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The IT Professional

1. Communication Skills and the IT

Professional

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Communication Skills, Troubleshooting, and Professional Behavior

Relationship Between Communication Skills and Troubleshooting
▪ To troubleshoot a computer, you need to learn the
details of the problem from the customer
▪ Most people who need a computer problem fixed are
probably feeling some stress
▪ If you establish a good rapport with the customer, the
customer might relax a bit
➢ A relaxed customer is more likely to be able to
provide the information that you need to determine
the source of the problem and then fix it

Communication Skills, Troubleshooting, and Professional Behavior

Relationship Between Communication Skills and Troubleshooting

❖ Communication and Troubleshooting

▪ To troubleshoot a computer, you need to learn the
details of the problem from the customer
▪ Most people who need a computer problem fixed are
probably feeling some stress
▪ If you establish a good rapport with the customer, the
customer might relax a bit
➢ A relaxed customer is more likely to be able to
provide the information that you need to
determine the source of the problem and then fix it

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Communication Skills, Troubleshooting, and Professional Behavior

Relationship Between Communication Skills and Professional
Behavior
▪ If you are talking with a customer in person, that customer can see
your body language
▪ If you are talking with a customer over the phone, that customer can
hear your tone and inflection
▪ Customers can also sense whether you are smiling when you are
speaking with them on the phone
▪ Many call center technicians use a mirror at their desk to monitor their
facial expressions

▪ Successful technicians control their own reactions and emotions from one customer call to the next
▪ A good rule for all technicians to follow is that a new customer call means a fresh start
➢ Never carry your frustration from one call to the next

Working with a Customer

Know, Relate, and Understand
▪ One of first tasks as a technician is to identify customer’s computer problem
▪ The table summarizes the three general rules for talking with a customer:

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Working with a Customer

Active Listening

❖ Allow the customer to tell the whole story

▪ During the time that the customer is explaining the
problem, occasionally interject some small word or
phrase, such as “I understand,” or “Yes.”
▪ Show the customer that you are actively listening to
them

❖ Do not interrupt the customer

▪ Even if it is to ask a question or make a statement
▪ Listen carefully when your customers speak, and let
them finish their thoughts

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Working with a Customer

Active Listening

❖ Clarify with the customer

▪ After the customer has explained the problem, clarify
what the customer has said
▪ After listening to the customer explain the whole
problem, summarize what the customer has said

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Working with a Customer

Active Listening

❖ Ask follow up questions if needed

▪ Follow-up questions should be targeted, closed-ended
questions based on the information that you have
already gathered
▪ Closed-ended questions should focus on obtaining
specific information
▪ The customer should be able to answer a closed-ended
question with a simple “yes” or “no” or with a factual
response, such as “Windows 10”

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Professional Behavior
Using Professional Behavior with the Customer
❖ The following list describes things that you should not do when talking with a customer:
▪ Do not minimize a customer’s problems
▪ Do not use jargon, abbreviations, acronyms, and slang
▪ Do not use a negative attitude or tone of voice
▪ Do not argue with customers or become defensive
▪ Do not say culturally insensitive remarks
▪ Do not disclose any experiences with customers on social media

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Professional Behavior
Using Professional Behavior with the Customer
❖ The following list describes things that you should not do when talking with a customer:
▪ Do not be judgmental or insulting or call the customer names
▪ Avoid distractions and do not interrupt when talking with customers
▪ Do not take personal calls when talking with customers
▪ Do not talk to co-workers about unrelated subjects when talking with the customer
▪ Avoid unnecessary holds and abrupt holds
▪ Do not transfer a call without explaining the purpose of the transfer and getting customer consent
▪ Do not use negative remarks about other technicians to the customer

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Professional Behavior
Tips for Hold and Transfer
▪ When dealing with customers, it is necessary to be professional in all aspects of your role
▪ You must handle customers with respect and prompt attention
▪ When on a telephone, make sure that you know
o how to place a customer on hold, as well as
o how to transfer a customer without losing the call.

