bobsmith1492
Diamond Member
As tech support, no. You are wrong. The customer IS your job. That is your first mistake.
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OMG, Customers crack me up.
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As tech support, no. You are wrong. The customer IS your job. That is your first mistake.
biggestmuff
Diamond Member
😕
mrSHEiK124
Lifer
Helping my dad with office computers:
Them: Oh, that new computer you gave us is completely fried
Me: (just woken up by phone call at 8:30 AM, right when they open) Fried?
Them: Yeah, it can't do anything
Me: Nothin huh?
Them: Nope
Me: Explain
Them: It won't print to the Dell at the front desk
Me: Are all the shortcuts on your desktop working right (billing program, etc.)
Them: Shortcuts?
Me: The links for "billing programs"
Them: Yeah they work fine
Me: Then the server is fine, go to control panel
Them: How do you get there?
Me: Start -> Control Panel
Them: Just a second
*5 minutes elapses*
Them: OK, next?
Me: Printers and Faxes
Them: OK
Me: Does the Dell printer show up here
Them: Yes it's there
Me: Open Internet Explorer and try to print the home page
Them: It says communication error with the network PC
Me: Check if the computer is on
Them: That printer IS on
Me: *slowly* The computer it's connected to
Them: One second
*10 minutes elapse, this printer is literally in the next room over*
Them: LAWLZ, MY BAD, THE COMPUTER AND TEH PRINTER WER OFFZ
Me: $%*$%!@%$*%!#$)(&^^#*$)^
Another gem!
Them: Oh my god, this computer isn't working for anything
Me: Does it power up, can you get into Windows?
Them: Yes
Me: Open Run for me, then type cmd (Remarkably, while they are all inept in front of a Windows PC, because of how long they spent on a circa 1985 billing system, they ALL know how to use a command prompt effortlessly. I have an easier time getting them to ipconfig than having others find the start button)
Them: And then ipconfig?
Me: Yup
Them: Nothing
Me: Odd, anyone disconnect the ether..........the fat phone line?
Them: No
*1 hour drive to office*
*Ethernet cable is disconnected from both PC and wall jack, is ON THE FUCKING DESK*
Me: :roll:
Them: Oh, the guy from "billing company" came here and disconnected that to load stuff up onto your dad's laptop, I guess he didn't put it back
Me: You really should have mentioned that
The only thing that gives me some peace of mind is that the biller is actually really good with computers, at least comparatively. I was troubleshooting a "fried printer" again, and she was on the PC it was hooked up to. I had Printers and Faxes, and that printer's property page up before I got to that desk. :heart:
Them: Oh, that new computer you gave us is completely fried
Me: (just woken up by phone call at 8:30 AM, right when they open) Fried?
Them: Yeah, it can't do anything
Me: Nothin huh?
Them: Nope
Me: Explain
Them: It won't print to the Dell at the front desk
Me: Are all the shortcuts on your desktop working right (billing program, etc.)
Them: Shortcuts?
Me: The links for "billing programs"
Them: Yeah they work fine
Me: Then the server is fine, go to control panel
Them: How do you get there?
Me: Start -> Control Panel
Them: Just a second
*5 minutes elapses*
Them: OK, next?
Me: Printers and Faxes
Them: OK
Me: Does the Dell printer show up here
Them: Yes it's there
Me: Open Internet Explorer and try to print the home page
Them: It says communication error with the network PC
Me: Check if the computer is on
Them: That printer IS on
Me: *slowly* The computer it's connected to
Them: One second
*10 minutes elapse, this printer is literally in the next room over*
Them: LAWLZ, MY BAD, THE COMPUTER AND TEH PRINTER WER OFFZ
Me: $%*$%!@%$*%!#$)(&^^#*$)^
Another gem!
Them: Oh my god, this computer isn't working for anything
Me: Does it power up, can you get into Windows?
Them: Yes
Me: Open Run for me, then type cmd (Remarkably, while they are all inept in front of a Windows PC, because of how long they spent on a circa 1985 billing system, they ALL know how to use a command prompt effortlessly. I have an easier time getting them to ipconfig than having others find the start button)
Them: And then ipconfig?
Me: Yup
Them: Nothing
Me: Odd, anyone disconnect the ether..........the fat phone line?
