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Customer support representatives: the job, not-so-easy

Earlier this summer, Jason Daley wrote in Popular Science (June 2007 issues) about the Worst Jobs in Science 2007, noting that worst job #6 was that of a Microsoft Security Grunt.

“Teams of Microsoft Security Response Center employees toil 365 days a year to fix the kinks in Windows, Internet Explorer, Office and all the behemoth’s other products. It’s tedious work. Each product can have multiple versions in multiple languages, and each needs its own repairs (by one estimate, Explorer alone has 300 different configurations). Plus, to most hackers, crippling Microsoft is the geek equivalent of taking down the Death Star, so the assault is relentless.”

I imagine that the Security team loves that — it’s a badge of honour and I’m sure that it doesn’t hurt around review time. 😉 (For more info, see the Microsoft security site.)  Let me say that the folks in security are incredible, dedicated and tireless.  They rock.

I’ll submit that there are a few more jobs that are right up there, jobs that are often as tough as an oceanographer (where there’s “nothing but bad news, day in and day out”), as harrowing as hazmat divers and as dirty as a whale-feces researcher. Under appreciated jobs that I salute and couldn’t be successful at work without include field technical account managers, software build and test teams, escalation engineers and most of all…

Microsoft Customer Support Representatives.

Customer service at Microsoft is often a thankless job: imagine being on the front line representative for Microsoft’s products and services quality. As noted on our site, customer service “is our primary line of assistance, where our customers first turn for troubleshooting help and answers to questions.” 

No kidding. 

Whether by e-mail, telephone or regular snail mail (we still receive letters from customers, believe it or not), Microsoft CSR’s as they’re called are our first line representatives of the company, handling everything from every day issues (“where’s my control panel?”) to complex network configurations requiring a well-orchestrated connection across multiple support professionals and product engineers. There are reams of data, details, product information, procedures and processes that these people execute day after day, solving problems of nearly 50 million people over the phone (not to mention 600 million people a year via our online services).

So you can imagine that the calls are not always glowing love-fests. I mean, c’mon: when was the last time you took the time to send an email, write a letter or call a company to applaud their customer service or product quality?

For example: today in a meeting, I relayed how the last time I contacted a company (this morning, in fact) was to complain about the product I received in the mail. (To their credit, Photoworks, the photo finishing company has been very responsive and quickly accommodated my requests for a refund.)  In fact, most of my interaction with companies related to their products is around a defect, limitation, incompatibility or something that’s just plain silly.

A disclaimer here: responding to one of the popular “how’s my driving?” stickers on the rear of many large trucks these days, I recently placed a call to our local recycling company. I reported that their driver was following the speed limit and waited cautiously whilst children crossed the road at a sidewalk.

In the times I have called Microsoft customer service, I have had good responses, CSRs have been patient, attentive and helpful. Only two out of the I-don’t-know-how-many-times I’ve called incidents where the agent wasn’t able to resolve the issue or solve the problem I was calling about.

Funny how I can clearly recall the negative experiences with our CSRs and have a difficult time remembering the positive ones. Psychology Today notes that there is a five-to-one ratio in positive to negative experiences in personal relationships… 

“Due to the brain’s “negativity bias”; it is simply built with a greater sensitivity to unpleasant news. The bias is so automatic that it can be detected at the earliest stage of the brain’s information processing.”

That would mean that I’ve called our normal customer service lines for help about ten times or so. 😉

In any event, here’s to the CSRs: the next time you think that you’ve got a tough job, think about the dedicated folks who take the calls, do the research and work hard to solve your service and technical problems (sometimes risking life an limb in the process, as reported by Jessica Marszalek down in Oz).

Also of interest…

Tags: Microsoft, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Service.

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Seattle Times’ article on the post-Gates era, plus ThinkWeek and the need for “more cowbell”

Benjamin J. Romano has an insightful article in today’s Seattle Times on the preparations “for the post-Gates era” at Microsoft by the leadership.  

