I hate calling help desks.  No offense to anyone who works in one of those places, but I always feel like a puppet on a string.  I find this really frustrating as a customer.

It wasn’t too long ago where I had to get something sorted with my computer and I called my internet provider’s help desk.  Now, I am no computer genius but I know a little and I had already tried a few things, some of which I had been asked to perform by the same help desk when a similar problem had reared its head previously.  When I tried to relay all of the things I had already done, I was shut down and asked if my computer was on.  No matter how many times I tried to get a word in edgewise, I was cut off and treated like I was three.

Does anyone like to feel that they have no voice and that anything they say is passed over?  It isn’t that help desk employees are bad people or that they are inept or anything, it’s that they’ve been hog-tied to a very rigorous step-by-step procedure and they can’t take a little time to really allow for the input of the customer.

What’s the moral here?  Even though these help desk personnel are on short leashes, they need to be allowed to let customers have input.  This goes for any business.  Customers’ thoughts and ideas, no matter how relevant or crazy, need to be respected and heard.  Making anyone feel powerless only begins a downward spiral into resistance and, eventually, bad word of mouth and disloyalty.

Let your customers have a voice.  Pay attention to them.  Don’t discount what they may bring to the table.  Even though you may be the expert, they may surprise you with a creative idea or a solution you never considered.