Chapter 7 Tech Customer Service

"Act with integrity and honesty in dealing with the public, end users, coworkers, management and competitors", would likely be covered in:

A professional code of ethical behavior

Which of these support management concerns directly affects the support staff's job?

All of these

Which of these categories of workers is expected to increase at about the same rate as employment in the US economy over the next decade?

Computer Support Specialists

Which of these testing methods is often used in industry certification exams?

Computer adaptive test

A professional association is a labor union that represents the interests of a group of agents who work for an organization

False

Although end users benefit from training, help desk staff are generally self-taught and usually do not benefit from an ongoing training program.

False

An Erlang unit is a measure of the number of telephone calls received where a user hung up before a help desk agent was able to answer the call.

False

Certification of knowledge, skills and abilities in technology is now a job requirement for virtually any help desk position.

False

Entry-level help desk staff are usually not concerned with performance measures and the justification of help desk services; performance and justification are primarily management responsibilities.

False

Most open help desk and user support positions are advertised in the newspaper.

False

Organizations that treat user support as a profit center may have more difficulty justifying the cost of support services

False

Performance statistics collected and analyzed for a support group are not useful to evaluate individual support employees.

False

Since there are few agreed-on standards in the computer industry, it is very difficult to agree on a code of ethics for IT professionals

False

Since user support is a new field, there are not yet any professional associations for user support professionals.

False

Unethical activities in the computer industry are those that are illegal according to federal, state and local laws

False

Unlike a question in a knowledge and skills test, there is only one correct answer to a scenario question in a job interview.

False

Wait time is the average time a help desk agent is idle before an incident arrives that needs attention.

False

Which of these ways of organizing a support center has both an expense budget and an income budget?

Profit center

Which of these knowledge, skills, and abilities would a help desk manager probably not seek in an applicant for a help desk position

Programming skills

During an interview for a help desk position, a behavioral question gives an applicant an opportunity to describe actions he or she took in a specific help desk situation

True

During an interview for a help desk position, directed questions are often used to find out whether an applicant has specific educational or work experience.

True

Employment in the category of Computer Support Specialists is expected to increase at about an average rate compared with other occupational categories in the US during the next decade.

True

Employment of Network and Computer System Administrators is expected to increase faster than Computer Support Specialists in the US during the next decade.

True

In smaller organizations, support specialists may perform some user support management tasks, such as project leader, supervisor, or user support manager.

True

Industry-standard certification exams are vendor-neutral

True

One purpose of user support staff training is to help agents meet the performance objectives of their position

True

Orientations for new help desk agents often cover a support organization's policies and procedures, such as how to handle a client who wants a refund for a product.

True

Performance measures for a help desk operation may be reported as statistics, but are often reported as a visual graphic, such as a column chart

True

Support managers often use recordings of monitored support calls to help workers identify areas where performance improvement is needed

True

The employee selection process for a help desk position can be described as an attempt to find applicants with the knowledge, skills, and abilities that are the closest match with the requirements of a position

True

The example user support mission statement in this chapter focuses primarily on operational efficiency and user productivity

True

User support budgets are often divided into two large categories: revenue and expenses.

True

User support expense budgets are often divided into two large categories: personnel and facilities.

True

User support managers monitor several aspects of their support operation, including the percentage of calls that were abandoned by the user

True

While a single performance measure may be useful, trends in performance measures over time are a more useful indicator of help desk performance

True

User support managers often use which of these strategies to determine how many staff members to hire to handle the volume of support incidents received?

Use an Erlang calculation to estimate staffing needs

Which of the following is not a primary benefit of IT industry certification

ability to identify a worker whose performance has fallen below industry standards

Which of the following is not a primary benefit of IT industry certification?

ability to identify a worker whose performance has fallen below industry standards

A measure of the number of support incidents that can be handled in a given time period, often used in staffing the help desk group, is ____.

an Erlang unit

A user support mission statement usually states how an organization's business transactions will be processed on a corporate computer system.

false

Since there are few agreed on standards in the user support industry, there are currently no certifications available for help desk agents.

false

A vendor-specific certification is ____.

none of these

CBT or WBT for those preparing for certification exams are ____ courses.

online tutorial

Which of the following kinds of questions gives an applicant for a help desk position a specific problem to solve that is representative of situations that help desk agents actually encounter?

scenario question

A support budget is a financial plan that translated the goals in a mission statement into a strategy to meet the goals.

true

Which of the following is not a common type of certification used in the information technology field?

verification of prior employment during a job interview

The average time it takes a help desk to respond to incidents is ____.

wait time