It’s like hitting a target with a focused laser beam, rather than a spray of bullets from a sawed-off shotgun - the laser is much more likely to hit the target. When your team excels at troubleshooting, they know exactly what questions to ask and they don’t waste time collecting information they don’t need. High-effort situations, like back and forth emails, are the leading cause of customer disloyalty, and even if you resolve the issue in the end, customers will remember how frustrating it was to get a resolution.

This is a ton of additional effort for the customer, who just wants a quick fix to the problem. Ineffective troubleshooting often ends up putting the onus of investigation on the customer, asking for more details and tests and information that might not even be relevant to fixing the problem. In customer support, investing in better troubleshooting skills pays off in the form of happier customers and more efficient agents. In this post, we’ll dive into how you (yes, you!) can also become a great troubleshooter and how you can pass on this knowledge to others on your team. These people seem able to fix anything, saving you from throwing things out prematurely or paying good money to a professional. They can look at a problem, isolate the root issue, and understand what needs to be done to fix the leak, stop the wiggle, or get it running again.

Handy people - mechanics, carpenters, your friendly neighborhood MacGyver - all have the same ability to troubleshoot. When a customer writes in to your support team reporting that something isn’t working right and you haven’t seen this situation before, it’s time to start troubleshooting.

He has truly perfected the art of troubleshooting, and we appreciate his insights!

Special thanks to Matt Dale, whose SUPCONF NYC talk inspired this post, and who was extremely generous with his knowledge while we were putting this post together.

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