“Building a bank of collective wisdom is one part of the preparations going on at the highest levels as Microsoft prepares for a momentous shift to the post-Gates era.

“For the past year, and really the better part of the past decade, Gates has been downloading the institutional knowledge of Microsoft and the software industry stored in his head to the leaders who will handle his responsibilities at the company he co-founded 32 years ago.”

On Think Week:  The article also touches on Gates’ much-heralded Think Week. If you haven’t heard of Bill’s week-long retreat to go through many of the dozens (or usually hundreds) of papers submitted, Think Weeks are semi-annual opportunities for employees to submit the best ideas that are bubbling up in Microsoft. As Gates’ said, Think Week is an opportunity to “read the latest Ph.D. theses, try out new technologies, and try and write down my thoughts about where the market is going.”

Bill reads and comments on the papers supported all the while by what the Journal termed as “a steady stream of Diet Orange Crush.”  I recommend the coverage a couple of years ago by Robert Guth here in The WSJournal and Dare’s good write-up in an old blog posting. 

Past Think Weeks used to be one of those things that people talked about in hushed tones and references, almost like some sort of secret ritual, but no longer.  That’s good, as there’s a tremendous benefit to expose the ideas to a larger set of employees.  It’s not so much “done by committee” as Romano wrote in his article: Ray Ozzie, quoted in the article today…

” ‘Think week’ has been transitioning from a single ‘Bill thing’ to something where a broader audience gets the chance to comment on submitted papers. The tradition of think week is incredibly strong,” Ozzie, who replaced Gates as chief software architect, said in an interview earlier this year with the Wharton School’s online business journal.”

That’s also good, as The Journal reported in 2005 that there were nearly 300 papers for his week’s review: having more eyes looking at the papers benefits us all.  People should be encouraged to take the initiative and be exposed to the insight and ideas of the incredible talent at the company. They can also see an evolution of different areas, technologies and thoughts over the years. 

On technical leadership: Switching gears for a moment… and thinking about a “post-Gates era”…  Brad Silverberg, ex-Microsoft exec and strategic consultant to Ballmer, was quoted in the article that Microsoft is “a notoriously difficult place for outsiders to come in and be successful.”

That’s true. It’s also a place where Ozzie has been able to capture the attention and respect of employees in the company. 

And we need more Ray.  (Said with the same emphasis as in the historic SNL quip of “more cowbell!”) 

IMHO, it’s important that he also espouse on what he believes we should focus on, improve upon. As mini-microsoft blogged in this post on “random unconnected things” back in February… 

“Where’s Ray? I’m sure Ray Ozzie has been busy being the wizard behind the connected services scene of the future, but he’s just plain running too silent for my comfort. And I’m sure with Mix07 he’s going to go through presenting some new technology we’re thinking about… perhaps even add single 2007 entry to his unloved blog. But if Ray is the bridge to the connected future from the present Gates, we all need more obvious leadership infrastructure getting us there, and more engagement from Ray and his brigade about what’s happening and what kind of coherent vision is coming about. Silence makes me edgy.”

I agree. As I posted previously, Ray’s external blogs may not be updated regularly, but it appears that Ozzie gets it, and is working on being more visible.  He is in the press more and more, thankfully, and increasingly visible, more communicative and thoughtful on the big issues that impact the company.  He’s positive on the focus needed on the customer experience: “the most important person is the customer or integrator that understands how to match the capabilities of a specific technology to what’s needed.”

Again, IMHO, this is an area for improvement, an area that Gates has mastered. It was noted in the Times article (by Matt Rosoff, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft) that Bill has the “automatic respect of every Microsoft employee.”

IMO you have great, articulate and technically astute leaders in people like Bob Muglia, Jeff Raikes, Jon DeVaan, J Allard, Satya Nadella, Soma, Steven Sinofsky… the list goes on.  These leaders also understand the importance of providing a great customer experience with our products and services. 

Ray is from the same mould. And I believe that Ray can also help — along with the rest of the company leadership — fill the need for insightful, public technical voices at a global level as Gates departs.

