Getting an IT Help Desk Job For Dummies

Chapter 9

The Remote Nerd

In This Chapter

• Acclimating yourself to cubicle life
• Clarifying the differences between remote support and other types of support service
• Detailing the different ways customers communicate with companies

Working as a technical support engineer for a company that provides a product to customers is fundamentally different than working as a consultant or an internal help desk. Your primary role is to connect with users and provide them support for one or more software or hardware products. You don't have direct access to them, but they need your help, and it's a difficult enough thing when you can work with people face to face.

Another factor of working for an external help desk is that you don't generally work directly with other engineers, but alone in a cubicle. You get a computer, a phone, a headset, and access to a range of tools to help you provide service to customers. Some work is done entirely in email, while other work is performed over the phone, through instant messaging, or using remote access tools.

The different forms of communication are used in different ways in order to facilitate the delivery of solutions for the range of different skill levels of customers. Issues can scale from simple questions to extraordinarily complex problems. Customers who are familiar with the technologies can often make due with an answer to a simple question, while others require more of a hands-on approach.

The Disruptor Called Social Networking

If any one ...