How to Deal with People Who Ask Lots of Questions
Help people who come to you with questions, while protecting your own time and energy.
A technology author wrote in: “How do I handle incompetent people? They ask simple questions they could answer themselves. I get calls/emails/etc. from co-workers and readers. I want to be polite, but telling someone how to click the mouse on an OK button is a waste of my time. I answer one question and they bombard me with more. Is this just the price of “fame” or is there something I can do? Signed, Don’t want to be a cranky tech author.
How to Deal with People Who Ask Lots of Questions
Hey, Cranky, I’ve had this problem, too. At my first job after college, I was the most junior person at the company, though I was apparently the only one who could read. People would drop my by office asking “How do I print a file?” Rolling my eyes and sticking out my tongue would not have been good for my career, so I had to answer. Again and again and again.
How to Get Incompetent People to Solve Their Own Problems
Finally I hit on a solution. People would come into my office and ask the question. I’d pretend to be so busy I couldn’t even turn around. I’d just say over my shoulder, “Grab that yellow book on the shelf. No, not that one. The other one. That’s right. Now, open it to the back. There’s an index there. Have you found it? Great! Can you look up “print’ for me? You found it? Great. There should be a page number. Go to that page. Are you there? Great. Read that page. Have you done that? Great. What did it say?” They would tell me what it said. I would then smile and say, “That sounds like a swell idea. Why not try that?”
I would do this as the soul of politeness and never, ever point out I was teaching them to read the manual. And the phrase “you lazy ninny-poop” never even crossed my mind.
With today’s technology, it’s even easier. You just have to help them launch a help file and search for their solution. Or even better, send them to Google.
Let Me Google That For You
But don’t just tell them to use Google. Visit https://lmgtfy.com, which stands for Let Me Google That For You. Type in their question and the site will give you a special URL. Send them that URL and tell them it will lead them to their answer. When they follow the URL, it will cause Google to pop up and then type their question into the search engine for real, all while graciously pointing out to them that they could have done that without sucking up your valuable time and life energy.
How to Deal with People Who Ask Lots of Questions
Training people to use tools takes time and energy, however. For people you’re going to have to work with daily, do this respectfully and you’ll basically train them to use their own reference materials and come to you only when it’s something they genuinely can’t solve on their own.
But what about strangers who have read your books, or your blog, or your papers, and want your advice?
How to Use an Autoresponder to Field Questions
Start by using the power of technology to make yourself into a inspiring yet distant fount of wisdom. Become unattainable, yet worth of worship. In other words, set boundaries! But do it with technology.
Do this by getting an email address that lets you set up a vacation autoresponder. Gmail does this. Give out that email address as your contact address, and have the autoresponder reply to all incoming email. “Thank you so much for writing. Due to the volume of mail I get, I read every message, but can’t promise a response. I appreciate your support.” Then read incoming email and decide which you’ll respond to and which you won’t. I have had days where I received over 100 email messages. No matter how much I want to respond, I haven’t been able to.
Create a FAQ for Frequently Asked Questions
After you’ve collected a good sampling of questions, you can create a FAQ, which stands for Frequently Asked Questions. Most people think a FAQ is just a list of smarmy questions made up by a company intended as a thinly veiled sales tool. The typical FAQ includes questions like, “What amazing new products are you coming out with in the next year?” and “Did you really win the 2009 customer service award?” These are questions that have never been asked by anyone and that are only included in the FAQ because the company desperately wishes people cared.
You can create a real FAQ. Gather the questions you get most often, and create a one-page website that has all those questions and answers. You can do it for free by visiting Google Sites at https://sites.google.com and creating a one-page site that includes your FAQ. Then include a short note in your autoresponder, “Before you write, please check out the FAQ” and give the URL. If someone later writes in with a question that’s answered in the FAQ, reply with the single sentence, “That question is answered in the FAQ,” and give the URL. You’re still graciously meeting their need for free answers, but in a way that doesn’t use up much of your time.
Enforce Question Quotas
If someone does write with a good question, that’s great. Make a connection. But decide for yourself how much is enough. For example, you may decide you’ll answer two questions a follower, but more than that is an unreasonable demand on your time. Politely tell people that your time is limited, and in order to be fair to all your readers, you must limit your free answers to two per writer. Of course, you can always make yourself available for more extensive consultations on a paid basis. I recommend charging a zillion dollars an hour. You don’t need much work at that rate to have it pay off.
Enforce Time Quotas
Lastly, instead of limiting the number of questions you’ll answer, decide how much time each week you’ll spend answering questions. If it’s an hour, schedule that hour. Then save up all the questions that come in, and in that hour, zip through as fast as necessary to respond to all the messages you intend to respond to. You’ll quickly learn to be brief, and you’ll honor your own limits while still providing some free responsiveness to your readers.
Speaking of time quotas, this week’s episode is up! I don’t have a FAQ, but check out all the great stuff in the rest of my episodes at https://getitdone.quickanddirtytips.com.
Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!
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