Slashdot Mirror
Consumer Reports Discovers Tech Support Sucks
fuzzykitty writes "CNN just posted an article about how commercial software is filled with bugs and customers are used as an army of unpaid testers. It also goes on about the lack of good technical support. Best quote: 'I'm unaware of any company that would shortchange the customer in their speed to get the software to market,' LOL"
Is this really news? I'm sure most people have come to this conclusion a long time ago.
From the article: Am I going to use this software as it's been marketed?
Not as it was designed, mind you, but as it was marketed. We all know that in the "21st Century" (TM) marketing is reality.
And tech support is always marketed as a smiling blond woman with the headset on saying, "How can I help you today?"
I get a warm numb feeling just thinking about it. Problem? I don't have a problem...
I'm much funnier now that I'm a subscriber.
Amazing how long they took to figure it out...
What? I'm sorry, what's your customer ID again?
No, I'm sorry, I do not find your Cisco Router support anywhere on our systems. Have a good evening! <click>.
I'll show you tech support that sucks... jerks!
---
Companies spend millions on advertising, but pay minimum wage to those who will be the first point of contact with the customer. Ain't economics great?
But that report says it is getting worse every day.
This does not surprise me at all..
I have heard more clients talk of choosing a product based entirely on the service offered.
look at the Rackspace "insane support" model, they are doing well because of that.
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
Several have delayed their products in order to produce a higher quality game.
No, no, my friend. I am afraid you are the suck. For behold...
YOU FAIL IT!
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
And how is this a suprise? Based on my many many calls to ATT broadband, Microsoft, etc I know many tech support reps a) have their head up their ass or b) the company itself has it's head up it ass. Also I used to work for MSN tech support and I think often times it's a combination of both. Lack of care for the customer and a lax hiring process that entails you can talk and will show upto work get you the job.
Hold up, wait a minute, let me put some pimpin in it
i'm still waiting for the first tech support-patch
Well, so far for the popular "Commercial software are more reliable than open source because companies are forced to listen to their customers, and provide better support" Slashdot myth.
"I'm unaware of any company that would shortchange the customer in their speed to get the software to market," said Jonathan Thompson, vice president of the Washington-based trade group, which has more than 650 members.
That's great. I'd put Mr. Thompson right up there with the Iraqi Information Minister, and his "deathless quotes":
"There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!"
"God will roast their stomachs in hell at the hands of Iraqis."
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
Oh, um... scratch that last one, ok?
And he gets better and better!
Thompson said customers need to have realistic expectations. He urged buyers to ask themselves two questions before plunking down cash for software: "What is it that I want this software to do?" and "Am I going to use this software as it's been marketed?"
Well, if I were to use Microsoft software "as it's been marketed", I'd expect to be using it to magically draw pretty pictures around my everyday activities, transforming a burned-out building shell into a stage with a spotlight.
"Make sure that your expectations are appropriate to what a product is marketing," he said.
What the hell does that mean? Intel marketed its product -- a chunk of finely-etched silicon in a plastic box -- with a bunch of blue guys. What expectations are appropriate in that case?
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Another consideration is that many bad experiences are had by people who constantly cheap-out on their purchases. You don't walk into a McDonalds and bitch about the paper napkins. Similarly, I don't doubt that if you're buying low end 'home' devices that they sell at the discount store that you're going to run into a few problems -- but the solution is simple: don't buy that $30 CD burner that was made in a straw hut. There used to be a time you could buy a television set that lasted 8-10 years, for example, but the lifespan of the equipment has been cut beyond the pricing.
If you aren't constantly bargain-hunting but instead reading reviews online and buying things at the logical price point you might discover that the companies can not only afford to give you reasonable tech support but that you will also have less need of it. Additionally, buying the cheapest stuff you can find almost certainly promotes outsourcing and the hemmoraging of manufacturing jobs from our country, which hurts all of us in the end.
Pay reasonable prices and try to buy only things that are made in the USA. Remember that you're going to get what you pay for.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
This is great for Linux. Maybe people will realize that the only difference between the bearded fat men yelling "RTFM, j00 n00b" and the clueless Windoze MC$E is that you pay more for the clueless Windoze luser.
what does this have to do with "Consumer Reports" ?
Thompson said customers need to have realistic expectations. He urged buyers to ask themselves two questions before plunking down cash for software: "What is it that I want this software to do?" and "Am I going to use this software as it's been marketed?"
I thought that bugs, marketing lies, crappy documentation, and clueless tech support were realistic expectations for most commercial software.
There are so many idiot users out there that it's not that easy to give good tech support to start with. The vast majority of the problems are defective end user problems. People think a piece of software functions in a certain way but they didn't bother to read the manual or built in help text to realize that it really works in a different way.
I know this first hand because I used the 6 month free AOL that came with my new Dell. AOL would ask you to participate in Beta programs and customers sign up so that they get the new features first... Eventually I got sick of it and stopped participating in their Beta.
-- Sig
Washington Post - Bush Misuses Science, Report Says
New York Times - Bush Misuses Science, Report Says
My favorite is when the company is obviously paying tech support based only on the number of tickets closed.
This seems to miss the point that *solving* the problem is much better for the customer than *ignoring* the problem...
But shouldn't the topic be Consumer Reports Discovers Software Tech Support Sucks ? Can I mod the article -1, Offtopic?
FLR
Does it somehow imply open source is better? Yuk yuk MSFT is teh gay!
Yeah right. "Community support", that's where it's at. Have you been on any support channels?
s20451: I'm having trouble getting my ATI card to work under Linux. Can anyone help?
HellDog69: LOLOL u noob RTFM
31337h4x0r: u r gay
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
CNN just posted an article about how commercial software is filled with bugs and customers are used as an army of unpaid testers. It also goes on about the lack of good technical support
So let me get this straight, crappy software is sold by company A, users get screwed, and tech support ends up getting the blame??
maybe I should read the article, are they talking about a certian multinational company owned by a zillionare that tries to monopolize everything?
Linux: Helping nerds look smarter since the late 90s.
RFTA, please.
And I thought I was special because I got into a closed beta...
- Sherman
Actually with the influx of highly skilled unemployed technical people. This problem will solve itself. And if all else fails, there's overseas help, to resolving our "cupholder" problems.
This would be the perfect time to trot out the "OBVIOUS" tag.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Having done 6 years of tech support, I can conclusively agree with the contents of the article. We do suck.
I've seen so many coworkers come and go, and only a small fraction of them possessed true technical ability. And a small fraction of those were actually able to communicate effectively to pass that knowledge on when it was needed. And even fewer had the temperment to do it for years at a time.
Which is a real shame. There are a lot of people out there that need help, and by my calculations, maybe 0.1% of tech support personnel are truly able to provide the level of support needed in all cases. But remember, 87.375% of all statistics are made up on the spot too, so take it with a grain of salt.
http://thechubbyferret.net - Ferret pictures and informative links.
I've worked in a customer service department (for MCI, no less) and I can tell you that it's not always the case that customers don't get the help they need -- but that they don't get the help they think they need.
Example: "I want you to credit me for all my charges for the last six months, since you told me which calling plan I was on but I misunderstood! And I want a courtesy extra credit of $50!"
Customers, sometimes, want the moon and the stars and neither customer support nor tech support nor any other department have the authority to fulfill whatever request they have. In the case of tech support, I have no doubt that many of the problems stem from the customer's inability to adequate explain their difficulty to the person on the phone -- and then the situation is escalated later as a resolution was never obatined.
The coolest voice ever.
They are on to you!!!
The truth about Led Zep should never be told on
i suppose once microsoft found out that, back in the day, win95 sales were good despite the inherent crash-happiness, bug fixes took a lesser priority over devloping new software. and it may also be the consumers' fault for not demanding better products, and the market's fault (read: Monopoly-Soft) for not having better and accessible alternatives ready. if you had open source versions of all critical apps that were properly bug tested, it's doubtful that people would pay lots of money for crappy commerical products.
Of the brainiac that "discovered" this?
Der... I could have told you that...
ever try calling at&t for a cable modem outage?
"its your hub/router (I maintain to this day that they dont know that its a hub or router, but think its a hub-router)... plug the cable modem right into the computer, count to ten, pray to Thor, go the macarena, and chant... if that doesnt work, we cant help you and will schedule a tech"
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
- fire is hot
- water is wet
- SCO is EVIL
- grass is green
sort of a revelation?I was looking forward to getting the next version of the playstation or xbox. Until console systems have great multiplayer capability like PC's i'm going to hold off for a bit. I love consoles purely for the fact you buy a 500$ box and its good for 4 years without upgrades. Every new PC game these days has higher and higher requirements. (ex. The best PC on the market today can't run Asheron's Call 2 at its maximum, by design since they want the engine to last years..blah blah.)
The downside is, once these console boxes get hard drives, etc it will just end up like the PC market. Companies will ship games before they are completed or buggy and as soon as you put the CD in you'll have to download a patch.
Unfortunately, the only thing we can do as consumers is to refuse to buy said software. But if you look at current trends, that won't be happening anytime soon.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
If you're searching for a company that does customer support RIGHT, look into National Instruments. They realize that encouraging customer success is paramount to a successful business.
"People are already so frustrated with tech support, they're not even calling,"
Don't ya just love it when everything goes as planned
There are 10 kinds of people in the world > > Those who understand binary and those who don't
And after you RTFA, use the "preview" button, too.
...have been there and done that. Most people hired on helpdesks are hastily trained and then given a headset to help the incoming calls. Most times they have a dedicated pc with extensive database of cause/effect/solutions to work the customer through, but its not always that way. Ive worked in, and with a lot of helpdesks in the past 10 years and some are good and some are not so good...another problem is the good people dont stay with the helpdesk for more than a few years max. They move onto manager positions, supervisory non-helpdesk-call positions and are backfilled with new people. Having patience and common sense goes a long way since most people calling are not in a good mood since their Dell Pc is not booting up, they cant get a scsi cdrom to work or they cannot figure out why they cant remote dial in somewhere. Long hours, average pay, high stress - even in this market, its not that appealing. Ive dealt with some very good tech support people and some less than desireable helpdesk people, so its hit or miss in most cases.
I think if this were posted on fark it would have the headline "obvious"
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
-Xenocrates
Where a monopoly has its customers by the balls because they are the only game in town, an inertia-opoly has its customers by the balls because most have too many other things to do to bother exploring different options.
Skimping on testing (and customer service) is part of this gamble.
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
What can I do? The job of the coworker who sat next to me has already been out-sourced to India. If I don't wrap this thing up next week, my job will be out-sourced as well.
I used to develop really high-quality software, but the companies folded and all the software went straight to dustbin. Better have a customer test your software than no customer at all.
My life-time lesson: A software is necessary if and only if its customers are willing to live with its bugs.
Funny; I never had a problem with tech support, even though I'm calling various companies at least once per week. My secret - I'm friendly and humble. People on the other side of the line are just that, people. They appreciate if you don't yell at them, but joke with them instead. They are also not the brightest employees of the said company. They follow a certain routine, and don't appreciate if you try to interrupt them. So what, if I know how to change my network settings? It's much easier to follow their advice step by step ("Click on start." "Okay, now click on Settings.") than to interrupt them and tell them that you are already ten steps ahead. It yields real results. Back in the days when UUNet was still independent, I managed to keep a tech support person on-line from 4PM to 2AM, making her miss her wedding aniversary, just because I was friendly all the time (naturally, she wasn't one of the minimum-wage workers, but a tech support manager). Just yesterday, I spent 15 minutes on the phone with MCI, only to get a follow-up call ten minutes later. A coworker who tends to yell at them has never gotten a follow-up call. Same with Bloomberg tech support, Dell, HP, Earthlink and Verizon, all of whom I called in the past month.
tech support will always be a source of disappointment for anyone who seeks it
it's psychology, not technology
if you are dweeb, like me and most of us here, you pretty much figure it out on your own, and don't even go to tech support, unless you are in some fortune 500 company that mandates it's usage for ridiculous policy reasons and doesn't let you tinker, which is what is in line with most of our instincts to figure out problems with software
for the technically uninclined, you go to tech support expecting them to answer question like "what is the purpose of my life?"
i'm not joking
the psychology of someone who buys technology that is beyond their understanding, and then expects some poor guy on the other end of a phone conversation to download technological insight into their cranium via a 15 minute phone call is what we are talking about
you can't meet those expectations
and thus, tech support will always be a source of disappointment, since it is the source of solace for people who don't understand that if you want answers to technical questions, you need to seek them out yourself, in order to develop your own technological proficiency
unfortunately true for the technophobes
the problem is psychology, not technology, and the problem will always exist as long as there are people who wade into the deep end of the pool not knowing how to swim and expecting to be taught how to swim in the short amout of time before they drown, rather than learn how to swim first, and to have enough technological common sense to recognize the deep end of the pool and that they are in over their head in the first place
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's interesting to see that tech support for open source products is not mentioned. I for one have noticed that the free avenues of tech support (forums, newsgroups, lists) provide a much better level tech support for open source products than ever going to a comercial vendors support. Further, the companies that do provide pay based services for open source software seem to have a faster turnaround, and more intelligent techs working "tech" support. This is just another way that open source will change the computing world we live in.