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Professional Behavior
Tips for Hold and Transfer
❖ Putting a customer on hold:

▪ Let the customer finish speaking

▪ Explain that you will put the customer on hold

and why
▪ Ask for their permission to do so

▪ Explain how long they will be on hold and what

you will be doing during that time
▪ Remember to thank the customer for their
patience

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Professional Behavior
Tips for Hold and Transfer
❖ Transferring a customer:

▪ Let the customer finish speaking

▪ Explain that you will transfer their call, to whom, and why

▪ Tell them the number you are transferring them to

▪ Ask for their permission to do so

▪ Thank the customer and explain the details of the

transfer

▪ Tell the new technician the details of the case

▪ Transfer the customer without losing the call

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The Customer Call

Keeping the Customer Call Focused
▪ Use proper language
o Be clear and avoid technical language that the customer
might not understand

▪ Listen and question

o Listen carefully to the customer and let them speak
o Use open and closed ended questions to learn details about
the customer’s problem

▪ Give feedback
o Let the customer know that you understand the problem and
develop a friendly and positive conversational manner

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2. Types of customers

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The Customer Call

Types of Customers
❖ There are many different types of customers

▪ A technician needs to be able to recognize which traits their customer exhibits

▪ Recognizing these traits will help them to manage the call accordingly

▪ Some of the types are:

o A talkative customer

o A rude customer

o An angry customer

o A knowledgeable customer

o An inexperienced customer

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The Customer Call

Types of Customers
❖ A talkative customer

▪ Discusses everything except the problem and uses the call to

socialize
▪ Allow them to talk for one minute
▪ Gather as much information about the problem as possible
▪ Politely refocus the customer (this is the exception to the rule of
never interrupting a customer)
▪ Ask as many closed-ended questions as you need to once you
have regained control of the call
▪ Avoid conversation that is not related to the problem

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The Customer Call ❖ A rude customer

Types of Customers ▪ Complains during the call, makes negative comments, may be
abusive and uncooperative, and may be easily aggravated

▪ Listen very carefully, as you do not want to ask them to repeat

any information

▪ Follow a step-by-step approach to determine and solve the

problem

▪ Try to contact the customer’s favorite technician to see if they

can take the call

▪ Apologize for the wait time and the inconvenience, even if there
has been no wait time

▪ Reiterate that you want to solve the problem as quickly as

possible

▪ Do not ask the customer to follow many obvious steps if there is a way you can determine the problem
without the customer

▪ Do not be rude to the customer

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The Customer Call

Types of Customers
❖ An angry customer

▪ Talks loudly, tries to speak when the technician is talking

▪ They are usually frustrated and upset that they have to call
somebody to fix the problem
▪ Let the customer tell their problem without interruption, even if
they are angry
▪ Sympathize with the customer’s problem
▪ Apologize for wait time or inconvenience
▪ Avoid putting this customer on hold or transferring them
▪ Avoid talking at length about the cause of the problem, rather,
redirect the conversation to solving the problem

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The Customer Call

Types of Customers
❖ A knowledgeable customer

▪ Wants to speak with a technician that is equally experienced in

computers and usually tries to control the call
▪ If you are a level-one technician, try to set up a conference call
with a level-two technician

▪ Tell the customer the overall approach to what you are trying to
verify

▪ Avoid using a step-by-step process

▪ Avoid asking the customer to check the obvious

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The Customer Call

Types of Customers

❖ An inexperienced customer

▪ Has difficulty describing the problem

▪ They may not be able to follow directions correctly
▪ Use a simple step-by-step process of instructions
▪ Speak in plain terms

▪ Avoid using industry jargon

▪ Avoid sounding condescending or belittling

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4. Employee Best Practice

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Employee Best Practices

Using Proper Netiquette
▪ As a technician, you should be professional in all communications with customers

