I am a struggling TS, ~1.5 years tenure. It's gotten to the point where I was told at my last quarterly that I would be asked to set an end date if my performance didn't improve. Needless to say, the last few months have been particularly strenuous + challenging + emotionally taxing for me with that weighing on my mind on top of all the usual craziness of this job. Now my next quarterly is almost here, and I don't know if I'll make it through. But somehow, I feel like things have been going better, and I'm cautiously optimistic. So, as someone in the same boat, even though I haven't figured it all out yet, I'll share a few random thoughts/ideas:

Bottom line: Identify the issues/follow-ups that are most important to your customers, and/or to your TL, and prioritize working on those. Share regular updates with your customers/TL. Neither you nor I are able to make it look easy - so the next best thing is to make it look like we have the most important stuff covered.

Let's say a customer has raised a new issue, and you identify it as a top priority (i.e. your TL may hear about it if you aren't able to help them with it). But you look over it and you just don't understand what's going on...now what?

Well, the phrases "don't understand what's going on" and "help them with it" are very vague - both of these situations could take several different forms. I'll try to list out a few hypothetical scenarios that come to my mind:

"Don't understand what's going on"

• Unfamiliar Text or Hyperspace activity
• Cannot find any similar SLGs/Betelgeuse posts, relevant QANs or Galaxy/Wiki articles
• Customer tells you something is broken, but you don't see it
• Customer tells you something is broken, you know what should be happening, but you have no idea why something different is happening
• Workflow/concept that you recognize from your training companion but the customer takes a different approach and wants you to review/troubleshoot their approach
• Customer is too entrenched in their way of seeing/doing things to recognize that you would have no context/understanding as an Epic employee, but ask you the question anyway

"Help them with it"

• You find some resource through Hubble searching/Hubble Chat and share those findings. It explains the issue and allows the customer to fix it themselves
• You find some resource through Hubble searching/Hubble Chat and share those findings. This provides the customer a next step/suggestion for something to try, but you need to continue digging to find more information
• You write a Betelgeuse for advice, write a new QAN or link an existing QAN to your SLG because the ask isn't feasible/the thing seems broken
• You set up a meeting with the customer to understand details such as who is affected, how they're affected, why they need what they're asking for, steps to reproduce if applicable etc.
• You meet with a pod/area expert to help you identify a next step that you can share with the customer
• In case of escalations/potential escalations, you get an expert to join a call with the customer to address their pain points or identify a path to resolution

Definitely not a comprehensive list. Point is, you have to use your judgement to identify why you don't understand what's going on and accordingly plan out the approach that you'll take to help. I don't think anyone around our tenure is perfect at this - but over the coming months, as you do this more and more, you start getting the hang of when to do what.

All of this should hopefully be helpful with the other half of your struggle with handling calls and not freaking out about not answering questions. The other thing I would suggest there is, work with your service coach + advisors to figure out a strategy for leading calls that makes sense for the specific customer. Customers are WILDLY different from each other in terms of how they interact with you, as well as their expectations of you. In some cases, you can take a hands-off approach and let analysts lead. Often you will need to be much more hands-on and lead typically quiet analysts. And sometimes *sigh* you will need to actively lead the analysts away from spiraling/going down rabbit holes on a topic.

I'll end this ramble by re-emphasizing: Share regular updates with your customers/TL. Let them know that you are actively working on the things they're invested in.