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Front Desk / How to ask
Turn 11 - the message
How to ask
Most support messages lose their own case by leaving out the one thing that would have moved it. A message that gets a decision has four parts, and none of them is the story of what happened.
Desk stub
- Part one
- the reference, first line
- Part two
- the ask, in one sentence
- Part three
- the arithmetic, if the amount matters
- Part four
- the date you need an answer by
- What to leave out
- the story, and any second question
the turnOne numbered serving of a contact, with its clock and what it cost the desk
the ceilingWhat a level may give away without asking, set by the evidence it can see
the transcriptThe only record that a contact happened, kept 24 months on this sample
Direct answerA support message that produces a decision has the reference, the ask, the arithmetic and the date. The reference attaches the message to a case, the ask gives the agent a decision to make, the arithmetic shows the figure, and the date gives the answer something to be measured against. Everything else belongs in a second message.
Subject the form of a message that moves a caseUnit the part - four of them, in this orderLength under about 150 words, which fits one screen on the agent sideWhat never helps a second question, and a summary of the relationshipBoundary the routes a refused case may take are cycle 15’s subject
The four parts
part 01The reference, on the first line
An operator’s systems key on the case, the account and the contact, and none of those is a
description. A reference on the first line means the agent opens the case rather than searching for
it, and it means the next reply attaches to the same record instead of starting a new one.
Without it, the same question costs the desk another 3.96 to answer from the beginning.
part 02The ask, in one sentence, as one action
“Please credit the 15.00 fee and confirm it on the account.” One action, one decision,
inside a ceiling that exists for exactly this. An ask that contains three requests is three cases,
and only one of them will be answered.
If the ask is above the ceiling at the level answering, name the decision the case needs - an
amount and a date - rather than the outcome.
part 03The arithmetic, if an amount is involved
An agent can check a figure. A statement like “the 40.00 withdrawal was released on the 12th
and the 6.00 fee was taken twice” is checkable against the screen, and a claim that can be
checked is a claim that can be decided. A claim that cannot be checked becomes a request for a
statement, which is a slower process.
Show the numbers as the account shows them, and say which line of the account they came from.
part 04The date an answer is needed by
A date turns an open request into something with a boundary, and it is the only part of the message
that a support conversation does not normally contain: a support chat has no deadline, while a
complaint route has a period attached. Naming a date also reveals which route the case needs, because
a date that cannot be met in a chat is a date that needs a clock.
See the three kinds of response number for why that distinction
matters.
An example, exactly as it should look
A message in four lines, with what each line does
Ref: case 4471, chat 11:42 on 12 September
Please credit the 6.00 duplicate fee to the balance and confirm it.
The account shows 2 x 6.00 on 12 September, both at 14:03.
I need the answer by 19 September because my withdrawal is in the queue.
line 1 the reference, so the case is opened rather than searched for
line 2 one action, inside the first line’s ceiling
line 3 the arithmetic, checkable against the movement list
line 4 the date, which names the clock the answer needs
- Put the reference on the first line and nothing before it.
- State one ask, as one action, in the second line.
- Give the arithmetic in the account’s own figures, and say where each came from.
- Name the date an answer has to arrive by, and why.
- Leave the story of the relationship and any second question out of this message.
- Send it in the channel whose record suits the ask: chat for a state, email for a decision that will be quoted.
- Keep the transcript or the thread, with the times, as it is the only record that the ask was made.
- If the answer arrives without an amount or a date, ask for those two things and nothing else.
Why brevity is not rudeness. An agent works from a screen and a clock, and a long message costs handling time that the desk measures. Four lines that can be checked produce a decision; a page that has to be read twice produces a question.
four parts the reference one handling time, not two only if the clock demands it example is illustrative