Later,
Phil
The problem with current tech support is that there are so many clueless users calling in that people who have a real problem can't get any help. Perhaps what we need is a central database of "user competence" so that tech companies can automagically send people who know what they are doing past the first tier of "is your computer on" support guys.
----
All of whose base are belong to the what-now?
When you out-source support to India and other places in the middle east.
A buddy of mine is a network admin. He recently had occasion to have to call Dell for hardware support. He had a technician here in the states remain on the line with him while they talked this issue over with a "tech" in India. Even the Dell guy had problems understanding the cameljockey, as well as the fact that the parts he DID manage to understand where totally incorrect.
Hopefully, all the out-sourcing backfires and all the exported jobs come back.
Now if we could just export the sand niggers that are here already.
The article mentioned is on CNN, not Consumer Reports.
Consumer Reports' web site is consumerreports.org.
I see that CNN finally bought and tried to play Star Wars Galaxies! That's a nice thought... rather than researching REAL news, just write an article about something everybody already knows.
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
I've been using commercial software for many years, like most other people, and I've rarely had to call anyone to do anything. Granted I'm more technical than the average user, but then that would be an argument for making software easier to use, not one against its existence. Now, there are companies out there that put out positively shitty software without hardly any testing, and that becomes plain the moment you open it up. The birthday card printers and the no-name PIMs and so on. Software from companies like Microsoft always has bugs, but these are rarely showstoppers and are normally fixed in service packs or whatnot. There's another issue - did the user check to see if there was a fix before he/she called? Microsoft (and most other big software companies) spend billions of dollars on testing. This article makes it sound like nothing is tested and software is simply unusable by the time it gets to the consumer. I don't think that's even remotely the case.
And going back to why this was posted... how is free software any better? There is, by definition, no support. There's a formal testing protocol (alphas and betas) as well as thousands of unpaid testers. It's often released too early to "get it out there". The stuff is often buggy (oh, look! The KDE segfault dialog again!), but it's also patched regularly. The big-name stuff is about as rock-solid as most big-name commercial software. Both have their unique problems and strengths.
I'm sure this will turn into the usual "hahah, m$ sux" fest, but I just don't see how all these "facts" make free/open source more attractive - at least to the consumer.
Apple have an interesting "solution". They release many applications as betas. We've seen Safari, iChat, iSync and some others as betas. There can be bugs and there's absolutely no support available. But most people are satisfied anyway.
Ciryon
When my router's wireless transmitter blew I called up technical support to get a replacement. I told the guy I would like a replacement but he said i first had to try some configuration troubleshooting on my computer. He spent about 2hrs going through stuff that I assured him I already did but he insisted that I do them again anyway. The way he was describing the things made me realize that I knew a lot more then he did. Finally I got my faulty router replaced.
The Television Wiki
Seventy-three percent of those surveyed by Consumer Reports said Web solutions are hard to find, navigate or don't work at all.
Not true, you just need to look beyond the company's support page. Yes, I mean Google.
And this is interesting how? Because it's a jab at commercial software? Does it somehow imply open source is better?
From TFA:
More and more, people are turning to tech-savvy friends, online message boards and paying independent computer service firms to get results.
Well, the article didn't imply it, but you raise a good point. It appears the methods of providing support in the free software community are indeed superior to commercial support.
who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.
Because companies either hire people who don't know what they're doing for peanuts or techies who do know what they're doing who hate their job and are again paid peanuts. On the customer end, the customer often doesn't know how to ask good questions even when the tech support guy knows how to listen to good questions. I once had a tech support guy for compuserve in '95 or '96 who didn't know what a directory was. He only knew them as "folders".
A few years ago, I called Nintendo with a question about electric adaptor compatiblity for the Game Boy. Within a few rings of dialing the first number (first number is important: consider all the tech support calls that tell you to hang up and dial elsewhere!) someone came on the line. He answered my question quickly, with no third degree about serial numbers.
I was kind of surprised it went so well. I had expected a tech support system that would be bogged down to uselessness with zillions of kids calling and asking how to make Mario get that next coin.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
No, the software tech support and shipping of Betas is nothing like the car industry or other industries dealing with physical devices.
You talk about new cars and the Model T. Lets take a real software example, like when Adobe changed the default RGB level in Macintosh Photoshop. It was like if you put your car into drive and then the steering reversed.
So then after much yelling and really snarky Adobe reps at Software Expos and Graphics Expos they issue a patch, but you have to poke around for it and it doesn't really fix the problem.
They then fix the problem, but you have to pay to upgrade to get it.
Car makers don't do that, but software makers do.
Lets say Ford ships a vehicle with a serious problem, they fix the problem for free if enough people have the problem or if it impacts the operation of the vehicle to the point it's unusable or unsafe.
Someone ships a piece of software with a serious problem, oh like Razor's Edge corrupting databases or not printing. You complain, they blame it on you, on Microsoft, on a printer driver.
But wait, we have a fix. You need to buy a new version of Windows Server and a new version of Razor's Edge, but wait, another product of ours you are using won't work with the new one or it won't work with new Server, we change our mind every other day.
If I go down to Honda and there's a problem with a Civic's doors, they don't blame it on the gas or on the maker of the shocks.
Not the good stuff!
Ms security Feature scome to mind..
MS has the perfect *uck cusotmer over the long term buisness model in that security is always a long term issue only solved by brand new major paid versions of over priced OS software..
Don't Tread on OpenSource
You pay someone minimal salary or a bit above to answer mails and phone about some products...
For the sake of an example let's take someone in computer science or electronics...If you want that supportperson to have education in any of those fields so that he understands what is really going on in the system and not troubleshoot with a simple "issue-solution" sheet, such a person will be demotivated really fast unless he doesn't have minimal objectives with his career.
The problem is usually those people are really incompetent if they end up in jobs like this especially if their education could get them 2x the salary or more. They either have to be really lazy or bad at their work (or the employment market to be really in a bad shape).
So what does that give, if the person isn't good enough to work in his field on practical projects, he won't be any better in troubleshooting it, minus some exeptions. If they would want to hire competent people they would have to raise the salary grid a bit, and even give extras because, lets face it, if you're told you'll be answering tech support issues for the next 5 years of your life, most people will be depressed.
The solution?
Well look at National Instruments for example, they have one of the Best support site on the planet, you search, you find. You call, you get the information. I am not a big user of their products (labview) but I was *really* impressed with this. So the solution is a mix of putting issues in a database and have experience stored somewhere so that someone else can use it (a bit like the trouble-solution sheet but more dynamic and with good search filtering) and as for non-computer approach, well, either make a better product, or for ***'s sake, pay the price to get decent people in. Having 3 monkeys to not answer questions properly and having the people re-phoning 30 minutes later, or having 1 good professionnal person that will be doing his job correctly and effectively will not only benefit in customer satisfaction, it will require less infrastructure and while it's going to cost a bit more, if you stop being a lame manager and use some common sence, the benifits (even financial) will be higher than the costs of keeping a crappy system.
Look at how many companies are starting to outsource their support center... this might work for some buisnesses like ISPs.... but for others it just shows that their system has failed and grew out of proportion... how many times people you know that used tech support had to phone back again because the problem wasn't resolved properly? This shouldn't happen for most of those calls right? well, there's your answer... putting more underpaid monkey won't solve the problem, it'll just cost more.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
customers are used as an army of unpaid testers.
Yah sure, I don't want to generalize here - but people who have never published software for a large number of users probably ought to know that even a large number of beta testers will always oversee a significant number of bugs if the software is appropriately large. That's because with our current development tools, both free and commercial software is always prone to any number of strange bugs, some of them even only detected out in the field under strange circumstances.
Even if you test very thoroughly, there are always bugs (even obvious ones) that slip through, it's just a matter of probability. And we're going to have those problems for some time to come, until software finally moves to higher-level development for which we do have neither the technology nor the technique yet.
But the realization that tech support is bad? OMG, just thinking about tech support makes me cringe! (Allright, maybe that's because I'm from Germany, where tech support is not only *always* grossly incompetent but also employs *only* people with the most insulting manners - I believe Germany is the world's leader in that respect!)
Anything interesting going on?
What you say?
The sky is blue.
Water is wet.
SCO sucks.
There was no news today.
I worked tech support for a major canadian ISP for 3 years.
The tech support we offered sucked because the employees in general were underpaid, undertrained and overworked.
The funny part though is that OUR internal tech support sucked even worse. The software we started using had been developed in Malaysia (IIRC), it hadn't been tested at all before it was released and we had no one from the actual development team on site, or even in the country. The thing crashed, double posted billings to accounts, wasn't billing about 6000 customers for a period of 16 months and no one was there to fix it! I don't think anyone even cared.
This is partly why I deal with a smaller ISP now, that rents the network from the larger previously mentioned one (also they allow cash payments for the bill instead of auto-credit-withdraws which I hate).
I won't mention any names, but someone can probably guess which ISP I am referring too.
s20451: I'm having trouble getting my ATI card to work under Linux. Can anyone help?
See, thats part of your problem right there.
- ATI card: which one?
- Linux: any particular distro?
- Trouble: Is the card out of its cardboard box yet?
You do have a point but even the most helpful 'guru' gets sick and tired of "its broken, please fix" pleas!
While the analogy isn't 100% there, the one example you provide doesn't cut it. The most frequent type of after-release fix for a product is a free patch.
Often when supporting "your" software product, you are forced to troubleshoot applications interfereing the the operation with your product. Applications such as Norton (although I admit Symantec has gotten better over the years) and that evil Microsoft App known as Windows require tech support personnell to have more skills than their paychecks allow. The other side of this problem, is it becomes very easy to "blame" other applications/drivers/os issues etc. I'm also sure that the tech support staff get used to dealing with technical incompetents and the restart/reboot/reinstall mentality becomes second nature, rather than diagnosing the problem.
Consumer reports reported today that the earth is not flat!
Sig? We don't need no stinking sig....
I sympathize with both the tech support personnel and the end user of the product. But some things about this article catch my eye and either bug me or amuse me.
The March survey of 10,000 computer users found widespread dissatisfaction with the level of service offered by U.S. software manufacturers.
I wonder if those who gave the survey had a skill level assessment for some of the people they question. For instance asking farmer Bill in West Bubblefsck Nebraska what he thinks about Mathematica is a pretty lame excuse for a survey.
Quality has been the victim as companies cut corners to cut costs. As a result, the magazine put software tech support among the lower-ranked services that it's rated in the last 10 years -- slightly worse than the customer support offered by cell phone carriers and just a little better than that provided by cable TV companies.
This is amusing... Those years of ripping into tech support calling me while I'm playing Quake to ask me some damn question about some product we made... Why I outta!$*
More and more, people are turning to tech-savvy friends, online message boards and paying independent computer service firms to get results.
"People are already so frustrated with tech support, they're not even calling," Jeff Blyskal, senior editor for Consumer Reports.
One problem I've seen with non techie users of machines, is they (the newbies) tend to think that first is better, and they often rush out and get something that is being pimped out on the shelfs of CompUSA or something with some groovy color and packaging scheme. They never read reviews on the products, probably never even used it, or heard about it on Oprah or something extremely dumb. So who is really to blame if farmer Bill goes out and buys an AutoCAD program and is clueless?
Don't get me wrong I know tech support isn't the greatest but sheesh to have the comp industry so close to the cable industry in ratings, and the cell... oh my I'm fainting.
