The Big Fight: Screen Capture vs Friendly Phone
To aid you in better understanding the business of ‘Customer Support’ and how we could provide you better and faster service, we need you to try and see it from our vantage...
And in this corner, the ‘Friendly Phone’
True, phones are easy and friendly, especially when you are able to contact a real person with a friendly personality. And let’s face it, in almost every facet of the service and support industry, real phone conversations have been replaced by automated menus and touch tone selections. It IS nice to talk a real person. But the real predicament arises when it takes 6, 8, or 10 minutes to address a 1 minute problem. Why this long? The short answer, because it is on the phone. Remember that old adage; a picture is worth a thousand words?
And in this corner, the ‘Dreaded Screen Capture’
Typically after the exchange of telephone pleasantries, the conversation regarding a support issue goes back and forth:
“What seems to be the problem/ in which company is the issue occurring/ what were you trying to do/ where were you trying to do it/ who was the customer/ in which warehouse/ product number/ is it a serialized part/ what does the error message say/ could I have the error message word for word... all the time, Customer Support is frantically trying to dial into your system so that we can see what you are seeing. A simple screen capture with a few lines of explanation could have provided Support with enough information that we could have returned an email message with screen shot instructions to get you back to the business at hand.
We hear from some of our clients that the Print Screen (PrtScn key on your keyboard) is not functional on your system so you are not able to take screen captures. This situation can be remedied by having your IT administrator allow this functionality. For any of you moving up to Windows 7 (we will assume you will pass on Vista) a basic screen capture utility included (also in Vista) is found in your Microsoft
Start Button › All Programs › Accessories › Snipping Tool and appears as
.
For those of you staying with Windows XP, another fantastic and inexpensive product that can be used throughout your organization for the simple communicating of ideas and information by means of screen captures is a product called SnagIt
(http://www.techsmith.com/snagit) . It is a simple intuitive productivity tool that would be well worth considering for your organization.