Soft skills for SOC or How to train technicians to speak the same language with the client
The situation is that right here and now a ransomware virus is spreading across the corporate network. How to reach the decision maker (decision maker)? Especially if he is not an IT or information security specialist? How not to drive him into panic and explain the correct procedure before it is too late? When dealing with incidents, the response must be lightning fast and accurate. This requires special skills and they can be developed.
My name is Anastasia Fedorova, I am the development director of the Cybersecurity Monitoring Center (SOC) at K2 Cybersecurity. I know firsthand how important it is to speak the customer’s language, quickly navigate and adapt depending on his competence.
We trained 40+ specialists our SOC (Security Operations Center), how to clearly and clearly communicate with clients on difficult issues. This article is about our experience: from formulating a problem and finding solutions to choosing a format and implementing training and inspiring results.
Translation difficulties and what to do about it
Even top specialists (from any field of activity) often live in their own “information bubble”. Especially when they mainly communicate with colleagues from their field, where everyone understands each other perfectly. They have their own professional slang, manner of speech and even memes. When contacting external customers, this “bubble bursts” and communications fail.
Our SOC protects a variety of companies – from metallurgy and petroleum to retail and educational institutions. Therefore, at the other end of the line, conditionally, there may be both a stern steelworker and a school principal. The IPs, subnet names, types of attacks and families of malware we are used to will not tell them anything.
Sometimes this is reminiscent of the plot of a Hollywood film, in which the main character at the last moment tries to defuse a bomb or land a plane, listening to instructions over the phone. Often, the potential damage and the success of further investigation of the incident depend on proper coordination of actions. In such a situation, purely human irritation is added to the lack of understanding of the situation, and the seriousness of the moment and the need for quick reactions only aggravates everything. The response process is delayed. We have to involve service managers and enter into additional negotiations. The strongest hard skills of experts will help here secondarily – excellent communication skills are needed first.
Our team consists of strong technical specialists. Of course, it is divided into lines. Routine issues and standard recommendations are mainly dealt with by the first line, while complex and non-standard cases are handled by L2 and L3. At the same time, we try to ensure that L1 takes maximum participation in the analysis of complex incidents.
Specialists can be completely different in terms of communication skills: some are sociable, while others are reserved introverts; someone more or less emotional, empathetic, and so on. If in a narrow professional circle this is not so obvious and does not greatly affect work, then in a crisis situation soft skills come to the fore. Regardless of what line and how complex the cases a specialist works with, he must understand how to clearly and clearly convey information to the next escalation line or customer.
Of course, we have certain rules and a corporate style of communication, all of this is documented. But it is not enough to write down the rules, they need to be implemented. At the same time, people of different character types and levels of soft skills can find it difficult to quickly adopt these communication standards.
So, our task was to remove the root problem of communication in all channels at once: in correspondence (the main way of communicating with customers), by phone or in special systems. For this, a systematic approach is needed so that the team has a deep understanding of the relationships, tools and practical skills.
First of all, we wanted to: teach the SOC team to clearly and quickly convey basic information about the incident, easily and calmly explain the same thing in different words, overcome emotional barriers, communicate correctly and professionally, and not slide into edifications and teachings. The main goal is to create mutual understanding between any specialists and the customer for effective work.
How to do it? This can be achieved by giving people the opportunity to independently analyze their level of communication, see cause-effect connections in real work, and gradually learn to confidently, clearly and clearly express their thoughts. Plus, it was necessary to take into account all our internal nuances. This required a special approach, experience and techniques – we decided to turn to professionals and chose Support Science. They help shape customer support, develop customer experience and train support staff.
Step 1 – audit and development of a training plan
We started with an audit, during which colleagues from Support Science conducted eight studies of our “serviceability”:
All in order to highlight the values of the company as a whole and the SOC team separately, choose a comfortable format for training and communication, and also determine the strengths and weaknesses of the SOC in communication with clients. The goal of this sprint was to formulate the basic rules of communication with customers, get to know the employees who are to be trained, and draw up a plan and concept for the training course.
We analyzed 50+ of our cases and came to the conclusion that specialists perfectly understand the essence of the client’s problem and find solutions to it, but at the same time they do not convey this information to the client clearly enough. In addition, they do not clearly guide the customer through the process of solving the problem, and they abuse slang. Sometimes they forget to say hello or sign a message – it seems like a small thing, but this also affects the overall impression of the team’s work.