More cowbell.

Worth reading also are the sidebar articles on Craig Mundie and Ray Ozzie…

  • Craig Mundie: Company envoy will keep that role
  • Ray Ozzie: Collaborative leader has “coaching style”

    • Tags: Bill Gates, Ray Ozzie, customer satisfaction, Microsoft.

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    Of interest: ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley talked with Satya Nadella about Windows Live Search

    Of interest: ZDNet‘s Mary Jo Foley spoke with Satya Nadella, in charge of the Search & Advertising Platform Group, in her post today What’s next on Microsoft’s search agenda? …



    “Nadella, who was named as the head of Microsoft’s combined Search and Ad Platform Group in March 2007, also is shepherding his team through a planned fall Search update, as well as an upcoming Spring search refresh. Nadella said his goal is to do a major search refresh twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall, for the foreseeable future. In between these updates, Microsoft will continue to roll out incremental search improvements, such as the new facial-detection search functionality it recently added to its Live Image Search.


    “Nadella said the areas where Microsoft can innovate in search fall into three primary buckets:



    1. Core: Microsoft will improve search relevance — not just by tweaking the search algorithm, but also by tuning the data platform and mining, he said. “We believe we can compete with anyone on relevance,” Nadella said.



    2. User Experience: Microsoft has 55 million searchers. (Google has twice that many, according to Nadella.) The question is “how to get searchers to search more with us,” Nadella said. Promotions like the give-aways by the Live Search Club are hardly the only strategy Microsoft has up its sleeve here.


    3. Integration: Microsoft also is working to integrate its search results, search application-programming interfaces (APIs) and search engine into existing Microsoft properties. This means everything from integrating Local Search with Microsoft Outlook, to making Live Search the engine that powers Office Live, Nadella said. “We have a set of APIs today that you can take, and (you can) use our search results with any other property or application,” he said.”


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    Defining customer service isn’t always easy

    Amy Conn-Gutierrez has an article in the Dallas Morning News on how companies are struggling in their definition of customer satisfaction.



    “Customer service isn’t what it used to be. That’s a lament expressed by many consumers, convinced that a golden age when the customer was always right is long past.

    “But that statement is also a fact of life for businesses – and retailers in particular: Customer service doesn’t mean what it used to mean.”


    What does it mean to you?


    “The phrase [customer service] means everything, and it means nothing,” said Pamela N. Danziger, an authority on consumer insights and author of several books on the shopping experience. “It’s whatever is important to the consumer.”

    “Everybody knows it when it’s not happening. It’s like what the court says about pornography. It knows it when it sees it,” said Phil Rist, vice president at BIGresearch, a firm that surveys more than 7,000 shoppers a month for the largest retail trade organization.


    To me, it’s knowing that my expectations will be met and (in terms of great service) sometimes exceeded.

    Here’s one example: When I visit an on-line bookseller —Amazon, eBay or Barnes and Noble — I expect one experience where I often know what I want. It’s all about finding what I’m looking for and completing the transaction quickly, and then waiting for my product. My questions are usually answered by looking at on-line customer reviews, and sometime via a quick question to customer service (usually related to the transaction or my account).

    But when I visit a store, it’s different. Sometimes I’ll be looking for real-time help in locating an item — as in a recent trip to find an abridged Jules Verne novel for my sci-fi starved 9-yr-old — or for the browsing experience with my kids as they look for a new book to read at bed time. (One of the reasons they love the library if for the social aspect, and the exposure to the sheer volume of books available, something that it difficult to appreciate or visualize via a web browser.) 

    I appreciate the knowledgeable staff at our local bookstores, just as I do when I am when shopping at the hardware store: I’m buying access to the staff’s experience as much as I buy the product. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve gone to a bookstore on a mission to get just one book, and left with a bag full of stuff,

    Case in point: my recent experience in locating a part for a Samsung monitor: the gentleman working at Lowes Hardware with an incredible knowledge of the parts department found a part almost immediately that I wouldn’t have found (or even known what to look for). When I need something for the house or a tool, most times I head to the store, sometimes after researching the tool on various sites for customer feedback.

