2022
This is beautiful article. Thanks for the call to consciousness
@PaulPavlinovich wrote:
Helping each other
The image used in this post is a cartoonised image of mine of two athletes helping each other in an tough obstacle race. Watching two people help each other is always a wonderful experience for the person outside the conversation, it is even more rewarding both for the person needing help and the person who is giving. Local Guides is all about giving and supporting each other.
Do you like helping people? Do you often reply to posts here on Connect? It is awesome to try and help people and I absolutely encourage every single Local Guide to do so, do it every day.
Here are a few guidelines that you might find helpful.
- Live the Five Core Values of Connect in every response every time
- It isn't a race - nothing is gained by being the first person to respond to someone's post - it's better to be a bit slower with a considered and valuable response - the original poster will thank you and is more likely to give you kudos and perhaps mark your answer as a solution
- If the post has content you don't like or you feel is wrong or inappropriate then a gentle word is much more likely to get a positive outcome than an argumentative one - if its really bad then hit the three dots and Report Inappropriate Content so a moderator can take care of it
- @Include the persons name in an @Mention and restate their issue to show that you do understand it before you try and answer
- Rather than include steps to do something - talk in general terms of what should be done and always include a link to a relevant article. Both Google Support and Connect Helpdesk articles are good sources. This is because the various Maps applications change often, the help articles will always be brought up to date but steps and screenshots can become out of date quickly - look how many people read old articles and get angry because they can't get free storage because the response they read is out of date
- Try not to fall into the one size fits all macro based answer trap - I (and the other Moderators) use reply Macros a lot, but after popping the Macro we customise the text to ensure that the answer addresses the person, restates their issue, then answers their issue. There is little point in giving 80% of an answer in an unfriendly way.
I hope people find this helpful. If you find someone who is not living the core values in their replies, feel free to give them a friendly nudge to read this post.
