I heard my wife screaming on the phone. I ran into the room, thinking something major was going wrong. Like a home invasion, or a fire or something.

Turns out, she was yelling at technical support because she couldn't get the Website our umbrella school uses to track grades and attendance to take her recent updates.

I calmly took the phone from her, and asked her to leave the room.

About 1 ½ minutes later, I came into the kitchen where she was sulking to tell her the problem was resolved.

"What did you do differently than I did?" she fumed.

"I talked to him," was my reply.

She didn't hit me, but she felt like it.

Of all the skills that should be taught in schools and institutions like Orthodox Churches, one of the most critical for the 21^st Century is how to talk to tech support.

Here is what my wife was saying to the nice tech support rep, "The page won't take my changes."

Could you diagnose the problem based on that information?

Probably not. But time and again, that is the level of information that users provide technicians and expect that somehow, magically, we'll just know what is happening.

Here is what I told the support rep, "User inputs changes to the student record using Firefox 2.1.5 on a Mac OS X system. After hitting the submit button, the screen first locks up and then times out. No updates are written to the record, because after re-accessing the system, the information is displayed as it was prior to the attempted update."

Turns out, there was a security setting on Firefox that was trapping out the system.

Calling tech support doesn't have to be hard. It doesn't have to ruin your day. The techs are actually paid to help you, and many of them actually know something about what they are doing. Whether you're are opening your ticket online, via email, or over the phone, here are some tips to help make your tech support experience as productive as possible:

1) Tell the technician what system you are running.

Especially with Web-based applications, operating system and browser mean everything. Some systems are optimized for a specific browser, and can cause problems with a different one. Some systems work with both Mac and PC, but require specific plugins for one or the other. It is absolutely essential that a tech know what system you are trying to run his software on. If you open a ticket online or send an email, and don't include this information, then you are just slowing the process down. You will end up with a request for more information. Just include it up front and make things easier.

2) Tell the technician what you were doing when the problem occurred.

Be specific, and try to be accurate in terms of sequence of events. This type of description won't help anyone, "Your Website is broken."

However, this problem description will get you better help, "I logged in to the member area of Website. I clicked the option to Write/Edit Blogs, and the Website returned a blank, white page."

Do you see the difference between those two statements? If you send the first statement to tech support in an email, they are going to have to come back to you for more information. If you call and tell tech support the first statement, then they will have to drag the information out of you.

Just give them the information up front, and things will go much smoother.

Remember this rule - a technician has a hard time fixing what he can't replicate. The first step in problem resolution on a system is to match the condition to a known error, or to try and replicate the problem on a control system. If you don't give the tech any information to go on, then he can't proceed.

3) Tell the technician exactly what errors you see.

Systems return error codes to help diagnose problems. If a system returns an error message, then copy and paste it into the support ticket or read it to the technician on the phone verbatim. Often, the message alone contains enough information for the tech to start the process of resolving your issue.

If you contact tech support and forget to tell us the error message you got, then it frequently sends us off on wild goose chases.

I'll give you a quick example. A user reported to me a few years ago that he couldn't publish changes to his Website. I was busy, but took the time to jump on this problem because he is a friend.

I signed in to his site, wrote a test article, published it, checked it - everything was fine. In fact, I couldn't see any problems at all.

Finally he told me that he had gotten an error when he tried to publish changes.

"Something about not having permission," he mumbled.

"Really," I said, "That's strange. Your account has Admin privileges on your site."

"Oh," he chuckled, "I wasn't signed on as me. I used my wife's account because I forgot my password."

His wife's account didn't have Admin privileges. (But it does now.) I had wasted two hours out of my day because the user hadn't bothered to give me the specific error code.

That has never happened again, but now I get irate users yelling at me because I'm interrogating them when I should be fixing their problem.

4) Never, ever contact tech support on someone else's behalf.

If you did not see the problem, or experience the problem, then don't call. Don't open a ticket online. Don't send an email. You will only make things worse.

"Well, I'm not sure, but I think my boss did this."

That is not going to get the problem fixed. Either replicate the problem yourself to make sure you can talk intelligently to the tech, or make your boss, wife, priest, brother, whatever call for himself.

5) Be polite, stay calm, don't plead.

The technican wants to help you. He is paid to help you. Most of these phone calls are recorded, and support tickets are frequently reviewed by management. Most companies in the technology world will fire an unhelpful tech in a heartbeat.

So stay calm. Yelling at the tech won't help. If you feel that you are not getting support, then ask the tech to escalate the call to a higher support level. Most tech shops have a lower level front-line (often called Level 1) which handles most situations, and a more advanced level of support (often called Level 2).

Be polite, but ask to escalate the call if the situation is warranted. And don't beg or call yourself names, or keep telling the tech how you don't know what you are doing. It doesn't help the process one bit. You will get the same amount of support whether you are a power user or someone who can barely switch your box on.

6) Remember the person on the other end of the line or reading your email is a person made in the image and likeness of God.

Do not do or say anything on the phone or via email that you wouldn't do or say if the person were standing in front of you. I have gotten the nastiest, most brutal emails from little old Orthodox ladies that I know would never act that way in person. But, behind her keyboard and dealing with some kind of technical issue, a mild-mannered Ya Ya can morph into a killing machine.

One last thought on that. DO NOT WRITE IN ALL CAPS. EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT MAD, THAT IS HOW IT COMES ACROSS.

Sometimes when writing to people with whom I work closely, I'll all capitalize a single word or two for emphasis. But never do this with people you don't know. It is highly disrespectful and aggressive behavior, and it will get your support ticket sorted to the bottom of the to-do list.

If I get an email with a bunch of caps in it, then I've been known to wait a day or more before calling that person back.

Why? Because you just assume it will be an unpleasant interaction with yelling and anger, and life is too short to take that much abuse.

First and foremost, you are an Orthodox Christian. You love your neighbor as yourself, and that includes the times when your cable box is out, your Website is down, and you can't sign in to your online banking account.

At least you're not getting fed to lions, okay?

Remember this especially if you are calling on behalf of an Orthodox Christian ministry. There is nothing worse than being on the receiving end of abuse dished out by someone from Holy Something or Other Orthodox Church. I'm Orthodox and it gets tough to take, can you image what kind of image of Orthodox Christians a non-Orthodox can form on the basis of negative interactions?

God loves tech support reps. You should too.

Glen Chancy is CIO for corfun.com and publisher of Orthodox Biz. You can contact him here .

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