TAC & HelpDesk Professional Integrity

Confucius once said that "the strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home". As we are dealing here with the customer supporter role in an organization I'll fine tune this statement: The strength of a support organization drives from the integrity of its employees. 

When business is involved, the word integrity, in most cases will be accompanied with the word professional. The words professional integrity used in order to describe the manner that one (or many) should act in an organization. Asking around (actually googeling...), professional integrity is all about making the right choices in regards to the good of the company. It manes that one should act ethically and loyally to the place he works for.

Now, it doesn't say that one, in the name of inegrety should run and tell the customer that the developer mistakenly deleted important formula in the code that caused the damn box to reboot by itself. Don't mix integrity with honesty. Spencer Johnson explained it pretty well:

Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people. 

Confused?

Professional integrity is about making decisions as to what is right to the company; instead of what will make me look better when facing the customer.

Using the developer mentioned as example, the one that mistakenly deleted part of the code, this is the truth, but what should I advise the customer? Should I be honest and tell the truth? 

In this case, I'll wear my rose-colored glasses and update the customer that a file was corrupted, perhaps when it was downloaded / uploaded /emailed etc'. 

Honesty is not always the best policy, In the organization perspective of course, so in this case I will advised the customer that the issue was found, and it was related to configuration file, that it's integrity was compromised, and that we have fixed it.

The above is the general behavior that is expected from supporter that is part of HelpDesk or TAC, one that response, or better to say react to tens of service call and cases per day.

If you are an account manager, or support representative dedicated to support particular customer, the expected code of conduct is different.

Image source C. Harris