Question: When dealing with others in a customer service environment, at one time or another, we will be faced with the individual, whether a co-worker or customer, that can make a powerful impact on us. When this occurs, how we handle the situation can either make us or break us. As a help desk professional, write a one-to-two page paper explaining how you would handle the following situation involving a customer.

Currently, you are facing a serious personal issue related to a close family member. Of course, you are worried and somewhat distracted from your normal, cheerful self. Here comes the phone call that you cannot avoid. Timing could not be worse. No one is able to assist you with this call because everyone is out of town for a week of training. The customer, an Executive Assistant to the Vice President of Operations in your building, was preparing an important proposal on his flash drive. The proposal was to be presented to the Marketing executive the following morning. The assistant routinely used his flash drive when working at home. A service pack installation, which should have been scheduled for installation the night before, began to install on his desktop after he stepped away for lunch. The assistant did not save and close his proposal document before leaving for lunch. When he returned, the computer began to reboot. During the reboot process, there was a power outage, and the computer was not connected to an uninterruptible power supply (UPS). When he was finally able to reboot the computer, auto recovery did not save the document, and the three pages he had completed prior to the restart were gone. As part of his fury, he began to berate you and the I.T. department with some choice words because of this incident and a previous unresolved incident that slipped through the cracks. The assistant also stated that he was on the way to your office to demand an immediate remedy for the return of the missing data.

You are clearly shaken by this phone call as this is in addition to everything else that is taking place in your personal life. Within your paper, thoroughly explain your responses to each of the following:

• Can you diffuse this situation? If so, in what way?

• Based on what you have learned in this lesson, what skills would be required in dealing with this customer? Explain.

• How would you handle the computer issue?

• Since you are the only one present, what actions would you take regarding the escalation process because this issue is beyond your scope of expertise?

• From your perspective, should an employee save company documents on their flash drive? Why or why not?

• At what time in this process would you capitalize on the opportunity to educate the user? What would you say?