against this very situation in How to Account for Client Change Requests & Prevent Scope Creep. If you have clients that experience frequent employee turnover, factor that in when drafting your MSP agreement.
6. When they don't understand when and when not to reboot...
...or think this counts
7. When they abuse their ticketing privileges because they need you NOW
Then, you have clients that take this to a whole other level...
Non-descriptive emails marked as urgent make it challenging for you to prioritize which tasks to complete first. Perhaps it's worth going over the differences in ticket seriousness. Create documentation around examples of mission critical issues so they know when situations actually require urgent attention. Perhaps you could even devise and encourage clients to embrace a system of tickets codified to reflect the level of support required. For instance, you could ask them to name email or ticket subjects "MISSION CRITICAL" for the bigger issues and "Attention Needed" for smaller fixes.
Just hope that they are truthful with you...
This may be something you'll want to address with these clients in your semi-annual or quarterly business reviews (QBRs). Your Service Level Agreement (SLA) shouldn't only cover what's expected of you. You need to make sure you regularly review client expectations, as well.
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I recognize @brendan-pitstop-nz
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You guys really dislike end users
http://mangolassi.it/topic/7914/10-things-i-hate-about-end-users
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Something that every user needs to know: "When everything is high priority, nothing is high priority."
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@StrongBad said:
Something that every user needs to know: "When everything is high priority, nothing is high priority."
I just had a user do this same thing, something that literally cannot be completed until tomorrow, was High Priorority (1-2 hours) today...
I skyped and ask if someone was crying wolf...
