How to Have a Productive Conversation with Your IT Team

How often do you struggle to talk about potential issues your business faces when you reach out to IT for help? Conversing with technicians can be especially challenging when you don’t necessarily understand the problem yourself, either. Thankfully, we have some tips to help you lead more productive conversations with your IT staff or managed service provider.

In fact, these tips might be helpful for more than just working with your IT team; you might find them useful in other interactions you have, too!

Be Ready to Talk About the Issue

One of the biggest ways to sink a productive conversation about your IT challenges is to not be ready to talk about the issue at hand. You’ll want to take some time—before reaching out to IT—to gather up information on the issue you’re experiencing. You might collect error messages, document symptoms, and include recent changes to your systems and environments. The idea here is to provide enough information and context to help the team accurately understand the problem. If you can do this, you’ll be well on your way toward ensuring that you meet a swift resolution to your technical challenges.

Use Active Listening and Collaboration

Of course, any productive challenge is going to have two parties involved, so it’s important that you listen carefully and attentively to what IT has to say. You’ll want to focus on what your support technician is recommending and follow instructions as they are laid out. Don’t try to skip steps, interrupt explanations, or rush through the conversation just to get it over with; this will only worsen the issue. We recommend letting the IT technician lead the conversation with questions but don’t forget to ask your own questions after you let them do their piece. This will help you build a better understanding of the issue and promote a better relationship with your IT.

Document and Follow Up on the Conversation

While your service provider or IT team should be documenting the conversation themselves, we highly recommend taking notes on the discussion yourself as well. You never know when troubleshooting steps might come in handy again later on. If necessary, you’ll want to have this information available to you for a follow-up conversation in the future, particularly if the problem persists or if the recommended actions don’t resolve the problem. If you’re taking notes, it will also be that much easier to provide helpful feedback to your IT resources so they can continue to work with you in a productive and effective way.

Let’s Have a Productive Conversation

You can rest assured that any conversations surrounding technology and IT will be productive if you work with Horne & Benik. Our trained and trusted professional staff will work with you to resolve your technology needs while also helping you better understand your infrastructure as a whole. Learn more by calling us today at (603) 499-4400.