MoFscker
Of the estimated 8 million computer users who seek technical support from software manufacturers every year, about a third never get the help they need.
Disclaimer: I am not advocating software piracy.
This is an excellent argument against buying software instead of just pirating it. One of the primary benefits to buying software is the access to technical support. If a user can't even expect to get that for their money, how can these companies expect people to purchase it instead of simply downloading it off P2P?
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." -- Ambrose Bierce
My favorite part:
Thompson said customers need to have realistic expectations. He urged buyers to ask themselves two questions before plunking down cash for software: "What is it that I want this software to do?" and "Am I going to use this software as it's been marketed?"
"Make sure that your expectations are appropriate to what a product is marketing," he said.
So, this guy's in marketing then?
He makes it sound like folks are using the software as a sledgehammer or something, and are then disappointed it didn't break up the stone in their driveway. Is this really that much of a problem? People don't plunk down $400.00 for an office suite without knowing what it is 'supposed' to do. Most folks just want the stuff to work without introducing virii and/or crashing and losing valuable work.
I'm sorry, but if CR thinks they "discovered" this, then I would take anything they report with a grain of salt...
/.
How about, "Consumer Reports 'simply reports that' Tech Support 'still' Sucks"
Which would still be a non-story. This "discovery" is as self-evident as the nose on our face, especially to the sort that haunts
Right?
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
I worked in Tech Support for a while.
I liked it... for a while.
Of course at the time I made the rules. I started at a small company as their first tech support person. Being a full fledged software engineer dealing with highly technical customers on a cutting edge product was good fun.
It involved problem solving, helping people.
Then the volume increased. We added more hands, volume increased etc...
I was fine as long as I had more time than questions. Once the number of questions coming in surpassed the time to deal with the problems then things start to not be pretty. Stress, long hours, un-fun stuff.
If you need any proof that getting developers to test their software according to real world test situations and actually fix bugs they find, look at your tech support requests. Realize that each bug multiplies into hundreds of problems. Not because the bug itself grows, but the number of people encountering it grows.
As systems become more complex, so do their interactions. What works for a startup (e.g. monthly releases) only works while your software is simple, straightforward. Once it gets more than a basic set of features and starts to interact then everything goes up exponentially in the support department.
I'm very glad that I don't do support anymore. I also think that I design better programs now as a result.
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
The article says that about 1/3 of people never get the help they need. Quite frankly, I'm surprised that number isn't much, much higher, but that is beside the point. I think were you to ask the tech tech support handlers , the callers can be diveded into about 3 catagories:
1) Total beginners - the ones who need to be told to click on the start button, then on settings, then on control panel, etc.
2) People who have some experience and can navigate through the settings, but don't want to know the inner workings of their machine. They just want it to work.
3) Saavy people, who know what is going on and can describe the problem completely.
I think groups 1 and 3 are the ones that get the most out of tech support, because the problem is usually obvious for the former and easily diagnosable for the latter. The middle group often end up in over-their-heads with non-trivial problems, and that's when tech support tanks.
In January, I had my longest and most successful tech support call. I was setting up an HP wireless print server (and let me tell you, those things are a BITCH). Long story short, the manual omitted one important detail - changes to the server settings DO NOT take effect until after you power the unit down and repower it. After calmly explaining the problem to the HP handler and trying a few things, (and after he talked to someone else there), he came back with the answer to my problem. So I would just like to say - what you get out of tech support is proportional to the amount of effort you put in.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
'I'm unaware of any company that would shortchange the customer in their speed to get the software to market,'
Yes, They do actually. At the beginning of last year I found myself a 3 month temp job doing tech support for H&R block's tax cut software. In order to get the software out when people want it they release it at the end of the year, but, it can not be used to file taxes until the final update has been installed. The updates work out the bugs and make sure it's 100% accurate Not only this, but the quality of support was poor. I believe I was the only one in the room with even an A+ certification, let alone a degree. If you passed a little test they gave you 2 weeks of training and put you on a phone. The company which provided tech support for H&R Block also does tech support for Dell, or at least they did at the time. Their standards for new hires were so low that durring the two week training an employee actually broke the pins off the CPU while trying to put it back in. Obviously this person never heard of a ZIF socket, yet this is the person who was elected to tell Joe Blow how to do the same thing over the phone after only 2 weeks of training. This combined with the fact that there was no 1-800 number for H&R Block, they wouldn't pay for one, so you got to call us long distance.
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
I have been helping people in many channels for years and in the vast majority of them if you talk like that you are kicked and banned. I have helped people on #debian-kde, #zope, #python and others. That may be an interesting stereotype behavior but in most places it is not tolerated at all. I mostly am on irc.freenode.net
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
From the article:
Carl Zetie, an analyst with Forrester Research, said software companies need to focus on the importance of building up their brands...
I sense that this isn't the solution, it comprises much of the problem. Proprietary SW companies are all about upholding their brand, keeping their marketing mojo moving in the eyes of consumers. People don't know what the game is about, which is getting them to part with their money on a lick and a promise. Only if you screw people badly enough will your name be tarnished, if the SW is reasonably decent.
Always look on the briight side of life! (whistle, whistle)
software to market,' LOL"
ROFL LMAO!!! wtfpwned!~~1 haha noobz i ownz0red joo WTFOMG!!!~~!!!@@!!
And while most (with some exceptions) tech support sucks, most people can't follow simple instructions how to program the time on their VCR. It gets much worst when tech support is not even aware of the problem.
Back in the day (you should be able to determine timeframe soon), I had to call Gateway 2000 tech support to get some information on our spiffy new 386/16. Now, they were pretty good when you finally got them on the phone, but until then one usually had to wait for at least 30 minutes. On one occasion, I ended up having to wait over an hour, which put me in a rather hostile mood. When the support person asked me what my problem was, I asked them to hang on for a second.
I put them on hold, went downstairs, had dinner, watched some TV, and then finally moseyed back up stairs about half an hour later. To my great surprise, they were still sitting there on the line and we got my problem solved.
Now of course I only made the situation worse, wasted other people's time, etc, and that's not something I'd do today after being in a tech support-like position myself and having friends who have had similar tech support roles.
But damn it felt good to do it once, at least.
...
b oards/g en/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=025104
Allow me to introduce you to EA Games. I'm sure you are familiar with the Sims, but let me tell you about this great RTS game: C&C Generals.
Generals was rushed to market in one year, despite using a entirely new engine. The result? Well, it was released in February, and just 2 weeks ago a patch was released that finally made the game work through firewalls. Congratulations. Unfortunately, the have redefined "direct connect" to mean "lan play" so there is no way to "direct connect" over the internet. Meanwhile, every game ends in a disconnect as disconnecting prevents the loser from getting a loss on his record, there are 115+ pending bugs found by users, a map hack has been around for weeks and EA has never even mentioned doing anything about it, and in fact EA has abandoned their own forums and plans to delete all the posts shortly. Oh, and many of the features promissed do net exist, the ladder pack still does not exist (there is no ladder right now and multiple people can use the same username) and many people who preordered to get a special CD not only did not get the CD but got the game later than people like me who bought the game in a store, for less money, with the special CD (which turned out to be their website on a disc).
In other news, an xpac for Generals will be out in a few weeks.
115 bugs:
http://messagebrd.westwood.ea.com/cgi-bin/
The farthest I have ever gotten with tech support is "please hold", so I really wouldn't know how much it actually sucks.
Dang, You're right, but some things always will cause far less incensed frustration then microsoft. I love troubleshooting and solving a problem/enigma, but since 1991 when a MS-SE told me that everyone did FTP and attached files to email and there was no need for anymore 10cpi Courier and pure text email .... ....
I have never again told MS about any problem with their software. Oh, the problem was that when you selected a laser-printer the courier font magically vanished from the font selections and reappeared with selection of a dot.matrix.printer. C&P (proportional fonts) into a pure text email system and it looks like stupid was typing.
MS ain't the only OSD with a HUTA problem, but I ain't paid to tell any of them why their expensive software causes a blue-screen or just locks-up until POPO reset. There have been far to many problems
I hate most OSD products, but I like Linux and PS-GNU stuff more than any personal software products in many years.
OldHawk777
Reality is a self-induced hallucination.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Executive A:OK, this computer will not run longer than a day without crashing, has faulty (insert fav. video card) drivers and is not supported by the manufacturer, and could possibly burn a hole through someones desk.
Executive B:Well, then we will use it as our "value" line, provide the cheapest (insert fav. 3rd world country) support we can find, and tell customers that comlain they should upgrade to the performance model.
Manager A: Well, slap on a rebate and stick a fork in it! Now lets talk next years upgraded model...
Linux: Helping nerds look smarter since the late 90s.
other news, Consumer Report's discovers that Gravity is not only a good idea, but its the law.
-- And yes. I think in. sentence fragments.
Every MMORPG to date has been relased early. Take Planetside for example. The doors hardly worked for the first month after release. Myself and 40 others were stuck in a base for almost 20 minutes several weeks because the doors wouldn't even open.
Course I never blame the developers, those who write the code. Sure it has bugs, all code does. It will eventually get fixed. I blame managment and the bean counters who force the obviously bugged game out the door early.
"customers are used as an army of unpaid testers"
Isn't this the "many eyes" model?
I am not intending a slam, but after some years working as a software tester, I am very aware of the need for structured dedicated testing, which most open source projects don't have. Having devs crawl the code helps, but won't catch all of it - just like proof-reading something you've written, you can catch some obvious things you missed the first time, but you are far better off if you can let someone who is a real editor go over it, too. Open Source means that the bugs will in time get found and fixed, but that still means that bugs are getting found, and usually by folks trying to use the code. Making your end-users into beta testers is not a recipe for good feelings. At least with commercial code they have someone - even a low paid, low forehead tech support chimp - to call and complain to. Even vent. But the OSS answer of "you can fix it yourself" will just piss endusers off. Just 'cuz I'm free to do so, doesn't mean I can, or want to.
How will Open Source handle testing and support as more endusers start putting it on their desktops?
-reemul
You're just jealous 'cuz the voices talk to *me*
It appears the methods of providing support in the free software community are indeed superior to commercial support.
This is way too broad a statement, I hope you realize. It really is going to depend on the program and company providing support/having support provided for in the community.
I remember back in the day, calling Creative Labs (or it could have been Hayes.. can't remember.) tech support about a Sound Blaster problem.
They did end up solving the problem (and I was one of those annoying "Im a geek and an engineering student so I know everything" types too), but what I remember about it was that there was a life DJ spinning the musak (actually it was some electro-techno stuff) and he'd tell you how big the wait queue was and the avg. wait time between songs.
That was pretty cool.
No, reelly I don't!
"CNN just posted an article about how open source software is filled with bugs and downloaders are used as an army of unpaid testers."
Isn't that essentially what the OSS development model is based on?
Given this, game companies have to be a bit more on the ball when it comes to bugs, since reviews along the lines of "this game is buggy" can really hurt sales.
On the console side, Sony, Nintendo and (yes) Microsoft have very strict standards when it comes to bugs in shipping games on their consoles. There is no such oversight in the regular user application world.
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"
He gets this utterly mindblowing response from somebody who has obviously FUBARed the same way, but knows the kernel inside and out. No end helpful, detailed advice.
Boggle.
So he looks back at who this masked man is, and it turns out to be some dude named "Torvalds."
<voice="Paul Hogan">That's not tech support, Mate! This is tech support!</voice>
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
ROTFLMAO {{ fuzzykitty }} ----`-,--@ A ROSE FOR THE LOVLEY fuzzykitty! WATCH THE THORNS!
I don't want to defend this practice - I really don't - but we have to accept that companies are out to make money. And if people (on average) aren't willing to pay more to get better customer service, it won't exist. People say they want better service, but typically their wallets vote otherwise. And I readily admit I fall into this category, although that's only because I have learned to have absolutely no expectation of service at all.
But bottom line, it's exactly like you said: Ain't economics great?. Sucks that such an approach works, but it does. Also blame the idiots that provide free help/tech support on company support forums. You're just enabling them, people.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I think they all think it sucks, because every tech support call center says that the answer to their problems is that they need to reboot their computer. And it works, but no one ever knows why...
"Time is long and life is short, so begin to live while you still can." -EV
The firm I work for (computers/networking/programming/etc etc etc) is doing very well.