▪ Netiquette are personal and business etiquette rules that govern email and text communications:
o Be pleasant and polite
o Begin each email with an appropriate greeting
o Never send chain letters via email
o Do not send or reply to flames
o Use mixed case
➢ Upper case is considered as shouting
o Check grammar and spelling before sending
o Be ethical
o Never mail or post anything you would not say to a person’s face

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Employee Best Practices

Time and Stress Management
▪ Effective time management is significant to a less stressful life

▪ It is important to prioritize your activities

▪ On the other hand, ensure you follow company policies

▪ When working with many customers, do not give faster and better service to some favourite customers

▪ Do not take calls for other technicians unless you have permission to do so

▪ Always take time to compose yourself between customer calls

▪ Physical activity might be needed to relieve stress

o Occasionally stand up and take a short walk
o Do a few simple stretch movements
o Squeeze a stress ball
▪ Practice relaxed breathing

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Employee Best Practices

Time and Stress Management
▪ As a technician, you should be aware of all business policies related to customers

▪ These may include

▪ Customer call rules might include

o Maximum time on a call
o Number of calla per day
o Transferring calls
o What you can and can’t promise customers
▪ Call centre employee rules
o What time to arrive at station – it helps to arrive 15 to 20 minutes early
o When to take a break and for how long
o Contact a customer if you are going to be late
▪ Rules to follow to ensure customer satisfaction
o Proper documentation shared with the customer
o Follow up calls at a later date
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3. Organizational Documentation

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Documentation
Documentation Overview
❖ Purposes for documentation include:
▪ Providing descriptions for how products, software, and hardware
function through the use of diagrams, descriptions, manual pages
and knowledgebase articles.
▪ Standardizing procedures and practices so that they can be
repeated accurately in the future.
▪ Establishing rules and restrictions on the use of the organization’s
assets including acceptable use policies for internet, network, and
computer usage.
▪ Reducing confusion and mistakes saving time and resources.
▪ Complying with governmental or industry regulations.
▪ Training new employees or customers.

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Documentation
IT Department Documentation
▪ Keeping documentation current is a challenge for even the best managed IT departments.
▪ In general, IT documentation falls into four categories: Policies, Operations, Projects, and User Documentation

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Documentation
IT Department Documentation

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Documentation
Report and Procedures
▪ Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)
o This is an agreement between two or more parties that defines the appropriate user access to
resources or services

▪ Incident Report
o also known as an After-Action Report (AAR)
o AAR be used to document an episode of a critical and major incident, such as a security breach
o The purpose of the report is to identify potential issues, provide insight for improvements, and allow
prompt corrective action to prevent a similar event in the future

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Documentation
Reports and Procedures
▪ Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)
o These are step-by-step instructions to guide employees on how to use computers and networked
services
• efficiently
• securely
• and expected responsibilities
o The main goals are to establish uniformity across the company, create high-quality work consistently,
and reduce miscommunications
o SOP can also be in the form of user checklists

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Documentation
Reports and Procedures
▪ Standard operating procedures (SOP)
o Two examples of user checklists are:

• New-user setup checklist

‒ formal onboarding process helps new hires or employees changing job roles
‒ Some of typical process can include:
• setting up the user accounts with the necessary permissions and security clearance
• assigning devices and receiving training as necessary
• learning about security policy and data privacy agreements

• End-user termination checklist

‒ When an employee retires, changes job roles, or leaves the organization, the end-user termination
checklist should be part of the off-boarding process
‒ Some of typical process can include:
• take back the device and wipe all data from the device
• transfer or release software licenses
• deactivate account access and remove all account permissions

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Documentation
Knowledge Base and Articles
▪ A knowledge base is a centralized repository of articles and documents
▪ The knowledge base allows users to create, share, and manage knowledge across the organization
▪ The articles in the knowledge base can provide these common types of data:
o Answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs)
o Troubleshooting scenarios
o Internal database to support self-service support
o Training documents
o Links to external legitimate and verifiable knowledge base articles

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Documentation
Regulatory Compliance Requirements
▪ Federal, state, local, and industry regulations can have documentation requirements over and above
what is normally documented in the company’s records
▪ Regulatory and compliance policies often specify what data must be collected and how long it must be
retained
▪ A few of the regulations may have implications on internal company processes and procedures
▪ Some regulations require keeping extensive records regarding how the data is accessed and used

➢ Failure to comply with laws and regulations can have severe consequences, including
fines, termination of employment, and even incarceration of offenders.