As a result, we came to the conclusion that we will fix three large blocks in our communication:
we simplify the language and fight slang in communication;
we provide more information and usefulness in the answers;
We will keep you informed about the resolution of the issue and its deadlines.
They were put to work, formulating a number of general recommendations. They fit into a small table.
Then together we created a detailed persona model of the SOC team, defining values and preferences. This is necessary to better understand what is important in the learning process for our specialists and what their motivation is. We interviewed a focus group of 14 SOC team specialists. Below in the picture you can see the most popular answers (you could select several options).
After this, we formed, documented and agreed on the training concept, formats for presenting information and checking assignments, as well as working with feedback. We also set internal subgoals, often not obvious, but very important for the implementation and support of innovations in the team:
identify performers – guys who are ready to help with training and immediately implement positive practices. And also those to whom it will be possible to delegate some of the tasks of changing ToV (Tone of Voice, tonality and style of communication);
find those who potentially can and want to be team leads (during work and feedback on training, in personal communication).
Two weeks later we had a complete training map in our hands.
Step 2 – development of format and launch of training
In search of the optimal format, we chose an internal learning portal for theory and Telegram chats for practical tasks and feedback. The course was divided into 14 calendar days – a very realistic period even for a busy specialist.
Every two days in the morning the team received theory and a new portion of tasks to consolidate knowledge. The first day was devoted to familiarization with the theory (this required only 30-40 minutes), the second – to practical exercises (about an hour). The completed assignment had to be submitted by the end of the second day. At the same time, we decided for ourselves that we would allow one more day for delivery, taking into account the workload of specialists.
If the course resembled an old school textbook, the training would hardly be effective. It was important for us to try different content formats to make the process varied and not monotonous. And then analyze what worked best and gave the result in order to take it into account in the future.
We packaged the main points and rules of each lesson into concise and understandable formats, and also used memes and pictures to break up the text. In total we had 9 lessons. For each of them, we not only recorded a video lecture, but also additionally developed cheat sheets with excerpts of the rules and checklists with the main steps for their application. In the end, the team liked the cheat cards the most.
Since theory without practice is dead, we included a variety of personal and team tasks in the course:
write a response to the customer regarding a given situation;
reformulate phrases according to the learned rules;
relate the rules to a specific topic;
determine the emotional state of the customer from the text;
reflect on the basis of personal or other people’s experience;
Give examples of dialogues that demonstrate the desired communication model.
Moreover, each exercise was assessed not only on new material, but also taking into account previously covered topics. This encourages students to combine knowledge into a single system.
For additional motivation, we encouraged and rewarded active course participants.
At the start, we had concerns that the participants might not have enough time to fully master the course. To resolve these doubts, we:
constantly kept their finger on the pulse – communicated with the guys in the chat and asked for feedback;
gave clear and simple feedback, sometimes immediately offering options on how best to approach the solution;
organized mini-calls or audio chats to discuss tasks and share experience in completing them – for several people who needed additional explanations.
The SOC team turned out to be very close-knit. Everyone appreciates interesting tasks, believes in each other's competencies, and actively exchanges knowledge. Participants helped each other, maintaining a friendly atmosphere with local jokes and memes. This had a positive effect on the process and results of training.
Step 3 – review the results
Based on the results of checking the assignments, we organized a large review with detailed feedback for each participant. Both team and individual performance indicators for 60 exercises were analyzed. Skills assessed:
case management;
formulating meaningful answers;
text design;
maintaining a uniform communication style;
working with emotions;
finding a way out of difficult situations.
At the stage of the initial audit, we also measured all these indicators, and then compared them with those obtained as a result of the training. This is the growth we got in a few weeks:
Conclusion
Now we have to develop and improve the skills acquired by the team in daily work with clients.
We have a clear plan for further steps:
improve the quality control system with new evaluation criteria;
use the course when selecting and hiring new employees: create a portrait of the ideal candidate, highlight key skills, add practical tasks to the selection;
include the course in the newcomer adaptation program with additions: more value history and general tasks at the start, a simulator with real-time correspondence simulation.
These training principles are most often used for technical support specialists. We chose them for the SOC team because… clear and understandable communication with clients (along with hard skills) is the key to their loyalty, and therefore to business success. We received the tools to train highly qualified specialists who are able to find a common language with any customer. This is an ongoing process that requires constant improvement. But we are already seeing an increase in customer satisfaction from the level of our service. They perceive our team as a trusted source of expertise in complex processes, which our specialists will explain in detail in a language everyone understands.
