Every time I deal with another company’s tech support department, it’s always the same story. I explain the problem to the rep along with what I’ve tried so far. Inevitably, they ask me to try the same thing again, ignoring everything I just told them. Next, they transfer me to another agent, who repeats the exact same process. Is this really an efficient way to handle trouble tickets? In my experience, both on the customer and the vendor side of things, repeating the same question over and over just makes the calls take longer and costs everyone time and money.

In some cases, this endless interrogation is due to lazy support reps who can’t take 30 seconds to read what the customer typed or to review the case history. In other situations, it’s caused by a lack of communication between one support rep (or team) and another. For whatever reason, the first rep fails to provide the second rep with the info on the original problem and attempted solutions, so you go through the whole process again.

The solution here is rather obvious, but rarely practiced. First, train your support reps to listen better to customers and properly brief coworkers when transferring a customer to them. Second, put a proper case tracking system in place and use it to document everything the customer tells you about each issue. By following these steps, problems should take less time to resolve, staff productivity should rise, and customers will be a lot less frustrated.