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"

Comments

and.. not only..

[joeldg]

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.

$59.5 billion!

[BrynM]

" A 2002 study funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology estimated software errors cost the U.S. economy about $59.5 billion a year."

And politicians are worried about entertainment piracy hurting the economy. Maybe there are more important things to fix than catering to the entertainment industry...

Based on my own experiences

[jlechem]

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.

Re:Based on my own experiences

[Matrix272]

It's not a lax hiring process either. They just have an incredibly high turnover. Either people don't come to work, come in late, or just hate their job so VERY much that they leave, they lose people FAST.

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:

1) Let the customer vent.
When someone calls tech support, they've either already tried to fix it and failed (and are then upset at their failure), or haven't yet tried to fix it and are upset because it isn't working in the first place. In both cases, just let the person sit on the phone and scream at you until they run out of breath. When they stop to think about some more curses they can scream, you can calmly say "Sir/Maam, I have a couple ideas that might fix your problem..."

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.

Follow those two guidelines, and tech support won't seem that bad. Oh, and I almost forgot...
3) Don't be afraid to yell back if you're having a bad day.
If someone yells that you can go to hell on the same day your girlfriend left you, your house burnt down, your bank closed your account and siezed your assets, and the FBI is hunting for you, don't be afraid to yell "Well slap my ass and call me Shirley you dumb shit. I thought the whole time I was trying to help YOU. Maybe I should just shove your computer up my ass, think that would fix it, you ignorant fuck." That always puts them in their place.

Why does tech support suck?

[ihummel]

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".

Whose fault?

[siskbc]

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?

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.

Re:And the point is?

[4of12]

Sure, there's forums and there's newsgroups, and of course there's mailing lists...but none of them *have* to help you resolve your problem.

The fact that, in practice, such tenuous support turns out to look pretty darn in good in comparison with the existing commercial software support ought to give commercial providers some pause.

Either improve your support, or make it easier for the open forums to provide even better support for your product.

Reward your internal experts for trolling the usenet groups, for offering advice, making FAQs, fixing bugs, writing documentation, tutorials, quick start guides, searchable answers on web databases, etc.

Re:I'd go even further

[killmenow]

3) Saavy people, who know what is going on and can describe the problem completely.

Let me just say, I fit into this category. My experience with tech support is that I know *more* than the person on the other end of the phone.

I don't call for support on easy problems. If I am up against something so gruesome that it requires a call to tech support, it will not be answered by Level I techs. I generally need to talk to the programmers who actually developed the software, the engineers who actually designed the hardware, or at the very least someone in a third or fourth level of escalation position.

What drives me nuts is calling support and being FORCED through the F-ing script before they'll escalate.

A prime example: we recently had a T1 outage. I call support. They want me to reboot the router. I tell the person to STFU and escalate me to someone who knows WTF they're talking about because the CARD IN THE SMARTJACK IS DEAD. I can reboot the router until Microsoft GPLs Windows and the circuit will not come back...yet they insist on leading me through the script.

I hung up and called my sales rep. Nine times out of ten, that gets me the support I need.