Why? Because for *each and every customer* I have, I tell them that the *moment* they have a problem, they are to contact me. They have m,y work number, my pager number, and my home number (for the most important clients)
Why? Because of two things:
(1) (selfish) they become dependant on me, which keeps me in business
and
(2) I solve the problem. No ifs, ands, or buts, or excuses. The problem, no matter how trivial, gets solved.
Case in point: A client bought (not from us) a video card that burned out after 2 weeks. Their first call was to me.
After some bitching to the card maker, I now have a new one in my hands to deliver to my client. The client is happy, their problem is solved, but more importantly, they were never exposed to the nightmare that this article discusses (bad tech support). I took the heat and problems onto myself and shielded my clients from this.
End result they are billed for my time, but the problem was *solved* to everyone's satisfaction.
*That's* how you handle these things. Be the front line for any computer related problem and keep your clients happy and you will always have a job.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
"SOURCES FORMERLY WITHIN HP have told the INQUIRER that its outsourcing plans have cost the company several loyal corporate customers with lost business running into very large figures indeed.
Information provided to the INQUIRER by several hired, fired, re-hired, extended, re-trenched, begged back and eventually fired again sources in HP Australia, claim that the firm's plans to outsource support has cost the firm dear."
Full text here.
No shit sherlock... How much money did consumer reports spend on this brainchild? I wonder whats next for them... Fuel Economy on cars determines your fuel expense
if by boo you mean yeah, boo-yeah!
Maybe all of us less than fully employed could do at home tech support. I mean get an extra line and throw out your number for that line at businesses and people. Just have to figure out the charge system for it. I'm thinking of it just cause I could spend my time at slashdot and still be able to make a penny or two. Maybe that is how unemployed techies make some dough in this soft economy.
I wonder if it would take a grassroots type effort, where in which we unemployed, make some sort of Open Source Corporation or whatnot. I wonder if it has anything to do with the tech support moving to india and the confusion that is caused as the english is different.
I am not trying to flame, being that I am of indian decent. I just think if you are in country A, you'd prefer to have people of country A to communicate to you when asking for technical help. Maybe if this Open source corporation where to work, atleast taking on some contracts, or indicating some sort of success, that these big corporations would finally understand quality of service is a good thing.
Tech support is an important part of the contract that the user and vendor enter into when a product is purchased or leased.
This is one of the areas where vendors are actually making it harder on themselves. All the time we hear the terms "easier to use" being flaunted at us with the latest version of any random product.
While this attracts people who mightn't have tried the piece of software in the first place it has adverse effects on people who may know what they are doing.
I hate to take Windows as an example, but hey, this is slashdot. Microsoft advanced Windows up to W2K. Things were looking up. Then, bam. XP. It might be 10 times easier to use for the complete beginer but have you ever tried to "convince" XP that you want to use a different IP address ?
The point. Well, by giving everyone the impression that an idiot can use the software you straight away set the tone of the ensuing technical support call when they can't figure out how to do X. Years ago, people would have sat back and might have checked through a few things before calling tech support. Instead, its a "Ring tech support" first, try other things later approach.
Software sometimes isn't for idiots, so lets not pretend that it is. And give credit where it is due.
Just my 1/2 cent for the day.
[ Monday is a terrible way to spend one seventh of your life. ]
I work (at the moment) in technical support, and I find that in almost every case I can provide assistance to the user. My major issue is that most of my users are either incapable of actually performing the step by step guide I give them, or are unable to comprehend certain parts of it. Thus they feel they have been shortchanged when in fact they have been given all the help it is possible to provide without getting a scratchy voice.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Cthulhu Saves.
I can accept the idea of paying for tech support if it is a problem between the keyboard and the chair however I think that if the problem is the result of either a bug, undocumented 'feature' or a feature working differently than documented, then the company should bare the cost. In fact, companies could improve their software quality and reputation if they were to provide some sort of reward for the first person to report a bug (assuming they actually proceeded to fix the bug in a timely manner).
How much did you pay for Linux?
If you did pay for linux, why aren't you contacting the company that you bought it from?
Any distro I paid for has had at least some installation support. I never used it, so I don't know if it worth the effort, but it was availalbe to me.
Welcome to the real world. Hate to break it to you, but this is how software is made. Many companies can't afford to test software for lengthy periods of time, and customers expect the product to be ready immediately, so of course they are going to get buggy software. If you are not paying extra for tech support, don't expect it to be good. Want good support? Pay large amounts of money for it.
This is the way things are. Don't like it? Just try to find another source that does a better job. You probably won't.
Its the old saying:
1) Low-cost
2) Quality
3) Fast
Pick 2.
#!/
"Agreed. Tech Support has one of the highest turnover rates of any position in any industry... except maybe toilet cleaners. I worked in phone tech support for an ISP for about 3 years before I took a job that didn't have 1000+ irate people when they couldn't get their e-mail. I learned to enjoy my job by having fun with it. I had fun with it by learning a couple simple rules:"
I was escorted from mine, not just because of irate users, but the BS that managment puts you through. Rock and a hard place, dude.
"2) Don't get stressed out.
It's not YOUR computer that isn't working. It's theirs. Yours is working just fine, right? Besides, what's the worst that can happen? So what if you get fired for telling someone you can't help them. With the high turnover rate of tech support, you'll have another job in a matter of hours"
Yeah, and you'll end up right back in another pressure cooker somewere else. No thank you.
"3) Don't be afraid to yell back if you're having a bad day."
Uh, yeah. Did I mention I got in trouble with my manager, because a customer thought I said something bad on the phone (I said "Oh, jeez!" when she mentioned an item that hadn't shipped?)
Face it. The people who would be good at making that kind of job good, don't want it because of the lousy "boiler-room" environment, and not that great pay for what you put up with. (especially when compared to less stressful jobs out there). Why wreck your health, so some "consumer" can feel good about themselves?
If we could only have all of the software glitches malfunction... then there wouldn't be a problem ;)
Ever since dell has been outsourcing its support to India I have noticed an extreme decline in the qulity of service.
After sending 10 emails back and forth within the span of 12 hours the moron staff kept 're-suggesting' methods, and used templates and just pasted links to knowledge base articles. Basically, I told them my PC wouldnt boot, and then they would suggest that I went in the the control panel.
Anyway... I ended up paying $50 for a long distance phone call to fix it, over the phone the gtuy was very helpful. And he actually listend, I guess it makes a difference when you know that you cant hide behind a computer and a generic email address.
neoxean
Now that they've released the obligatory patch it works, but that just goes to show you how things work.
Besides, I think that the environment out there is too diverse to have 100% foolproof testing. There are too many different system configurations to be sure. So, if it compiles, ship it. Figure out the bugs when people start calling in.
"shortchange the customer in their speed to get the software to market"
:). OS X is a serious consideration now too. Funny, but the *thought* of a Windows server turns my stomach. I've got too many geek friends that are damn fine admins -- and see the crap they go through.
:). Whatever. Personally, I have not.
:)
... [didn't know how to finish it? "hole" or "in the face"?]
I thought Microsoft's motto was more like "GET THE SOFTWARE TO MARKET FAST!" written like it was done by programmers on speed. Sshh, they're not _supposed_ to know that Office has a 80% markup [suckers] and forget shortchanging them. We take bills. BIG BILLS. Many of them. Overcharge all you can, while you can [suckers].
I mean, don't get me wrong. Heck, I first rolled out WFW 3.11 [happily mind you] @ the office and was rather finally forced to the 98se migration (it was either that or NT -- 98 had more apps). Windows 2000 "Professional" was some relief, but surely not much and not worth the cost/hassle/time to do so.
Some equipment died and was mysteriously replaced with some Mac's. Productivity is amazing. I always bought custom built and fairly decent/mainstream hardware -- I've seen how long Dell's last and compared costs to performance, etc. My computers tend to _easily_ last 3-6 years. Sometimes 10 (!). Funny, but the cost of a Mac really is about the same for me (and sometimes CHEAPER)...
Of course the core office servers are Netware, BSD, and of course Linux (FU SCO
Funny, but I *STILL* remember having to pay the Microsoft tax years ago for Linux boxen that are, well, still running Linux. My only option to avoid it was to build my own PC's from the ground up for the company (?) There was a day I couldn't go through 99% of the mom & pop "Microsoft Certified" OEM's, HP, Gateway, who? They made it tough for me and my business.
Funny, but I don't feel that way with the Powerbooks, iMac's, PowerMacs, and my original & favorite test/learning box -- my now brother's Cube [yeah, the cabling on the bottom was a dumb ass idea, but it *works*]. Sure, Apple could screw me -- I realize some felt shortchanged by one of the $129 OS updates (there's ANOTHER one coming...
Nor do I feel shafted by Redhat. Autodesk is pushing it a bit though.
As for the bugs... rotflmao -- after administrating for all the various OS' -- well, Windows, by far, been the most problemactic of the group. Buy American like good 'ol Apple. Bill's got the pie
Consumer Reports: "duh"
Hellohowyoudoing. Burrito will take 2 minutes in the microwave. TWO MINUTES! CANNOT YOU UNDERSTAND TWO MINUTES? TWO FUCKING MINUTES! SorryhowcanIhelpyoutoday.
This comment was randomly generated by a school of piranhas chewing on the PCB of a Microsoft Natural Keyboard.
I've never tried IRC, never had to. Google has found a solution to *EVERY* computer-related problem I have ever had, it's much faster than dealing with any kind of professional tech support, and it's free.
I see that most of the respondents here have not worked Tech Support. Shame. I have. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not (alot like life!).
My experience is that the (L)users is that 75% of the people who complain barely know how to use a computer. They believe the manufacturer's ads, movies and TV shows where the user/hero just starts pounding the keyboard and they can completely decipher the Dead Sea Scrolls in a matter of seconds - and with no computer knowledge! No login/passwords! No encryption!
I had one customer complain that his computer didn't work and that we should take it back. We made the arrangements and when the computer was received back there was a bullet hole in the CPU.
So excuse me if I don't cry any tears for the poor (brain dead) users who complain.
By the way, it is a pure joy to help a user who is willing to work with you instead of against you.
This happens a lot when a geek and non-geek creatures interact through speech. Rarely one of the two gets along with the other. It's just a fact. The geek type can be very annoyed by people who don't pick things quickly when explained to them. They expect the person on the other end of the line to be smart.
I was very disappointed by that article. On the right they listed various tips for dealing with all these problems, but nowhere did they suggest exploring open source alternatives! I mean come on, this has always been the problem with closed source applications. Bugs crop up, well known software makers either a.) don't fix them or b.) demand more of your money to upgrade. Open source developers often respond in a much more timely manner. That journalist didn't do their homework. :(
Will Stokes Album Shaper http://albumshaper.sf.net
"You're adding more complex software, more hardware devices, home-based Internet applications. These things interact and they don't always work together," Blyskal said. "That's going to make this a bigger problem."
Perhaps the problem is that we aren't using Open Standards like we should? Instead we find ourselves using propritary interfaces that are changed at a moment's notice by a single controlling organization who cares little about the impact of said changes, and woe to the consumer who doesn't keep their system up to date with the latest version of Software-X! Unfortunately a lot of these problems are Microsoft's doing because of their co-opting of the few set standards that we do have, and turning them into something that they weren't meant for. And if the giant cannot honor their own dedication to the standards that they claim to be following, how can smaller companies ever hope to create and fairly use open standards for their products? Microsoft is the example, and how they operate in the software world is being used as the standard for every other software vendor.
It is not that the software is overly complex, interfaces between internet apps is complex, or even that adding hardware and mobile devices is complex. It is that the interface is constantly changing because someone has an itch, or is paranoid, or wants to maintain market dominance, and fails to notify their partners, or worse their partners have no way of sending updates to their customers! We are all paying for someone else' short-sightedness.
I haven't lost my mind!
It is backed up on disk...somewhere...
I never had problems with my tech support. Every time I call them, they tell it is a problem with windows and I should just reinstall it. At this point I curse and reboot in Linux. In fact, I changed the phone number in contacts to say 1-800-reinstall-windows. Really cuts down on hold time.