Them: No
*1 hour drive to office*
*Ethernet cable is disconnected from both PC and wall jack, is ON THE FUCKING DESK*
Me: :roll:
Them: Oh, the guy from "billing company" came here and disconnected that to load stuff up onto your dad's laptop, I guess he didn't put it back
Me: You really should have mentioned that
The only thing that gives me some peace of mind is that the biller is actually really good with computers, at least comparatively. I was troubleshooting a "fried printer" again, and she was on the PC it was hooked up to. I had Printers and Faxes, and that printer's property page up before I got to that desk. :heart:
PlatinumGold
Lifer
more like 100 that don't know what they are doing. plus, even the ones that DO think they know what they are doing are often wrong. i've had several "IT" guys call in claiming they knew what the problem was, in one extreme case, the ethernet cable to the router was unplugged. once we discovered it because i insisted he verify cabling, he was so embarrased.
there is a reason we have to go thru the script, and i don't see anything wrong with it. altho frankly, i don't. usually, i find the crux of the issue inside of 2 minutes.
I agree some of these are funny but support can come across very condescending on the phone. I think I'm above average in computer skills but still run into problems and have to go through the crap that is front line support. It actually makes my day when they have to go ahead and send it up to 2nd level because they can't fix it (like I told them). They can't do your job and you probably can't do their's.
PlatinumGold
Lifer
wrong, as tech support the job is to fix the issue at hand, we have a separate division called the customer support division for whom the cx is their first job.
as tech support i can tell you without a doubt refer to my post above.
GodlessAstronomer
Lifer
Note to the tech support chaps - customers will be irate after spending 20 - 45 minutes on hold. You wouldn't have to deal with nearly as many angry and condescending customers if you didn't make people wait so long. Of course this applies to most but not all tech support lines.
PlatinumGold
Lifer
note to cx, if you don't try to bypass the automated system by saying agent agent etc, you are more likely to get quicker support.
2/3's of the calls i get are for people who need help with their bill. well if they had gone thru the prompts correctly they would not have been put in the tech que, thereby reducing wait for those who are actually waiting for tech support.
i don't know how many people i hear say, i hate your system, i just keep saying agent, and it takes me forever to get to you.
well, guess what people, there is a reason the system is in place.
AMCRambler
Diamond Member
It's a two way street too. Having worked tech support before and not being a totally clueless like 90% of the people described here my level of frustration with the ridiculously moronic first level tech support you get when you call in is quite high. Here's my example.
About a month ago we had a pretty violent storm come through and the next day my fiance tells me her parents DSL stopped working, can I come check it out. Since I'm the one that set up their network and signed them up for DSL as a Christmas present, I'm their default tech support, which is fine I don't mind helping them out. They had a refurbed Netgear router I got off Woot.com for a good price so I immediately suspect the router took a dump. The DSL modem seems alright with the power, ethernet and DSL lights all lit and all re-light when it is rebooted. On the router side I see the WAN light is blinking on and off randomly and seems to coincide with me touching the ethernet cable in the wan port. I log into the router config page just to see if there's anything in the logs and the logs show the WAN connection attempting to connect, connecting and then failing so at this point I'm thinking the router is cooked.
I run down to Best Buy and pick up a new D-Link and set that sucker up. Still can't get a WAN connection with the new. Oh crapsky, it's probably the DSL modem. I get the router out of the middle and hook the DSL modem directly the NIC in the pc and sure enough it won't assign an address to the NIC. I even tried hooking it up with the crappy ass USB connection, installing the software and gateway and stil no go. I've got to call Verizon tech support and get a new modem. So I call up and I get the fellow over in India named Bob with a nice accent. Ok whatever, I'm pretty good at picking out what he's saying and he starts walking me through the script. Did you unplug and replug the modem? Did you un plug and replug the router? Go to start, run type in cmd. Type in ipconfig /release, ipconfig /renew, what is the ip address now? Connect the modem directly to the NIC. Blah Blah Blah, buddy I did all this already. He doesn't care gotta go through it. Argh.
Finally he's seeing the modem is not assigning and IP and tells me your network card is bad, you need to contact the manufacturer for support. I'm like dude, the network card is working fine. Remember when I told you I replaced the router, connected to the configuration page and set up the settings? Router gave the card a DHCP address and it worked fine. The DSL modem is the problem here. Ok well you have to call the billing department to buy a new modem. Oi. 40 minutes of my life gone with this mook and he can't even get me a new modem. Billing opens tomorrow at 9am here's the number.
3 days later I've got the new modem, plug it in and surprise the internet is back up.
Cliffs:
Being technically competent, knowing exactly what your problem is and calling for tech support only to be walked through everything you've already done by somehow who really doesn't know what he's doing and is just reading through a choose your own adventure tech support script is enough to make me crazy.