    Steve Ballmer spoke at Convergence 2007 this past March, and he (like many of our execs) are passionate about improving the overall product and services experience for our customers and partners. I can tell you first-hand that there are fewer people in the highest levels of a company that go to great lengths to solve customer issues and ensure that customers are heard and get the responses they need. At one point in his talk, Steve discussed how we make technology that helps our customers better serve their customers and improve business productivity…


    “I’ll tell you a story which really has a profound impact on my thinking about where we need to go with business solutions and applications. I was in Italy late last year, I was meeting with the CEO of a firm called Monte Dei Paschi Di Siena Bank. I won’t try to repeat it too many times, but it is the world’s oldest bank. It was the bank that financed Columbus’ adventure in America. They reminded me.

    “We were doing a big project with them, and I was talking to the CEO and he said, you know, one thing that really surprised us, five or six years ago when the Internet was sort of coming  or seven years ago when the Internet was coming into fruition people were telling us we were never going to need branches anymore, everything was going to move online, there was going to be no need for people, customers will completely self-serve. And today we find we need more sophisticated technology in our branches than ever before, and our branches are as important and busy as ever before.

    “And I stopped and looked at him and I said, what are you saying? I don’t get it. He said, what we found is we were able to move all of the simple transactions online, but now our employees, the people who sit in the call centers and the branches, and the customers who want to interact with us in those places, they actually have more complex requirements, they’re more complex, it’s more interesting, they’re more valuable. We sell them higher value products. They have more complicated customer service needs.”


    So, in a sense, better automated systems and technology doesn’t eliminate the need for a personal relationship or a brick-and-mortar presence, it helps companies with with superior customer service focus on the hard problems while automating the simple transactions.

    An for those of you who think that this is a feel-good op-ed piece, I also keep this quote from Bill Gates tacked to my bulletin board:


    “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”


    In cases where customer complaints are escalated, we try to learn about what we did and how we got into the situation (root cause analysis), and then correct the situation. 

    A personal example: for several months, I worked closely on the product side of the house to help coordinate on our response to the challenges brought upon by the changes in daylight saving time. Many of our customers have a diverse set of applications, tools, services and solutions installed throughout their IT shops from a number of suppliers: this added to the complexity of the situation. And we had a number of different areas to respond to, given that different product updates were often required (on PCs, mobile devices, calendaring applications, services…). In short, this was a hard problem.

    The feedback and response we received from our customers was tremendously helpful in our planning leading up to the daylight saving time “Spring Forward” (March 11, 2007, in the States), and in our planning on how to address such situations in the future. The customer input has helped improve the tools and updates we deliver, as well as some of our support and update policies.

    I’ll spend more time on this in a future post, as I need to tend to a customer here at home: my six-year-old is looking for a glass of water.


    Tags: Customer service, customer feedback

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    TechNet article: Mark Russinovich on Windows Vista User Account Control

    I’ve received several mails asking for more info on User Account Control (UAC) since my last blog entry on Windows Vista UAC.


    Mark Russinovich from our group has a new article on TechNet, “Inside Windows Vista User Account Control” from the June 2007 issue of TechNet Magazine. Mark explains in depth the architecture UAC, how its used and the benefits to users and administrators…



    “Running as standard user has numerous benefits, including helping to protect systems from accidental or deliberate damage and protecting the data and integrity of users sharing a system from unauthorized access. UAC’s various changes and technologies will result in a major shift in the Windows usage model. With Windows Vista, Windows users can for the first time perform most daily tasks and run most software using standard user rights, and many corporations can now deploy standard user accounts.”


    I learned more about UAC in this one session than I have to date in my work with Vista, particularly in explaining how UAC provides easy access to administrative rights. Certainly worth the time to read and reference. 


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