When hiring any support rep. to answer tickets, calls, e-mails etc. (be it remote, local or work in a office), what skills should they have to support shared hositng reseller customers? One thing I can think of is advanced knowledge of cPanel and WHM. Can someone please add to this list before I go hiring some people? As well, is there a 'test' I can give before hiring?

The requirements for sales support technicians is directly proportional to the amount of infrastructure you have.

If your system is unautomated, you need someone with advanced knowledge of the system-level services.

If you have an automated system, and everything can be done through an interface, the support tech needs significicantly less knowledge of the internal workings of the systems [which is generally a good thing].

Thanks for the answer webworkz. Can anyone else post some info? My company will be using an automated system. Can someone suggest what kind of questions (that relate to skill) I can ask the techs?

Definately don't forget people skills!
Maybe basic html php skills also just in case.
Needs to know basic webhosting 101....

Once again People SKILLS!

If your gonna have this guy answer the phone he/she has to the most politest or hype guy... I remmeber the good old days of doing customer support.... oo harsh..

People skills are more important than technical skills, you can teach tech skills much easier than people skills.

-Brendan

I'm with people skills too being first and foremost. And since many times communication is done via e-mail, support tickets and forums, and live chat, they need to be able to write in a fair way. l33t Hax0r English just doesn't cut it with most people.

Give them a test.

Say add me to messenger see how they talk to you, i think its the only way your find out how polite they are etc.

Make sure they have done tech work before and myabe in hosting 1 + year.

If they have tech skills then this is a nother great reason to hire them.

Good ones to know:
Php
Html
Perl
Graphics

Thats about it

Originally posted by D0mainGuru
Give them a test.

Graphics



Why graphics?

Originally posted by msh
Why graphics?

make you a nice new website for free? :)

In my years in technical companies I have learned that people skills and common sense prevailed for a good support person. I have hired what you would have thought was the best tech person you could find and they couldn't talk on a phone, answer IM or emails in a way that wouldn't offend a customer. I think in support if you get someone with a will to learn and good people skills you are doing 10x better than picking the guy that can reconfigure your entire network in 30 seconds but can't talk to you in person.

Just my 2cents. :)

Ack, I forgot to put up people skills. Yeah I know these are very important. The tech support person I've got now is very polite and quite proffessional for his age. He also seems to know cPanel. Thanks everyone for the help! I needed this information as I'm preparing to hire a good staff of people.