I worked Road Runner tech support for two years. (cue the groans) Unless you got actually cursed out by a tech, chances are whatever they did, it was on orders. Our support boundaries were defined by what we COULD do, not what we couldn't. And we couldn't confirm an outage without it going through about three levels of high mucky-mucks, which could sometimes take more than an hour. So even if we, the techs, knew an entire city was out, we'd still be forced to drag you, the customer, through half an hour of fruitless troubleshooting. (and by forced, I do mean "or else we're risking termination") This was intentional, BTW. If the local engineers could fix the problem before RR officially announced there WAS a problem, no outage went on the record and their service performance looked better. So if a tech is being unreasonably beaurocratic or telling you he's not allowed to do something, he's almost certainly not making it up. Quit arguing with him, ask for his supervisor (POLITELY!), and hope you can complain your way up the chain of command.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
What do you mean they pay minimum wage? No no no! They pay minimum wage to people in foreign countries. They don't pay Americans minimum wage to do tech support. Nor do we pay Americans to develop the product anymore. We just expect Americans to take out loans since they have all ready spent all their money (or are unemployed) so they can buy our product. Okay, so it's not quite like that yet, but we're still pushing hard too outsource more jobs. Someday, we'll find that country where people will work for free. Who cares if the products suck, as long as the execs get their bucks.
There's no test like production!
I must say, I'm in tech support, at least a good percentage of my job, but it's more Service Provider support, as in an ISP. I can imagine this being terribly different than software tech support (see my other comment in this article), but I can imagine my job being much easier. My secret is to treat the customer very decently, as I would a friend or relative, and make them come around to helping you. The unspoken words "I'm not going to fix this, we are" go a long way. A litte encouragement, explaination and nudge in the right direction is usually all it takes. They're only people, after all.
On the other hand, there's some software I wouldn't want to support 100% all the time...
(leaving that part up to your imagination)
FLR
The customers can hardly be regarded as "an army of unpaid testers." I have called technical support for a variety of different companies wishing to report a bug in their product. Do you really think the flunkies answering the phone know or care? Their purpose, obviously, is to get you off the phone as quickly as possible while still keeping you "satisfied." I've talked to a supervisor's supervisor's supervisor, and all he would tell me is "our product has been fully tested...", blah, blah, blah. I guess I am an unpaid tester. But no one gives a shit what I have to say or what bugs I've found.
Computers Reports must have recently begun discovering the joys of using MS Windows.
Water is wet...
Fire is hot...
raretshirts.com - cool vintage t-shirts
AOL kiddie speak on the frontpage? OMG... WTF is /. coming to! I mean, uhh... wait... nevermind.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
Yeah right. "Community support", that's where it's at. Have you been on any support channels?
:)
s20451: I'm having trouble getting my ATI card to work under Linux. Can anyone help?
HellDog69: LOLOL u noob RTFM
31337h4x0r: u r gay
I hate to tell you this, but all of IRC is like that. I'm pretty sure most IRC clients these days come with a "u r gay" button. It's right next to the "A/S/L" button.
Anyway, here's a suggestion for you: try a newsgroup. There are some grownups on the newsgroups, and most of the conversations use English and involve complete sentences. That's a big step up from IRC.
Least news-worthy story ever (see also murderers kill people) film at 11
What about the fact that tech support (call centers anyway) are being exported overseas. I think that could drastically affect how you get service for the following reasons: 1) Language barrier: Let's face it, if they can't understand what you are telling them, you'll end up paying that dorky kid upstreet sooner than if you got someone from Alabama on the phone (also hard to understand but doable at least) 2) Cultural Differnces: Taking a break in the coversations to hork up a loogy isn't common in western cultures but I'm aware of several eastern ones where this is tolerated and even acceptable (not sure about in a work place though...) This is just one example but you get the idea. 3) time Zones: Nuff said, I can't be arsed to help customers in the broad daylight not to mention 4:30 AM. 4) Education/Training: I can't say for sure but I'm guessing that the third world isn't exactly top shelf when it comes to this. 5) Pay: They aren't paying people enough to live well otherwise these jobs would stay in North Am.
I went to battle MC Escher, but drew a blank
for the mere price of $75 per 30 min.
The very first line of the article: "Of the estimated 8 million computer users who seek technical support from software manufacturers every year, about a third never get the help they need, according to a survey in the latest issue of Consumer Reports magazine." Well, the question is, what kind of help do they think they *need* anyway? Do they "need" the Dell support guy making $7/hour to explain to them, in detail, how to make a Powerpoint presentation and use and MP3 of "Wind Beneath My Wings" as the soundtrack? Or do they "need" their local ISP's tech support to troubleshoot their broken printer, because they can't print a web page? You see, there is bad tech support, no doubt. But the real problem is that the VAST majority of users don't know what their problem is. They call the wrong people, ask the wrong questions, and flat-out lie.
not that it really matters--how do you propose that J. Consumer find out what the design of software package X might be?
Nobody needs to have a clue what the design parameters of their toilet or their lightbulbs were; why should they have to care about the software?
Copyright violation: Caused by nearly everyone, one industry sector hurt.
Software bugs: Caused by one industry sector, nearly everyone hurt.
A couple of years ago, I called customer support when I was having trouble getting something set up to start up my internet service. Turned out they did not let the CS people have access to computers. You can guess how well they were able to answer a technical question about a setup problem!
The CNN article is about a survey done by Consumer Reports.
Who the Fsk cares about customers
im to busy reading slashdot you insensitive clod!
The More Knowledge you have the Luckier you Get- J.R. Ewing
I'm unaware of any company that would shortchange the customer in their speed to get the software to market.
And this from a spokesman for the "Software and Information Industry Association," whoever the hell that is.
What the article left out:
djNocturne, spokesman for the Selective Amnesia Prevention Society, was taken aback by such a profoundly silly statement. Ultimately, he questioned the SIIA's decision to hire a spokesman with such a debilitating condition as SAS, or "Selective Amnesia Syndrome."
"I'm not saying that people with acute SAS should be denied the opportunity to make a living. I'm simply saying that some jobs require more information retention than others, and that people suffering from SAS might not be the best candidates for such a position."
The good DJ then proceeded to recount the tale of how Microsoft won the Word Processing war back in era of DOS and Win 3.1. He explained that MS Word eventually defeated WordPerfect---which was a much more advanced product at the time---by constantly pushing out buggy releases which slowly gained market share; not by fixing any identified bugs/problems, resulting in a more stable and usable product, but rather by virtue of adding "slick" new features at the expense of overall quality.
Halfway through this explanation, however, the SIIA spokesman became distracted by a shiny object in the distance and simply wandered away.
/* Pleurez, pleurez, mes yeux, et fondez vous en eau! La moitie de ma vie a mis l'autre au tombeau. - Corneille */
I used to work as customer support for a company that handled some of the support calls for Gateway and from what I have experienced the whole customer support thing was a hit and miss proposition, for both the customers and techs. First off, if you are lucky you will have a tech on the line who has an inkling of what a computer is. The fact is to be a customer support employee you had to pass a multiple guess test and score a 75% or better. After making the cut you are then trained on what the hell a computer is for 2 weeks. After training you are put in front of a phone and start taking calls. I know this sounds bad... actually it is, but surprisingly after a few weeks of taking calls a person becomes proficient with the more common types of problems customers call in with (I would say about 80% of all legitimate calls, they do have a very good database of information on known problems (machine or user errors)). But woe is you who get a noob that thought it would be fun to get a part time job while working on that basket weaving degree. For the other 20% the tech can usually find someone else they work with who is more knowledgeable they can draw from. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to justify customer support, you still have the messed up stuff like having to get rid of callers within 15 minutes, non-resolvable issues where you have to basically lie and make an excuse, and just plain morons who will never figure out why the "cup holder" was never discussed during the training class. The thing is, customer service isn't a one-way street. Customers can also be a problem. Customers first have to realize we are not there to teach them how to use their computer, I mean when you go to the car dealership you don't call them up after you bought the car and ask them how to drive this damn stick. Same applied to us, we have pay numbers we offer to direct you to if you want to learn how to use so-and-so program. Another is a customer who thinks they can tell us how to fix the machine or just wanted us to magically make their computer work while we talked to them. When trouble shooting we usually had certain methods to determine what a problem might be (starting from simple solutions, is the thing plugged in, to where we might asked them to pop open their case or edit some registries). If ppl would just play along we could have solved their problem hrs ago instead of the both parties becoming frustrated with each other. At worst we could have discovered sooner if a replacement part is need or if it would need to be taken in for repair. There is more to both sides of the story, but I'm not in the mood to relive all those memories... thought drunken customers where always fun. I hope this sheds some light on the subject or at least helps someone get back to sleep.
And you know what? the software I support sucks. It's buggy and written basic no less so when a user gets some sort of data error which happens more than any of you would believe they are in the program and can do anything they want with the code. Secondly most of the people I work with are not meant for software support, they could handle working ATTBI/Comcast as teir one with a sheet of answers to questions but anytime they have to trouble shoot an error, their clueless.
If a customer calls that has a problem is curtious anybody who is helping them is going to much more helpfull. Don't start the conversation mad and yelling it just makes for painfull phone call for both sides. I know it's my job to be polite and helpful no matter how mad, angry, disgruntled the customer is but it just doesn't help the situation out.
'I'm unaware of any company that would shortchange the customer in their speed to get the software to market,'
:/
My most recent experience with this would have to be Unreal II. I bought this game as soon as it hit the shelf after drooling over screen shots of it for a year or so. When I got the game home, and installed it, it wasn't even playable. 5-7 fps on a good day. At first I thought that it was my slightly-outdated PC (Athlon XP 1800, 512MB PC2700, GeForce 4 Ti4800SE), but when I consulted the official Unreal II forums, I got sick...
Apparently the problem wasn't just my PC, but a problem in the Unreal II engine that was due to the game being rushed. People with then top of the line P4/Athlon systems with as much as 1.5GB of RAM and the fastest NVidia and ATI card were still getting anywhere from 5-15 fps.
For two months I waited as the developers promised day after day that a patch was going to be released... days quickly became months. 3 months to be exact, with no patch. The cost of the game dropped $10... still no patch. I eventually took it back into Walmart, explaining that the software was faulty, the developers aknowledged it, but weren't doing anything to fix it. They gave me store credit on that account... for $39.99 instead of the $49.99 I paid for it, which was still better than nothing.
Literally, I paid $10 to hold on to a useless CD for 3 months... completely unplayable, all because of a company that was so eager to release a game well before a more popular title, then looming overhead (read: Doom III) that they didn't even thouroughly test it first.
Unaware my pasty white nerd ass.
Just look at the hardware market. Like motherboards and bios-updates.
Even better, try groups.google.com. See if anyone else has already asked the question and see if it's been answered. This avoids the guru having to hear the same question 50 times and it avoids the poor newbie being yelled at for being the unlucky soul to have asked the question the 50th time.
As soon as I realized I was going nowhere with the lady on the other end (she was from India), I told her that I had a degree in CS, I work in IT myself, and that I knew exactly what needed to be replaced. It didn't matter, she kept reading from her script and became even bitchier.
Personally, I bought my Dell over two years ago because their warantees and customer support was supposed to be top-notch, at least at that time. I hate to sound racist, but as soon as all the companies started shipping all their call centers to Bangalore and other places in the middle east, things went to shit quickly.
All I know is that from now on, all computers I'll ever personally work with will be ones I build myself. Dealing with these companies is a total fucking nightmare, and just isn't worth it.
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned for SEGA. ..."
You work for MCI's customer Service department? You better just go home right now, because I'm about to call you to cancel the service that I had cancelled TWICE before SIX MONTHS AGO that magically keeps appearing on my phone bill.
In this particular case, it's not because I bought a crappy service or cheap hardware. It's not because the I didn't understand how a telephone works. It's not because my expactations are too high... It's because MCI keeps billing me for a service I don't need, and didn't ask for.
Now someone tell me again why tech support sucks?
I'm reading this while I was on hold with Quark to find out why the 11 copies of Quark XPress I ordered yesterday to be shipped overnight haven't arrived yet. After ~30 minutes on hold, I finally got a person and found out that they don't know when the boxes will be shipped, but they'll send me an e-mail to let me know.
"Bugger this, I want a better world." - Jenny Sparks
And that is the plain truth. It's often much easier to call tech support than to read the manual, and most of the time these so-called "bugs" are nothing more than some moron who barely knows how to turn the machine on.