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Documentation
Asset Databases
❖ Asset management
▪ This is the tracking and management of assets to ensure that they are
o used properly
o maintained
o upgraded
o disposed of responsibly at the end of their lifecycles

▪ The organization needs an inventory of all the deployed hardware assets along with the consumables,
spare components in case of hardware failures, and software assets, such as warranty information,
licenses, and intellectual property (IP)

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Documentation
Asset Databases
❖ Asset management comprises of:

▪ Database system
o Many software solutions are available for businesses to manage and track their assets
o Asset management software can improve the visibility and management of the assets to reduce
hardware and software costs

▪ Asset tags and IDs

o Working in conjunction with an asset management database system, can provide up-to-date and
accurate information about an asset
o An asset tag identifies the equipment with a unique serial number, barcode, QR code, or radio
frequency ID (RFID) and is typically adhered to the asset

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Documentation
Asset Procurement
❖ Procurement life cycle
▪ Each asset goes through five main stages during its life:

▪ Planning
o Analysis of the organization’s current and future needs combined with potential asset impact on business,
network, daily operations and implemented devices is needed before requesting a new or upgraded asset

▪ Procurement/Acquire
o A budget is determined, and a supplier or vendor is identified to deliver the asset

▪ Deployment
o The procured asset can be installed or integrated with the other tools in the business to be used

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Documentation
Asset Procurement
❖ Procurement life cycle
▪ Each asset goes through five main stages during its life:\

▪ Maintenance
o Provisions should be made to keep your assets in operating condition to optimize their use

▪ Disposal
o When an asset has reached the end of life, the asset should be sanitized of any data
o The sanitized asset can be sold, recycled, donated, or destroyed.

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Documentation
Asset Procurement
❖ Procurement life cycle

▪ Warranty and licensing

o For each hardware asset, the invoice, warranty, support contract, and vendor contact information should be
readily available
o For each software asset, License information, subscription-based details, and number of allotted users or
devices should be readily available

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Documentation
Asset Procurement
❖ Assigned users
▪ Depending on the type of assets, the assets can be assigned to individuals or shared within the entire
organization
▪ Typical assets managed by individual accounts:
o Workstations
o Laptops
o Mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets
o Software license Shared assets managed by individuals or security groups within a department:
• Servers
• Routers
• Switches
• Access points

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Disaster Prevention and Recovery

Disaster Recovery Overview
▪ A disaster recovery plan is a comprehensive document that describes how to restore operation quickly and
keep critical IT functions running during or after a disaster occurs
▪ The disaster recovery plan can include information such as offsite locations where services can be moved,
information on replacing network devices and servers, and backup connectivity options
▪ Some services may even need to be available during the disaster in order to provide information to IT
personnel and updates to others in the organization
▪ Services that might need to be available during or immediately after a disaster include:
o Web services and internet connectivity
o Data stores and backup files
o Directory and authentication services
o Database and application servers
o Telephone, email and other communication services

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Disaster Prevention and Recovery

Elements of a Disaster Recovery Plan
▪ There are five major phases of creating and implementing a disaster recovery plan:
Phase 1 - Network Design Recovery Strategy
Phase 2 - Inventory and Documentation
Phase 3 - Verification
Phase 4 - Approval and Implementation
Phase 5 - Review

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Disaster Prevention and Recovery

Elements of a Disaster Recovery Plan
❖ Phase 1 - Network Design Recovery Strategy

▪ Analyze the network design

▪ Some aspects of the network design that should be included in the disaster recovery are:

o Is the network designed to survive a major disaster?

o Are there backup connectivity options and is there redundancy in the network design?

o Availability of offsite servers or cloud providers that can support applications such as email and database
services

o Availability of backup routers, switches, and other network devices

o Location of services and resources that the network needs.

o Are they spread over a wide geography?

o Are backups easily accessible in an emergency?

