Thank you Jean. I have already subscribed to both the forum and user
list as you suggested.
Yet, in my experience training customer service reps, I'd like to add
some more advice that may come in useful before answering user's questions.
Answering difficult questions is indeed a great practice. However,
considering that users may ask the wrong questions (or the right
questions in the wrong words), we have to make sure we master the key
concepts before attempting to answer them. Otherwise, we may get
confused ourselves and end up messing up our ideas or even the docs we
are working on.
What I suggest is to follow a systematic approach:
1). Decide which your area of expertise will be.
LibreOffice is a broad project, and mastering it all may be too much to
do it all at once. For example, I never use LO Math because I don't need
it but mainly because my knowledge of mathematics is too limited.
Instead, I use Calc on a daily basis, so I decided to master that
application first.
2). Make acquainted with the application of your choice.
Read the existing user guides. Make yourself familiar with the terminoly
and concepts.
Try the application yourself. This will help you understand it better.
Before being ready to answer other people questions, we must be able to
answer our own questions. Don't be afraid of asking. Remember that every
good teacher has started as a good student.
3). Help other users.
Once we feel confident enough to use the application ourselves, we can
start helping others. I usually use the following strategy when dealing
with customers:
- Read the question between the lines. What is important is not what the
user is asking, but what the user is really trying to do. Remember that
they are not specialists and sometimes don't know how to ask for help
and end up putting forth general question such as "I cannot use a
formula in Calc". Therefore, before attempting to solve a problem, we
must guide the user to provide the right info. How can we do it? Simple,
ask them more questions. Help the user narrow the question until we know
exactly what the problem is.
- Once we pinpoint the problem we can start looking for the answer. If
we are familiar with the application, we may possibly know the answer.
If not, we will know where to look.
- When we have the answer, put it forth in a clear and consice way.
Hope you find it useful.
Regards
Gabriel
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