I work tech support. I have problems with customers who can't RTFM. They get the software and the first day they think they know everything and that it must be MY fault they don't know what they're doing. I didn't even write this shit!
If you people don't read the fucking manual, how can you know if it doesn't cover what you're doing???? How can you know what you're even asking me??? How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat??????
There is an old marketing saying that a good customer will only tell 3 people about good service. If you however give them bad service they will tell 20. As such its harder to make a good repuation than a bad one
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
I work as tech support in an international call center in Europe (doing support on several cd/dvd-writer brands, keyboards, webcams, etc) and at least I know what is wrong HERE:
Companies outsource the tech support to us, paying us for the number of calls we get, not the total length of the calls. Our management gives us a list of what the average call time for each project should be (Usually 3-7 minutes), encouraging many short calls before a long call, even if the long call can solve the problem. The general attitude within the company is "Get the customer off the phone asap, but if you can give him good advice, fine, do that too."
Of course, there is a fine balance there, because if our client company hears that we treat customers bad, the client will go to another call center.
It's the curse of the "free market". It's not about giving good support, it's about making as much money as possible for the shareholders. (We get paid shit, btw)I use he.net to host, and because they usually take larger customers, I get 24/7 support even paying only $10/month. I call, and BAM! I'm talking to a friendly engineer.
This looks like a good time to point to an oldie, but a goodie!
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
I've had smiliar issues with Comcast before. My solution is rather simple - when I call up, I describe the problem in utter and complete detail in technospeak, and that usually does wonder to get me through to tier 2.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
I work at a company who has lots of money in Microsoft's products. They're pervasive in our infrastructure for better or worse.
/. can imagine, we need to open a LOT of tickets with Microsoft when shit hits the fan and we can't figure out why.
As I'm sure everyone on
It may come as a shock to many, but my dealings with Microsoft's front line technical support has been, even to my surprise, a good one. They make sure and get things going in a timely manner. This may be because their products comprise 90-some% of our infrastructure.
But even my personal dealings with their support were not bad. As you all know, XP pro requires activation. I have a legal license and activated the product. Since then I have rebuilt my system several times and reactivated windows with the same key. Finally, after enough rebuilds and enough hardware configuration changes, windows got upset and told me I couldn't use my key anymore, and to contact microsoft blah blah blah.
I'm thinking, "Great, I purchased this license and they still treat me like a pirate. I'm going to have to jump through all kinds of hoops to prove to these people that I'm not stealing their software." Surprisingly, I had an activated copy of windows within minutes, and didn't have to prove a thing.
Maybe I got lucky, maybe not. But not all support is bad just because consumer reports notices a trend.
Every company I've heard of with poor customer service has an attitude similar to the one reflected in this statement. When people start moving to a "we know what you want better than you do" or a "you need to expect the right things" instead of a "tell us what you want" or "what do you want to make this product better," then the customer is put-off, because you're not catering to the customer's needs. Let's face it, in a capitalist society the customer is always right, and if you don't think so, you'll find your sales lagging.
"The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley..." - ROBERT BURNS
- Be sure to be completely unaware of which version of Windows you're using or if you're even using Windows, it will only annoy the tech supporter.
- Be sure to be completely clueless as to what you're using for e-mail as this is completely unimportant especially when you're having e-mail problems.
- Also be sure not to know how to find your e-mail program so you can spend a half an hour having the tech explain to you how to use the start menu and find outlook express. After all in all likelihood the tech has nothing better to do and all those phones ringing in the background are merely background music and not annoying at all.
- Be sure to tell the tech lots of anecdotal stories that have nothing whatsoever to do with your problem as the tech loves to listen to it and has nothing better to do but listen to you all day (and no supervisors or anyone else pressuring him to take as many calls as possible).
- Be sure and call and ask unrelated questions like "we just got a new computer and when we went to shut it down it just froze and the power button doesn't work what do we do?" as Internet Service Provider tech support is there to answer just such questions (hold the power button down for 5 seconds). Oh and be sure and call back angry at the tech support for "breaking" your computer when all you had to do was hit the button labeled "power" to turn it back on.
- Be sure to call on as crappy a phone and phone line as you can find. And talk as quietly as possible. The techs ya see, they get really annoyed when they can actually hear you and understand what your saying and your problem as opposed to static and your voice coming for a vast far distance.
- Now when calling the ISP be sure and use a crappy cell phone because as with the last remark being able to hear and understand a customer is the least important item on a list of things you need to get help from someone over the phone.
- When you have a problem with the service and/or an issue with the bill be SURE and call at 11:30 at night and YELL and CURSE and SCREAM at the tech support who is paid $7 an hour to sit in a tiny room at 11:30 at night and knows NOTHING of billing policy or anything else about the company. Because, ya see, company's always put the BEST most qualified people on the 11:30pm shift and pay them $7 an hour. Be sure to have a few drink before hand too. That can only help.
- Very important your computer isn't actually on when tech support calls you back of when you call tech support. Also be sure you're in another room and don't leave or anything to be in front of your computer when the tech starts to try and help you.
- Now if you're on Macintosh be sure and call up ask the tech to send you a non-existent copy Internet Explorer 5.5 on CD because your bank will not let you access their web site without IE 5.5. Be sure not to be swayed by minor details like not seeing any IE 5.5 listed at microsoft.com/mac, as the ISP after all is completely responsible for the development of IE and the name "Microsoft Internet Explorer" is completely irrelevant. And when the ISP can't give you this mystical IE 5.5 for Mac on CD be sure to threaten to go to another ISP who can actually help you (that will help).
- When calling up with the error "bad username or password" be sure not to mention you don't actually know the password or you forgot it. This will only make the tech's job harder.
- In fact leave out as many facts as possible. Call from work and using a corporate network? Don't mention it! Still have AOL installed and aren't even dialing the ISP up? Don't mention it! The fewer facts the tech has to work with the better!
I guess I could mention the customers who were absolutely wonderful to work with but what fun would that be?"UNIX is very simple, it just needs a genius to understand its simplicity." -Dennis Ritchie
Software sales generate PROFIT. Tech support does NOT, and it costs money to boot.
Commercial enterprises are around for ONE spacific reason: generate income for their stockholders or investers. Product is strictly secondary. Tech support is not even on the map.
Where is the "Obvious" tag? Oh wait, this isn't Fark.
they understand that that's how you keep customers coming back when they need something new. Pissing-off a customer is no way to entice them to buy more.
"The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley..." - ROBERT BURNS
Just turn off your DSL modem for 30 seconds then turn it back on..
I have been working in the computer field for over 20 years.
The majority of my duties have been to test software.
At least, for my company, testing is a three or four fold. Starts with the programmer, testing each function and then the different sections of code working together, then the over all program.
These are then tested and verified as having been properly programmed and tested by the programmer (or programmers).
Beta testing is then done with some key customers.
Finally, a large number of tests are done to certify the program in all its operations by our quality assurance department.
All the above is done, without exception, on every single program we work on and release.
(We handle specialized CAD software). Delivering what we promise to our customers and the quality of those products are of the utmost importance to our company, and our internal policies reflect that as well.
So, again, it greatly depends on the company you are dealing with. I for one hate running into obvious bugs in other more broadly sold software, it definitely gives me a dim view of that company, its products and its personnel in general. And I let them know this.
I also send acknowledgements to and support companies that provide great products, that are easy to use (design-wise), void of obvious bugs and have good documentation/help systems. Paint Shop Pro, in my opinion, is one of these types of programs.
Regards,
Fredrick
Partly, because this is Slashdot, after all. But I'd say the main point of interest was that CNN and Consumer Reports were reporting this as news. Its almost the samething you said -- this shouldn't be surprising, but aparently it is.
1) Before coming to work, make the idiotic assumption that only highly experienced power users will need help
2) Make fun of the people who call with your coworkers - after all, it isn't that YOUR COMPANIES PRODUCT sucks... it must be that the people calling for help are stupid
3) Laugh as you get the pink slip and someone in India takes your job
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Apathy
"Never upset a goalie, getting hit with a blocker is an unpleasent experience - facemask or not." -Me
Both. If product A charges $X for awful tech support, product B charges $X for good tech support, and product C charges $X-5 for no tech support, the company selling B will go out of business. Margins are already too small in most industries - if you charge more trying to pad your margins without making your product more appealing, it won't sell.
Obviously, the flaw in my argument is that it assumes that actual value ~ perceived value. Of course, if you can convince people you've improved your tech support without actually doing so, good for you! But that's hard to accomplish long term without consumers eventually catching on.
Therefore, one could reasonably conclude that $10 spent on marketing does more than $50 spent on tech support. And if that's so, then the consumer has himself to blame for being a tool.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
That my friend is what most people just don't seem to understand. Less tech support, fewer hardware problems, and a system that just works should logically cost more than a combination of hardware made cheaply and software made with a "get the features out first, worry about the bugs later" mentality.
It's a constant source of amazement to me that more people don't understand this.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I found this quote from the story amazing...
"I'm unaware of any company that would shortchange the customer in their speed to get the software to market," said Jonathan Thompson, vice president of the Washington-based trade group, which has more than 650 members.
Just out of curiosity, I hit google and searched for Jonathan Thompson software washington. I wanted to start an email dialog with him. The first link returned was it (you gotta love google?) It is the SIAA. This is the best part....
In the middle of this page it says:
As a result of aggressive sniffer and collection programs, SIIA is no longer able to list the email addresses of its employees. We apologize for this inconvenience. However, you may contact the individual directly to receive their address.
Apparently they don't want people telling them how ridiculous they sound.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
I work for a software company that provides business management software to collision repair shops (yes, body shops). We are a very small company, with only one programmer (mainly by his choice; he's the owner and a bit of a megalomaniac), myself, another tech, and a secretary.
Body shops pay a lot of money for our software, and often times unwittingly become beta testers. This, however, is not entirely caused by programmers/tech support. We have a partner company that sells our product, and frequently the sales staff sells our software on the basis of what it will do, or could do, in the future. The onus is then placed on us (programming/tech support) to make the sales staff honest people. This leads to hastily written code, insufficient (or no) testing, and premature releases. If the software was sold, and purchased, based on it's functionality AT THE TIME OF PURCHASE, a big part of the problem would disappear, at least in our industry.
Upgrades make money.
As a commercial software developer why would you ever produce a piece of software that is perfect? Once eveyone who wants a copy is happy with the copy they have then you're out of business. Just make the damn thing good enough. Then people will use it and then buy the bug fix upgrades once they've had enough of the bugs. While you're at it put in some extra features with the upgrade but make sure the new stuff has bugs too.
You'll be in business forever.
That implies that problems found by the customers and complained about to product support personnel will be reported to some programming team that will fix them. That seems to rarely be the case. I know of many organizations that have near zero communication between product support and development and many more that even disband the development team when a version of software is complete and come up with another team if and when they decide to do another version.
From a business perspective, especially in the case of small companies set up as a front to milk a single product (there are many examples of this), if people are buying your product and complaining about it, in many cases, you've already won. They bought the product. As long as you sell enough copies to recoup the development costs and your Indian product support service doesn't cost more than what you're pulling in, you're going to walk with a profit that you can use to build the next company. Some companies don't even seem to have to go that far. There are companies that seem to go on forever selling crap that makes Microsoft look mil spec for $10 a copy to uninformed consumers.
So, what incentive does a company have to make software better? If they spend more time and money on it while some crap house builds market share and name recognition, they will lose the marketing game and their investment shirts.
Hell yeah! That's why I buy only American. Because everyone knows that:
* At Ford, "Quality is Job One!", while those cheezy Nissans, Toyotas, and Hondas are always in the shop
* The Linux kernel, started by an effite European, is vastly inferior to the quality server OSes cranked out by innovative Microsoft
* There are no more American TV manufacturers any more, because although they were of tremendously high quality, they were done in by the shoddy workmanship and underhanded tricks of foreign manufacturers.
