One of my pet peeves as a technologist is when I hear an I.T. associate tell a customer something can’t be done two seconds after hearing the question. Unless you’re so arrogant to assume that you know everything about the technology in question how can you say something can’t be done? Maybe the product doesn’t have a native way to do something but that doesn’t meant it isn’t possible. I operate under the opposite premise, the solution exists, I just haven’t found it yet.
That’s one of the great things about technology today, if you know your way around, there’s very little that can’t be accomplished. I will say though, that just because something CAN be done, doesn’t mean it should be done or that it’s practical to do. Often enough though I’ve found that there are reasonable solutions that just require a little of knowledge and outside of the box thinking. Even if the solution isn’t practical you’ll have learned more about the inner workings of the product and be better equipped to support the product and troubleshoot any issues that should arise in the future.
I encourage you to ALWAYS spend some time to think critically about a clients request, even if on the face of it it seems as though it’s not possible. In a situation like this I always answer, that I don’t believe there’s a way to do that natively, but let me think about it for a bit and see if there’s a creative solution that makes sense. It’s also important to find out from the client the value of what they are asking for. That will guide you as you research and help you determine how much effort to put into the problem. Expanding our knowledge and understanding of a system is never a bad thing and only adds to your value to the client and the company.
Lastly, even if you can’t solve the clients issue, if he knows you gave it honest thought to the problem most clients will be appreciative of the effort. Think of it like this, you walk into a store to buy a part but they don’t have what you need. The salesman says they don’t have any but he says he thinks he knows what store does. He then takes the time to call the store and verify that they do indeed sell what you need and they have them in stock. Even though you didn’t get what you needed from that store, you’re going to come back just because you know if they don’t have what you need they’ll help you find it. That’s what customer service is all about, truly wanting to help the customer, whether it benefits you or not.