Week 4 Ms Excel Exercise
Situation 1
The general approach for facilitating this customer over the telephone is to explain the functions that would help to organize his spreadsheet for his monthly expense reports. I would explain to him that he can add formulas to the spreadsheet that will add up totals for him. He can set it up so it gives him the total expenses by day, week, and month. He can also set it up so that it calculates the totals spent on just meals, hotels, and transportation. He can also calculate what was spent on fuel, phone, entertainment, and misc expenses. I would also explain how using filters can help to narrow down data for an easy view without having to search through a lot of data to see what he needs for instance, if he just wanted to know what was spent on food. I would then explain that he can add charts and graphs to show what was spent in each category whether it is by day, week, month, or quarter. He would have an understanding of how graphs and charts are a quick and easy way to analyze information.
The possible challenges to doing this over the phone are for the customer to see how a spreadsheet would be useful. I can explain all the features but if he were able to see a spreadsheet and all the possibilities that are offered, he would be able to better understand the features I am explaining to him.
Strategies to overcome the challenges would be to ask a lot of questions of what he needs to accomplish what he is looking for, also to use simple terms and language he might better understand.
If the caller was still unclear about the options or if I was having a hard time understanding what it is exactly he is looking for, another option would be to recommend downloading a free trial offer of Excel so he can see firsthand what I am talking about and I would also recommend taking a beginners course in Excel.
It’s hard to put together a step by step trouble shooting process for this situation. If I were to try, it might look like this.
1. Go to
The general approach for facilitating this customer over the telephone is to explain the functions that would help to organize his spreadsheet for his monthly expense reports. I would explain to him that he can add formulas to the spreadsheet that will add up totals for him. He can set it up so it gives him the total expenses by day, week, and month. He can also set it up so that it calculates the totals spent on just meals, hotels, and transportation. He can also calculate what was spent on fuel, phone, entertainment, and misc expenses. I would also explain how using filters can help to narrow down data for an easy view without having to search through a lot of data to see what he needs for instance, if he just wanted to know what was spent on food. I would then explain that he can add charts and graphs to show what was spent in each category whether it is by day, week, month, or quarter. He would have an understanding of how graphs and charts are a quick and easy way to analyze information.
The possible challenges to doing this over the phone are for the customer to see how a spreadsheet would be useful. I can explain all the features but if he were able to see a spreadsheet and all the possibilities that are offered, he would be able to better understand the features I am explaining to him.
Strategies to overcome the challenges would be to ask a lot of questions of what he needs to accomplish what he is looking for, also to use simple terms and language he might better understand.
If the caller was still unclear about the options or if I was having a hard time understanding what it is exactly he is looking for, another option would be to recommend downloading a free trial offer of Excel so he can see firsthand what I am talking about and I would also recommend taking a beginners course in Excel.
It’s hard to put together a step by step trouble shooting process for this situation. If I were to try, it might look like this.
1. Go to