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Disaster Prevention and Recovery

Elements of a Disaster Recovery Plan
❖ Phase 2 - Inventory and Documentation

▪ Create an inventory of all locations, devices, vendors, used services, and contact names

▪ Verify cost estimates that are created in the risk assessment step

❖ Phase 3 - Verification

▪ Create a verification process to prove that the disaster recovery strategy works

▪ Practice disaster recovery exercises to ensure that the plan is up to date and workable

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Disaster Prevention and Recovery

Elements of a Disaster Recovery Plan
❖ Phase 4 - Approval and Implementation

▪ Obtain senior management approval

▪ Develop a budget to implement and maintain the disaster recovery plan

❖ Phase 5 - Review

▪ After the disaster recovery plan has been implemented for a year, review the plan

▪ Information in the plan must be kept up to date, or critical services may not be restored in the case of
a disaster

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4. Ethical and Legal Considerations

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Ethical and Legal Considerations in the IT Profession

Ethical and Legal Considerations in IT
❖ Ethical Considerations
▪ Respect your customers, as well as their property
▪ Computers and monitors are property, but property
also includes any information or data that might be
accessible, for example:
o Emails
o Phone lists and contact lists
o Records or data on the computer
o Hard copies of files, information, or data left on a desk

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Ethical and Legal Considerations in the IT Profession

Personal Identifiable Information (PII)
❖ Personal Identifiable Information (PII)
▪ PII is any data that could potentially be used to identify a person
▪ Increasing concerns over the privacy of personal data means companies must learn the laws regarding
PIIs
▪ Examples of PII include, but are not limited to:
o Names: such as full name, maiden name, mother’s maiden name, or alias
o Personal identification numbers: such as social security number (SSN), passport number, driver’s license
number, taxpayer identification number, or financial account or credit card number, address information,
such as street address or email address
o Personal characteristic: including photographic images (especially of the face or other identifying
characteristics), fingerprints, handwriting, or other biometric data (e.g retina, signature, facial geometry)

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Ethical and Legal Considerations in the IT Profession

Payment Card Industry (PCI)
❖ Payment Card Industry (PCI)
▪ PCI information is considered personal information that needs to
be protected
▪ The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is
a set of security standards designed to ensure that ALL
companies that accept, process, store or transmit credit card
information maintain a secure environment

▪ The PCI Security Standards Council was formed in 2005 by the 5 major credit card companies in an
effort to protect account numbers, expiration dates, magnetic strip and chip data for transactions
around the globe
➢ For more information on PCI, visit www.pcisecuritystandards.org

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Ethical and Legal Considerations in the IT Profession

Protected Health Information (PHI)
❖ Protected Health Information (PHI)
▪ This is another form of PII that needs to be secured and protected
▪ PHI includes patient names, addresses, dates of visits, telephone and fax numbers, and email
addresses
▪ With the move from paper copy records to electronic records, Electronic Protected Health
Information (ePHI) is also regulated
▪ Penalties for breaches of PHI and ePHI are very severe and regulated by the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

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Ethical and Legal Considerations in the IT Profession