Protectionism serves nobody. It pampers weak companies, maintains artificially high prices, and keeps less-developed nations from gaining economic self-sufficiency. Protectionism is not patriotic. It's just a fearful reaction to economic change.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
power user will still request better.. never satisfied.. They believe that when they pay for something it should not have bug.. and surely not crash. A Clean Computer with no Hard Drive. Terminal! WebStation?! ;)
and if a pc crash... most of the time it been cause by the user itself!
but it's never their fault... damn Computers!!
haf
Quality has been the victim as companies cut corners to cut costs
Yup. Nothing new here. The problem of how to improve software is the same problem of improving a product or service. The answer: quality. So how do you improve quality? Talk to the Japanese (aka Deming's Way, Lean Thinking and of course Six Sigma). What I find fascinating is how no one has documented the parallels between Lean Thinking/Six Sigma and the Open Source development model.
Open Source works because it's all about doing things "the right way". When you do things properly, costs go down, quality goes up and customers and companies are happier. Now if we can just get rid of more muda in the Linux world...
Ruby on Rails Screencast
Two years ago I had to call Cisco support during off-hours for a question about a Catalyst 4006, a big hulking blade-based high density switch that costs more than most new cars.
I needed to figure out how to do channeling- ie, combine several ports into one virtual port for more bandwidth. The woman I got assigned to had such a thick Indian accent(and horrible English) I couldn't understand a word she said- and worse, she had no idea what I was talking about. It turned out later that Cisco calls this technology one thing, and NetApp(the other end of the connection) calls it another, but she couldn't even recognize what I was describing. It was pathetic.
NetApp had no clue either, and their rep said they had never done QA on their Filers with Cisco gear(!) That said, their support system is MUCH faster to get through to someone, their people are religious about making sure cases are closed properly. There's an emergency option on the tree("if your filer is currently down and unable to serve data, press..."), and you pretty much get the most experienced people within just a few seconds, with little "mother's maiden name, support contract number, serial number, capital of montana" bullshit.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
That's arrogant nonsense drawn from the same well as racism and bigotry.
When I acquire a piece of software that isn't labelled "beta" or "pre-release" I expect it to work, whether or not it is open source or commercial. I'm getting tired of OSS developers who can never manage to get to a 1.00 release. It must be nice to have that kind of cover for your own mistakes.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
...in their speed to get the software to market,' LOL" Actually the quote was from a spokseman from AOL, not LOL. I guess that is the same thing though.
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
Nowhere does it say "commerical" in the article. Not once. It does say "U.S. Software," which would also include non-commercial types (like for instance your favorite disto of Linux, provided you can get tech support for it--because you paid for it.)
Remember, the "help" button ususally doesn't.
I do my research, make my good-faith effort to solve the issue, and then post to the mailing list or newsgroup. Drivers?--I've gotten test code and patches from developers. "Try it; if it works, it's in the next release." Apps? I've gotten many immediate and useful responses from other users, often there are several solutions to my problem.
To be fair, I do pay for this. A little of my time, a little exercise of thought. And it's stuff I like to do! Paid no dollars, though. I get excellent support, the code does what I want it to do. Time to satisfactory solution is rarely more than a day when the problem is my ignorance. Time to satisfactory solution is rarely less than a week when there's actually a problem in drivers or code.
And you can't beat the price.
Commercial tech support? Different story. I bought a MS product once. Windows 98, for my work computer. Paid real money for it, too. Wouldn't install even though the machine was listed as Win98 compliant. MS admitted it should work. "Reformat your HDD" was not a deterrent; I had a spare. I made those fsckers stay on the phone and waste their time while I wasted my time working on that turd. MS spent 12 hours on the phone with me over about a week. They had no clue. They never solved the problem. I sent the machine back to the mfr, they installed Win98, and I ghosted the HDD.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Service contracts are where they make their money, and promises of x-hour response time and qualified technicians are how a majority of the sales are made, and yet still the support often sucks, not enough techs, too many of those undertrained, overworked and undercompensated, and still it goes on- angry customers, long response times, unresolved issues... sad thing is, a lot of custromers come back to us because other companies are even worse.
A lot of people confuse marketing and advertising. Speaking as someone who has worked in a marketing group...
Marketing is the science of analyzing the market and investigating customer needs and desires, in order to produce requirements that can drive product design. On the output side, marketing also take the product and devise a marketing strategy based on the same analysis.
Advertising is the art of persuading people to buy stuff by describing what it will do, how it looks, how it will make people relate to you, how you should perceive the company, and so on.
So marketing is finding out what people want, and trying to frame what you have on offer in terms of what you've found people want. Whereas advertising is the communications process of telling people about your stuff and trying to get them to buy it.
So the original article probably should have said "Am I going to use this software as it has been advertised?"
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Burrito? Two minutes? Was this a personal experience of yours?
"Oh yeah? Well, the quality of the customers isn't very good, either!"
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Tech support sucks. You know why?
Most consumers aren't willing to pay for it.
It costly to the companies.
It doesn't sell.
If I started a company with great tech support I would never be able to compete(unless I found a niche market).
Yes, here is my $250 sound card no better than the other guys $75 sound card but it comes with great tech support. Just not worth to most people.
Now once you get into businesses and expensive hardware/software the support gets much better. You should also expect to at least $1000/year and usually much more than that.
That you proably made some tech support persons day.
Most support houses have a very strict rule of no hanging up on the customers. (And yeah, paid my dues with SBC, AT&T, and a few other smaller ones.) So when you told the person to hang on they did just that. Meanwhile they didn't have to take any other calls during your time off and were free (Hopefully if they wern't in too bad of a call-center.) to surf the web or play some freecell.
By the time you got back and had calmed down they were also well rested as well and I'm sure quite ready to help you with whatever you wanted!
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
y00 r 73h f41l 17
There are exceptions. I pay for AppleCare, because I know that Apple generally does an exceptionally good job of dealing with problems. Stories about of people having their iBook screens die, and having Apple replace the screen and overhaul the entire machine and get it back to them in 48 hours. Hot-plugging a dodgy peripheral fried a Firewire port? They'll swap out the motherboard, no problem. I believe Apple does quite well at selling AppleCare to customers.
:-)
IBM has a similar reputation for ThinkPad customer support, which is why a lot of people won't touch any other PC laptop.
But yeah, most people buy Dell
Also, I only provide free tech support for Linux and Mac problems. If people have problems with Windows, I tell 'em to call Microsoft or the OEM. So at least I try not to enable evil.
I even told my parents I wasn't going to support Windows for them any more. Faced with the option of Windows reliability backed by Microsoft customer support, they're running Linux now.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Then again, there have been times when I've gone the nice route and gotten no reasonable help or explanation, then I think I was justified in turning into giant screaming hellion. It helps to have a friend around to play good cop, bad cop in these situations.
Another fun technique is to have a timer going while you're on hold. I let people know how long I've waited. I let people know how much my institute buys from them. I figure that they can look our account up and do some quick calculations.
I figure it is good for my general well being to be polite, concise, and responsive when dealing with tech support. I do think that there are allowable exceptions.
PS. To everyone in tech support who I've ever talked to, thank you for your help. Especially NEB.
Over my long and illustrious career as a support rep, I've made a few observations. Are they valid for all cases throughout the industry? Perhaps. I make some generalizations which may or may not be accurate:
Back in the OLD days, when I was working for a small startup software company, PRE dotcom, support reps who were talented generally were not programmers, but often you'd run into reps who had a wide skillset, and they were like magic. Some learned out of the position, to become field consultants, or programmers. Some were content to be the Hero - the firefighter. I was one of those.
As my career progressed, I found myself flying to customer sites to troubleshoot issues that could not be easily done remotely. This was great for building long-term relationships with customers, and would garner less adversarial incidents, more cooperation, and enhanced sales. It truly worked like that. But the more time I spent on the road, the less technical I became. Without working directly with the product, and doing more "install and configuration work" instead of troubleshooting, I became dumb. I begged to be put back on the phones. I still travelled for a while though, because it was absolutely a crucial part of the equation of support at that level.
Another thing we did right was, we shared proprietary information with the customer. We were honest and straightforward about bugs, and we fixed them.
As my company matured, and was bought, and sold, and merged, my support team went from 6 people, to over 1000. Corporate politicking meant that the officers tried to reduce the role of the Jack of All Trades type engineer. Everybody had to have a well-defined job. Support reps could not travel. Field reps travelled all the time, billed their time, and worked for the Sales department. Bugs were an embarrassment. Bugfix releases were non existant, we had to bundle bugfixes with paid upgrades. REAL information was to be kept at a minimum. So were numbers of REAL talented support reps. They were phased out or replaced with large numbers of low-paid phone monkeys.
The end result was - customers now would get thier calls answered quickly. But until they finally got to talk to that experienced backline guy, the problem would usually not get resolved. Unless it was one of the very common issues in the knowledgbase (which were the issues that got addressed in the updates) - and those were the issues the customers could have looked up on the web. Field reps, because they spent so little time focussing on any single product, and so little time in the lab, they generally had the same level of expertise that a customer who spent a half hour browsing the manual could get. Often this was the extent of their training anyway!
Then there was the increasing attempt to charge for support in order to make support a profit center, not a cost center. In order to do this, they had to strictly measure performance, and built out this huge infrastructure to do so. The problem is, they had no clue what they were doing. They established quotas for phone reps which all but ensured that the customer would get a bad experience for their money. They built a new call tracking database, which was slow, buggy, and forced users to jump through hoops to record the necessary information. It was designed not to be a tool for techs to track calls and issues, but rather a tool to measure their performance and document their work. It was a liability, not an asset. In the end, though, even if most of use percieved the decline in customer service from our organization, the management managed to produce astounding numbers. I guess they must have attended the Enron school of business process.
I found my job increasingly becoming the focus of customer criticism. They weren't criticising ME, they were criticising the whole process. I was ending up with a huge stack of other people's messes to clean up. I was the one who cleaned up the messes our incompetent field reps made. I was the one who so
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
So you'd rather have the first contact of a user looking for technical support to be an entire paragraph taking up 5-6 lines of chat? Maybe a narrative of everything they tried too, huh?
I'd expect it to be hugely overpriced, given how much all those TV ads cost. And guess what?
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Many times, if I'm having trouble with an application or a piece of hardware, I'll look there before even going to the company's website. Odds are someone has mentioned the problem, and then there's a nice thread of messages that describes all the opinions of what it might be.
I've solved a lot of hardware conflicts this way, because a lot of times the corporate website's "support" answers only the most basic of questions.
"Shared pain is lessened; shared joy is increased. Thus we refute entropy" - Spider Robinson
That has probably said:
"They're just now figuring this out?"
The end goal of all consumer reports is to hold companies hostgage to litigation. Class action settlements makes up the majority of Consumer Reports annual profit.
It's sad to see how a once great publication has devolved into the bitch of plaintiff's attorneys.
If you think software is expensive now, wait until you add settlement damages to the price you pay.
And don't think for a second that lawyers can't find a way to make software companies pay for GPL'd software as well (Oracle,Sun,BEA,IBM,Dell,HP - all use gpl'd software).
I've been on the client side of a lot of tech support calls. On one hand, finding bugs and fixing broken installations is brutal. On the other hand, more often than not, the bug or problem is from some obscure intraction with 3rd party software. A driver or dll mismatch, file locks, access permissions, problems with middleware... the list goes on.
I guess my point is that no computer network is the same. There are literally millions of combinations of programs, files, and settings possible on a single workstation (never mind a network as a whole). We're bound to have problems every once in a while that are next to impossible to troubleshoot. So, yeah, try and take it easy on your tech support agents... there's only so much they can do.
A friend of mine had trouble when he first installed XP. He had that problem where the start menu took a lot longer to show than it should. He contacted MS support and they helped him get it to be better, but still not what it should have been. All this was done with no added cost after buying the OS at the MS store for real cheap.
On the other hand, I don't think much software these days is released without knowing that there will be issues. Back in the day you could have a couple machines and test out your software on them to find the problem spots. However, these days there are so many combinations of software that it would cost a fortune to do this.
I'd say open source projects tend to use the method of releasing and letting the users find the problems a lot more than commercial products. Probably because they don't have the resources to have a group of testers go through it for them.
-]Phreak Out[-
Over the years, I've rarely seen them suggest that there's anything out there other than Microsoft OS's. They've been ignoring Free software for years, yet what could be more in the interest of 'consumers'?
And a lot of their conclusions and recommendations are, in my opinion, little more than their staff members' preferences.