About a month ago we had a pretty violent storm come through and the next day my fiance tells me her parents DSL stopped working, can I come check it out. Since I'm the one that set up their network and signed them up for DSL as a Christmas present, I'm their default tech support, which is fine I don't mind helping them out. They had a refurbed Netgear router I got off Woot.com for a good price so I immediately suspect the router took a dump. The DSL modem seems alright with the power, ethernet and DSL lights all lit and all re-light when it is rebooted. On the router side I see the WAN light is blinking on and off randomly and seems to coincide with me touching the ethernet cable in the wan port. I log into the router config page just to see if there's anything in the logs and the logs show the WAN connection attempting to connect, connecting and then failing so at this point I'm thinking the router is cooked.
I run down to Best Buy and pick up a new D-Link and set that sucker up. Still can't get a WAN connection with the new. Oh crapsky, it's probably the DSL modem. I get the router out of the middle and hook the DSL modem directly the NIC in the pc and sure enough it won't assign an address to the NIC. I even tried hooking it up with the crappy ass USB connection, installing the software and gateway and stil no go. I've got to call Verizon tech support and get a new modem. So I call up and I get the fellow over in India named Bob with a nice accent. Ok whatever, I'm pretty good at picking out what he's saying and he starts walking me through the script. Did you unplug and replug the modem? Did you un plug and replug the router? Go to start, run type in cmd. Type in ipconfig /release, ipconfig /renew, what is the ip address now? Connect the modem directly to the NIC. Blah Blah Blah, buddy I did all this already. He doesn't care gotta go through it. Argh.
Finally he's seeing the modem is not assigning and IP and tells me your network card is bad, you need to contact the manufacturer for support. I'm like dude, the network card is working fine. Remember when I told you I replaced the router, connected to the configuration page and set up the settings? Router gave the card a DHCP address and it worked fine. The DSL modem is the problem here. Ok well you have to call the billing department to buy a new modem. Oi. 40 minutes of my life gone with this mook and he can't even get me a new modem. Billing opens tomorrow at 9am here's the number.
3 days later I've got the new modem, plug it in and surprise the internet is back up.
Cliffs:
Being technically competent, knowing exactly what your problem is and calling for tech support only to be walked through everything you've already done by somehow who really doesn't know what he's doing and is just reading through a choose your own adventure tech support script is enough to make me crazy.
rivan
Diamond Member
I worked at Kinko's for a time and had one of those. Sadly, mine wasn't a chick OR hot - about a 70-year-old man.
I've got one other good 'stupid user' story from those days. 6 or 7 years after the incident, I married the 'stupid user'. In fact, just last night I had to walk her through getting our kids' pics back into screensaver rotation on her new work laptop. She's very much the 'can't set the VCR type' but has plenty of virtues to make me look past that 🙂
PlatinumGold
Lifer
sure, but i had a cx call, refusing to t/s at all. sure, i also suspected his router is bad, but i can't just take a cx word for it. if i always took cx's word for this type of stuff, do you know how many things i would get fixed? almost zero. but he refused to t/s. eventually i talked my supervisor into letting me ship him a router, but it took me 18 minutes to do it. if he had followed my directions and done basic t/s steps, i could have gotten him a router in 8 minutes. so he wasted 10 minutes of my time and his by being stubborn.
honestly, if you were management in a large corporation like verizon, dealing with millions and millions of cx, you don't think you would set up a procedure, that albeit might be annoying to less than 1% of the population but seriously save the company and the cx thousands of hours by going thru basic trouble shooting steps on every call?
PlatinumGold
Lifer
another story. a friend of mine is level 2 tech support supervisor for merril lynch, when he calls in for tech support, guess what, he has finally realized, it's just quickest and easiest if he follows the steps. people all have jobs to do.
I used to work tech support for a campus. Got a call from one of the professors saying he'd rearranged his office and now his computer didn't work. So I go over there to see what the problem is. Surprisingly the computer itself was plugged up correctly. However... the problem was he had the power strip plugged back into itself!
bobsmith1492
Diamond Member
And now I know why customer support (for certain companies) is in the dumps - poor management and/or incompetent control freak management.
AmpedSilence
Platinum Member
now THAT is picture worthy!
Some day when you're grown up and you have someone to report to about your job you'll learn that if there are guidelines you're being paid to follow then your options are: a) Follow them b) Don't work there.