Legal Considerations in IT
❖ The laws in different countries and legal jurisdictions vary, but generally, actions such as the following are
considered to be illegal:
▪ It is not permissible to make any changes to system software or hardware configurations without customer permission
▪ Do not access a customer’s or co-worker’s accounts, private files, or email messages without permission
▪ Do not install, copy, or share digital content (software, music, text, images, and video) in violation of copyright and
software agreements or the applicable law
➢ Copyright and trademark laws vary between states, countries, and regions
▪ It is not permissible to use a customer’s company IT resources for commercial purposes
▪ It is not permissible to make a customer’s IT resources available to unauthorized users
▪ It is not permissible to knowingly use a customer’s company resources for illegal activities
➢ Criminal or illegal use typically includes obscenity, child pornography, threats, harassment, copyright
infringement, Internet piracy, university trademark infringement, defamation, theft, identity theft, and
unauthorized access
▪ Do not share sensitive customer information: You are required to maintain the confidentiality of this data

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Ethical and Legal Considerations in the IT Profession

Licensing

❖ Licensing:

▪ Personal license: The program usually runs on only one machine

▪ Enterprise license: The company pays for the employees to use the software

▪ Open source license: This license allows developers to modify and share the codes

▪ Commercial license: The commercial license allows the licensee to make money from the software

▪ Digital rights management: The software is designed to prevent illegal access to digital content and
devices

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Ethical and Legal Considerations in the IT Profession

Licensing

▪ It is illegal to use licensed software without the appropriate license

▪ An example of a personal software license is an End User License Agreement (EULA)
▪ An enterprise license is a software license held by a company for its employees to use
▪ Open source licensing is a copyright license for software that allows developers to modify and
share the source code that runs the software
▪ If you use software to make money, you must pay for a commercial license
▪ Digital rights management (DRM) is software that is designed to prevent illegal access to digital
content and devices

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Legal Procedures Overview

Computer Forensics
❖ Computer Forensics
▪ Data from computer systems, networks, wireless
communications, and storage devices may need to be
collected and analyzed in the course of a criminal
investigation
▪ The collection and analysis of data for this purpose is
called computer forensics
▪ The process of computer forensics encompasses both IT
and specific laws to ensure that any data collected is
admissible as evidence in court

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Legal Procedures Overview

Data Collected in Computer Forensics
❖ Computer Forensics
▪ Two basic types of data are collected when conducting
computer forensics procedures:
▪ Persistent data
o Persistent data is stored on a local drive, such as an internal
or external hard drive, or an optical drive
o When the computer is turned off, this data is preserved

▪ Volatile data
o RAM, cache, and registries contain volatile data
o Data in transit between a storage medium and a CPU is also volatile data
o If you are reporting illegal activity or are part of an incident response team, it is important to know how
to capture this data, because it disappears as soon as the computer is turned off
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Legal Procedures Overview

Cyber Law
❖ Cyber Law
▪ Cyber law describes the international, regional, country, and state laws that affect computer
security professionals
▪ IT professionals must be aware of cyber law so that they understand their responsibility and
their liability as it relates to cybercrimes
▪ You should know your company’s policy regarding cybercrimes
▪ And also understand how to preserve evidence if illegal activity is discovered
▪ Cyber laws explain the
o circumstances under which data (evidence) can be collected from computers
o data storage devices
o networks, and wireless communications
▪ They can also specify the manner in which this data can be collected

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Legal Procedures Overview

First Response
❖ First Response
▪ First response is the term used to describe the official procedures employed by those people who are
qualified to collect evidence.
▪ Routine administrative tasks can affect the forensic process
▪ If you are the person who discovers illegal computer or network activity
o Do not turn off the computer
o Volatile data about the current state of the computer can include programs that are running, network
connections that are open, and users who are logged in to the network or to the computer
o This data helps to determine a logical timeline of the security incident
o It may also help to identify those responsible for the illegal activity
▪ Be familiar with your company’s policy regarding cybercrimes
▪ Know who to call, what to do and, just as importantly, know what not to do

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Legal Procedures Overview

Documentation
❖ First Response
▪ If you discover illegal activity on a computer or network on which you are working, at
a minimum, document the following:
o Initial reason for accessing the computer or network
o Time and date
o Peripherals that are connected to the computer
o All network connections
o Physical area where the computer is located
o Illegal material that you have found
o Illegal activity that you have witnessed (or you suspect has occurred)
o Which procedures you have executed on the computer or network