Well I read your story and it touched my heart. :) Anyway to add to this. Some of the things that make the job more difficult is: One not telling the customers about problems we already knew about the equipment (what we sold could injure someone if it malfunctioned). Yeah it's fun dealing with those. (lawyer calls went to the boss). There was the inadequate training (sink or swim). The poor ongoing training (we'd be the last to know about new models that hit the street). The poor training (nonexistant) training on models we use to carry. (documentation? What documentation, or even inadequate (knapkin quality), or incorrect "do you see that?"). An external service force that was rent a electrician (I"m a master electrician") Make-do work like call all the people who for whatever reason forswore us off, and try to resolve the issue that should have been solved first time around. Calling ques jammed from morning to night, and we still had STACKS of "call us back" cards for the morning (guess who came in early, and stayed late?). Throw in the high-turnover and what that did for our "body of knowledge". Add the mis-directed calls (dumping "what do I call my business?", I don't care) It's shear amazement that I lasted over three years (paid a price though). The ONLY upside is that during busy season you could rake in the money, for overtime.
If there's a hell for bad customer? Let it be a never-ending call-center. Thanks for listening.
the sun rises in the East and Pee Wee Herman jacked off in a porn theater and Pam Anderson has big tits.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I've mentioned this before and I'll mention it again
Me, in the mean time is getting a plane ticket out of Dodge, before the shit really hits the fan, and you'll be unable to even do that.
And these are the "Masses" we're trying to get Linux ready for? All I can say is I'm headed for the Hurd, and I'm not looking back. It was fun while it lasted. But nothing last forever when the masses see how greener the grass is on your side.
customers are used as an army of unpaid testers.
Now, this is completely wrong. Customers pay through their noses for the privilege of becoming testers!
One of my friends uses AOL, and while trying to help him with setting up the boradband connection, we needed to call Tech support because there were only a limited number of Boradband Routers AOL would work with... it was a lousy experience. They tried to sell us long distance, and something else and it was pretty funny to me seeing my friend ultimately yell out at them saying, "I called you for something else and you are trying to sell me long distance phone service, which I dont need. Please put me through to tech support." I know, i know... what kind of a friend I am if I let my friends use AOL... but he already signed up for it because it came free for 6 months with his PC.
They just needed to get tech support from me. My support doesn't suck; I'm the tech support MASTER! True, I might've been rude to them if they couldn't grasp computer basics. And I would be writing a perl script, reading slashdot and editing an XMMS playlist while helping them out with their problem. This might make me lose track of what their problem was part of the way through the call, but I would be able to get back on track by grumpily asking them to restate the problem. But at least their experience wouldn't suck...
--- Biffster.org
"Bite my shiny metal ass."
Looks like someone read the article and crafted a response at http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/08/08/confessio ns.tech/index.html
"You can get more with a kind word and a two-by-four than you can get with a kind word."
I don't think you realize it, but you gave that poor soul a 30-minute break. Of course he stayed on the line, the call monitoring software showed him working hard with a customer. Meanwhile he was sitting back and relaxing, pretending to talk to you when the manager walked by.
John Susek
Microsoft Windows has been known to crash occasionally. Film at 11.
Redhat support makes Sun's look good. They are 100% incompetent. Mostly unresponsive, and somewhat illiterate.
Is there anyone who sells GOOD Linux support? Support that's worth paying for, not just to be able to say "it's supported".
Now, he wants broadband, and for a nite, it actually works, but upon reboot the next day, AOL grabs the port, and no DSL today!
Tech support line puts him on hold for a loooonngg time. He gets to hear the music he _was_ going to download, while he waits. Why is he calling "Tech Support"? Why, he's trying to solve this problem while he is at work, and can't actually go back to the store and walk in with the entire boxen in tow. (Now we all know that's why we have tech support phone numbers, and why the caller knows so little, his _machine_ is miles away from his calling location, and his _memory_ of the problem is just as far away, too.)
Our machines are made by the millions in the far corners of the known world, and sold to anyone with the $$, regardless of their "skill level". No wonder Tech Support is "blown out of the water" by all the calls from people "new to computers".
Nice marketing ploy, however, appealing to the wants/desires of Joe Sixpack with "Download and Burn your Own Movies and Songs" technology in todays PC's. (Don't forget the ability to run Everquest, too.)
If the average person wanted to use PC's for educational purposes rather than as a "party (as in get-drunk and dance all nite) machine", then the PC's for sale would be set up differently, I suppose, and perhaps Tech Support would have a better crowd to deal with.
Oh, I know, I have left out "Uncle Fred" and his need to have extremely high-tech machinery to process his e-mail and digital photographs of his grandkids. _He_ doesn't have to call Tech Support from work, because he hasn't been able to work for 7 years, ever since his smoking habit caused his heart disease and lung problems. He's home all day, and can spend _hours_ on the phone with Tech Support, getting filled in on everything electronic that's happened since WWII, when he was stationed on a ship that actually had a superhetrodyne radio receiver. That busy signal that Joe Sixpack gets? Well, it's because Tech Support is tied up with Uncle Fred.
(One day soon, someone at Walmart will have "one-to-many" and put Linux PC's on the shelf at your local country-fried Walmart Store, and Tech Support will go ballistic.)
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10940
SOURCES FORMERLY WITHIN HP have told the INQUIRER that its outsourcing plans have cost the company several loyal corporate customers with lost business running into very large figures indeed.
Information provided to the INQUIRER by several hired, fired, re-hired, extended, re-trenched, begged back and eventually fired again sources in HP Australia, claim that the firm's plans to outsource support has cost the firm dear.
And individuals who were afraid for their jobs no longer have them, meaning that they now feel free to flesh out what's happened in Australia.
In late spring, HP Australia decided that that could save a few Australian dollars by replacing the ex-Compaq staff there with outsourced staff based in India, as we reported here. But, our sources claim, customers started to wonder why service was getting bad.
The Compaq - now HP call centres in Australia were, by all accounts, top notch and the reason for the outsourcing was cost and certainly not poor performance, according to documents seen by the INQUIRER. The closure of the HP centres went well, but, our sources claim, the opening of the Indian call centres didn't go so well.
HP, however has publicly denied that there was any problem with the move, and said as much to this Australian publication. It quotes an Australian HP representative as saying the outsourcing of India is "going exactly to plan".
But it seems that HP has thoroughly antagonised its formerly cooperative workforce. As we reported here, HP appeared to have made an example of the owner of a web site who attempted to keep all HP and ex-HP staff in touch with each other by peremptorily marching him out of company buildings.
Things appear to have gone so swimmingly that a number of HP staff were told that they would be brought back for a few weeks, the length of the contract being dependant on the staff and office. Universally, that length was extended, and extended, and extended.
What has happened, despite the well oiled HP plan, is that even with the bleak job situation currently facing Aussie techs, the staff got fed up with being jerked around like puppets. And, we understand, last week the entire Commercial Warranty second level support team, when generously offered another week or two of work, got so fed up that they walked out together. So it seems that there is some teamwork left at HP after all. With the Indian center not working all that well yet, I wonder what will happen when a large customer with a four hour SLA (service level agreement) calls in to get a Proliant fixed? Most CxOs don't like to be told 'live with it, we have problems ourselves', now do they, but where else is HP going to turn, North America? Maybe not.
Customers
How do the HP customers feel about this? While none of them are talking on the record, disgruntled moles from HP Australia tell the INQUIRER they are not happy at all.
One source claimed that Coles Myer, a large Australian retailer, had a very large contract with HP. A loyal Compaq customer for years, we understand, but cannot confirm at press time, that the contract has been canned.
The reason, we understand, is that Coles Myer was unwilling to deal with an overseas help desk. That might be, we think, a bit of an overreaction, but you would think an HP manager would have called an account like that and chatted every once in a while. Will they save the money from a big contract like this by moving the call centres to India? I kind of doubt it.
Coles Myer also had other grievances, but these were far less subjective than the helpdesk issues, and most boil down to service, or lack thereof. Coles had certain SLAs with HP, basically stating that if something went wrong, it would be fixed in a certain time frame, or certain performance targets would be maintained. If these things did not happen, there would be penalties, usually financial ones. We understand that soon after the the retrenchments, the service levels were mis
I've been saying this since 1995 and it infuriates me that it's just now starting to be said by people with a voice. Time and time again I've been a test monkey for companies and it really annoys the ever living he** out of me.
As far as "I don't know a company....." Then they didn't give a @#$%@#$%# about small businesses. I run a small ISP based out of the bay area CA with national dialup numbers and possibly soon to be national DSL. I don't use any "fancy" software as I'm a minimalist, but my software will STILL go through week, sometimes months worth of testing to make sure of what's what and what could possibly go wrong as well as to have my techs capable of repairing any problem that would be caused by...."other" software.
In short, I'm getting quite SICK of the only people that get "tested" or heard from are the big dogs that DO constantly screw people. My dialup is cheaper, and my DSLs are the same as SBC business class DSL and cheaper (can't compete with SBC/Yahoo crap other than the fact we don't take your PC over with....crap), but yet were do people constantly go? why? because people like consumer reports never even BOTHERS to see if there's small businesses out there that are in the same world....hell if they are even in the same galaxy.
This if ofcourse why I stopped giving a flying @#$%@$#% what consumer reports says.
Bump this baby to a +5. From one tech to another, you deserve it.
But quality mattters.
The Japanese manufacturers care about quality in a big way, their employees actually care about the quality of the products they produce.
If you don't care about what you do, you'll produce unreliable crap.
The same is true about software and subsequent tech support, you can either have cookie cutter one size fits all software and read from a script mcdonalds crap support or you can have real tech support, but you can expect to pay for the quality product.
Deleted
" I don't think you realize it, but you gave that poor soul a 30-minute break. Of course he stayed on the line, the call monitoring software showed him working hard with a customer. Meanwhile he was sitting back and relaxing, pretending to talk to you when the manager walked by."
You are aware that some companies randomly sample (tape) calls? Kind of embarassing to have a 30 min tape of silence.
just ask nixon
Red Hat? SuSE? Mandrake? Are they not companies now?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I was Tier 2 for @Home. You bastards never did your job. You'd just blindly transfer everything to Tier 2 without even bothering to do the piddly shit you were supposed to, making us have to do our jobs and yours. Thanks, asshole.
Help us build a better map!
When I worked tech support, this was my attitude: I don't care if you're the Prime Minister of Norway, you put me on hold for more than 10 seconds, I assume you're deliberately trying to wreck my call times and I hang up. I can move on to the next caller and reduce the hold time if I'm not dealing with morons who think techs are willing to sacrifice call times when that's what their performance is rated on.
Help us build a better map!
Well, the business community still thinks that the
software of the world is made up by celibate
geniuses pulling all-nighters. Managers dont have a
clue unless they're programmers too.
Until the software world is converted to an
ENGINEERING field, with project design ( my
specialty ) as the FIRST thing done ( rather than
the release date and suggested retail price ),
and a rigirous in-house testing phase done with a
re-programming phase LAST
the software of the world will be buggy, just like
everything else that's released onto the public
without proper design and testing
Ignorance is only an excuse the first time. Once.
Linux started as a minux clone, from some US education system. Like any good commie does, it was copied and rendered.
Back in the late '90s the NSA made a very brief foray into firewall evaluation. They took their 'favorite' firewalls at that time (Gauntlet, Sidewinder, and CheckPoint) and tested them. They had planned to test more, but I never heard of others finishing the test cycle.
The interesting part is that they used the vendors' marketing claims as the basis for testing. If the vendor claimed the system did such-and-such, the NSA tested it and included the results in the final, released report.
When the tests were performed, the intention was to release them as soon as both the vendor and the NSA were satisfied that the report accurately portrayed the results of testing and contained no sensitive or proprietary information.
Only two of the reports were ever released: Gauntlet and Sidewinder. They were (briefly) posted on an NSA web site, but then government policies changed regarding the posting of computer security information. I never heard an explanation of why the CheckPoint report wasn't released.
Rick.
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
Oh, um... scratch that last one, ok? Tony Blair has insisted repeatedly that the assertion is true.
Good point. I should have said, "protectionism in the long run does not truly help the American economy or the global economy."
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
See if anyone else has already asked the question and see if it's been answered.
But what if the question has been asked and answered, but it has been worded differently from how a particular user in need of help would word it?
Will I retire or break 10K?