Technical support can, at times, be very stressful. Restless moments, mental exhaustion, sour interactions—all can lead to burnout in this line of work. When this occurs, it is very important to take care of and nurture your mental health. Here are tips, based on my experience, on how to avoid or prevent burnout in technical support.

Take regular breaks

This is a big one for me, as I used to not take breaks at all. The feeling of being engulfed in support requests and feeling incapable of addressing them quickly enough can undoubtedly lead to a fast burnout. But no matter how much work and effort you put in, the work will never end, and issues will always arise. What’s the best course of action to ease this? Taking breaks!

So, go for that coffee break, get up and walk around for a few minutes, socialize, etc. The general rule is to take a 5-minute break every 30 minutes or so. You will feel refreshed, rejuvenated, and can think more clearly.

Control what you can control

In the technical support world, there will be many things that are out of your control. One example—system bugs will occur in your product, and you cannot fix them yourself. Are your client users upset and frustrated about the bugs? Of course they are, but the best you can do is to notify your development team, and move on. No need to worry anymore, as you controlled what you could.

When you start to worry about a certain issue, ask yourself if you can resolve it. If you cannot, pass it on to the appropriate team member and move on to the next issue in line.

Support tickets will always be there

I am going to speak for any support desk and say that, if you are using a support ticketing system, getting your queue down to “zero” is an everyday goal. However, it’s not always realistic.

You can receive a few tickets, reply, and then close them. As soon as you close them, an increase in tickets comes through. It is difficult and frustrating at times to deal with.  For me, I try to become that perfectionist and respond/complete every issue in the ticket queue. It feels great to know you achieved this, but just know it is not your ultimate objective. You should be providing the best possible resolution and support to your client users, even if it does take longer than expected.

Invest in a knowledgebase or set up FAQS

While responding to client users, you may notice that inquiries can be repetitive. You may fail to remember how you resolved one issue or how to respond to another. By creating and adding to a knowledgebase, you create help sections for yourself and/or your team members, allowing resolutions to be made quickly based on past experiences. You can also set up FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) and direct your client users to them for any common questions. This can save a lot of time and some sanity.

Reflect on what you accomplished

Although it’s natural to focus on what went wrong or what you did not accomplish, take a moment out of the day to reflect on what you did well. Even a bad day cannot take away the good work that you do. Give yourself a damn good pat on the back and congratulate yourself for a job well done.