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Legal Procedures Overview

Chain of Custody
❖ Chain of Custody
▪ Chain of custody documents how the evidence was collected, who
has access to the evidence between the time of collection and its
entry into the court proceedings, and where it is stored
▪ To prove the chain of custody, first responders have documentation
procedures in place that track the collected evidence

▪ These procedures also prevent evidence tampering so that the integrity of the evidence can be
ensured
▪ Incorporate computer forensics procedures into your approach to computer and network security to
ensure the integrity of the data
▪ These procedures help you capture necessary data in the event of a network breach
▪ Ensuring the viability and integrity of the captured data helps you prosecute the intruder

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5. Call Center Technicians

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Call Centers, Level One and Level Two Technicians

Call Centers
▪ A call center environment is organized and professional
▪ Customers call in to receive computer-related help
▪ The workflow of a call center starts with calls from customers displayed on a callboard.
▪ Level one technicians answer these calls in the order that the calls arrive
▪ If the level one technician cannot solve the problem, it is escalated to a level two technician
▪ The technician must supply the level of support that is outlined in the customer’s Service Level Agreement
▪ A call center might exist within a company and offer service to the employees of that company as well as to the
customers of that company’s products
▪ Alternatively, a call center might be an independent business that sells computer support as a service to
outside customers
▪ In either case, a call center is a busy, fast-paced work environment, often operating 24 hours a day

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Call Centers, Level One and Level Two Technicians

Call Centers
▪ Computers in call centers have support software that technicians use to manage many of their job functions:
o Log and Track Incidents
o Record Contact Information
o Research Product Information
o Run Diagnostic Utilities
o Research a Knowledge Base
o Collect Customer Feedback

▪ Each call center has business policies

regarding call priority
▪ Consider this sample chart of how calls can
be named, defined, and prioritized.

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Call Centers, Level One and Level Two Technicians

Level One Technician Responsibilities
▪ Call centers sometimes have different names for level one technicians
▪ These technicians might be known as level one analysts, dispatchers, or incident screeners
▪ The primary responsibility of a level one technician is to gather pertinent information from the customer

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Call Centers, Level One and Level Two Technicians

Level Two Technician Responsibilities
▪ Call centers sometimes have different names for level two technicians.
▪ These technicians might be known as product specialists or technical-support personnel.
▪ The level two technician is usually more knowledgeable and experienced than the level one technician or has
been working for the company for a longer period of time.
▪ When a problem cannot be resolved within a predetermined amount of time, the level one technician prepares
an escalated work order.
▪ The level two technician receives the escalated work order with the description of the problem and then calls
the customer back to ask any additional questions and resolve the problem.
▪ Level two technicians can also use remote access software to connect to the customer’s computer to:
o update drivers and software
o access the operating system
o check the BIOS
o gather other diagnostic information to solve the problem

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Call Centers, Level One and Level Two Technicians

Level Two Technician Responsibilities
▪ The level one
technician prepares
an escalated work
order

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6. Basic scripting

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Basic Scripting and the IT Professional

Script Examples
▪ A script file is a simple text file written in scripting languages to automate processes and tasks on
various operating systems
▪ A script file might be used to automate the process of performing a backup of a customer’s data or run
a list of standard diagnostics on a broken computer
▪ The script file can save the technician a lot of time, especially when the same tasks need to be
performed on many different computers
▪ You should also be able to identify the many different types of script files because a script file may be
causing a problem at startup or during a specific event

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Script Languages
Script Types
▪ A scripting language is different than
a compiled language because each
line is interpreted and then executed
when the script is run
▪ Scriptingg languages, include
JavaScript, Python, PHP, and Ruby

Script Syntax

▪ Various comments found in

scripts based on the script type

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Script Examples

Windows batch script Linux shell script

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Basic Script Commands
Windows

Linux

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Variables/Environmental Variables

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Conditional Statements

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Loops

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