If I'm being paid to do something a certain way, then what incentive do I have for breaking procedure? I mean, if I ask a customer to try something out of procedure and it breaks their hardware, not only did I just make the company foot the bill for repairs and lose a customer, I've lost my job. So tell me again why it's important to try and go against what you are paid to do?
i'll dig up a few from my father's history back in the early 90s.
he comes in one day nad this old lady has a new computer setup but it is having problems. ok, he goes in there, sits down, and searches for the mouse. the mouse is nowhere to be found. he asks where the mouse is and she shrieks :roll: He looks up under the desk and there is the mouse. she said she thought it was like a sewing machine :roll:
another old lady complained she kept loosing her data when she saved to floppies. he checks it out, saves fine, erases fine, no apparent problems. he asks for one of her old disks to see whats up and she reaches into a cubby with a huge magnet attached to the side. she had been slapping them up against it for quick and easy storage :laugh:
i've got tons from my years in customer support, too many to blab about
but anywho, i'm still in tech support (college student) with a software company. its not always great but i enjoy the challenge. unfortunately most tech support people just suck. they get bitter and just hate dumb customers (read: all customers). i enjoy having to find new angles to approach them with to keep them happy. the only thing that bothers me is when my company asks me to straight up lie to the customer. i've done it and don't like it, but i suppose the company's desires outweigh my own and the customer's >.> I think my all time favorite customers are death threats and legal threats. the make me so giddy.
he comes in one day nad this old lady has a new computer setup but it is having problems. ok, he goes in there, sits down, and searches for the mouse. the mouse is nowhere to be found. he asks where the mouse is and she shrieks :roll: He looks up under the desk and there is the mouse. she said she thought it was like a sewing machine :roll:
another old lady complained she kept loosing her data when she saved to floppies. he checks it out, saves fine, erases fine, no apparent problems. he asks for one of her old disks to see whats up and she reaches into a cubby with a huge magnet attached to the side. she had been slapping them up against it for quick and easy storage :laugh:
i've got tons from my years in customer support, too many to blab about
but anywho, i'm still in tech support (college student) with a software company. its not always great but i enjoy the challenge. unfortunately most tech support people just suck. they get bitter and just hate dumb customers (read: all customers). i enjoy having to find new angles to approach them with to keep them happy. the only thing that bothers me is when my company asks me to straight up lie to the customer. i've done it and don't like it, but i suppose the company's desires outweigh my own and the customer's >.> I think my all time favorite customers are death threats and legal threats. the make me so giddy.
BassBomb
Diamond Member
I worked in tech support for a CAD company, we did not have a script (we had a welcome script though).
I felt that we generally worked from our own built scripts after generalizing the problems and products that we dealt with (each person usually tackled different type of issues denoted by the phone prompts). Using these fake scripts worked VERY well for 90% of issues and helps streamline most solutions.
I remember one time where I forgot to do my usual "script" because the customer had informed me of what he tried.. well after almost an hour of trying to figure out what it was, I went back and did the original things he said he did, and lo and behold he did it wrong
NEVER trust anyone when they tell you what they did, they almost always lie or don't tell you something out of embarassment.
I felt that we generally worked from our own built scripts after generalizing the problems and products that we dealt with (each person usually tackled different type of issues denoted by the phone prompts). Using these fake scripts worked VERY well for 90% of issues and helps streamline most solutions.
I remember one time where I forgot to do my usual "script" because the customer had informed me of what he tried.. well after almost an hour of trying to figure out what it was, I went back and did the original things he said he did, and lo and behold he did it wrong
NEVER trust anyone when they tell you what they did, they almost always lie or don't tell you something out of embarassment.
bobsmith1492
Diamond Member
At my job, the guidelines are to do the job to perfection, find ways to innovate to meet the project goals, treat the client well, and to make money along the way.
DrPizza
Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
I had one of those... I trouble shot the problem myself and knew it was a bad power supply. I didn't realize my support warranty was longer than my parts warranty (or rather that my parts warranty had run out). An hour later, the tech was certain my motherboard was bad. I tried to argue with him and tell him I was positive it was the power supply. Apparently, his script was wrong. Thankfully, my parts warranty had expired, else it would have taken much longer to have a functioning PC. I gave up when I found out at the end that my parts warranty had expired and just went out and purchased a new power supply. Fixed the problem & the price of the power supply was less than the aggravation of calling back and waiting on hold for another hour.
When I worked at a helpdesk, I always got in trouble for skirting issues and not using their scripts, yet my CTR was 30-40% less than the HD average. Fuck scripts, all they do is piss competent people off and also take the long way around everything ...
I somehow managed to have my Roadrunner account flagged to automatically have me transferred to Tier2 support because I always had things figured out on my end - don't run me through the damn scripts! It took me a few months, but they finally flagged it. Primary issue was because the cable casing had a crack in it and water would get in and kill off the high speed. Took them a year to fix the damn issues, probably a call every 2-3 weeks to get it back up.
nervegrind3r
Lifer
BRO, tape some of your calls, I got some good ones too. lets swap some retard calls 🙂
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