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Techs Discover End Users Aren't So Bright
hkypipe writes "In response to a CNN story slamming tech support, a former tech fired back. He correctly points out that much of the trouble end users have with their PCs can be traced to their skillset, which in many if not most cases would make them more qualified to operate an Etch-A-Sketch." Not everyone who calls support is clueless though. How many of us have had to sit on hold for hours and reformat a hard drive as DOS just to convince the tech support lackey on the other end that a hard drive really is bad? The article also covers other factors like scripted support, and per-customer time limits, which can make for a poor tech support experience.
the best advice i can give when calling tech support is not to act/point out/pretend to be smarter than the tech. when you do, it immediately puts them into a defensive mode and they may not want to solve your problem in the easiest fashion.
regardless if you know exactly what the problem is (misconfigured router, etc), telling the tech will not convince him/her to act on your diagnosis. at all.
i remember being able to call Pacbell Internet (SBC) and say, "hey, this router is misconfigured.. what engineer handles that particular router?"
a minute later i would hear... "ya, this is dave, what's up?"
usually after telling him the problem, they would be like, "wow, thanks for pointing out this problem. i'll take care of it right away."
never, ever tell your ISP tech you're running linux. if they run you thru some script to look at your Network Neighborhood settings or whatever, fake it.
i have also discovered that if you're talking with a female tech, talk a little slower and sweeter and they will help you at all costs, or even better, direct you to someone that really knows their stuff.
I have to agree. I find most problems are due to both users who don't know what they're doing, and tech support who doesn't know what their doing. You'll find that if either end is knowlegable and the other end willing to cooperate then problems are usually very easy to resolve.
I recall calling my (at the time) domain hosting place and asking tech support what my SMTP server was supposed to be.
Support: "Um... lets see, if I go if you go into outlook"
Me: I don't use outlook
Support: How can you not use outlook?
Me: uhhh.... [idea] Okay, I'm using outlook, what's my SMTP setting?
Support: maybe it's in this menu. no, maybe this one? you wanted the SPT setting?
Me: nevermind
I just ended up just routing my mail through formail.pl that was laying around on their server until I switched provides 2 days later. But you know, out of the 4 settings you need to configure email - of which SMTP is one, they could at least write that crap down on a post-it note!
If you like tech comedy this site is hilarious. It's got audio and video clips as well as stories.
I worked tech support for a couple of years and you are way off base.
First, let me say there are a lot of lousy techs out there. No excuse.
But given that the tech is on his game, let me address some of the things you've said.
The opening script was "Thank you for calling Dell, my name is Peter, may I have your service tag number please."
This was undersandably confusing. If they didn't know the tag I'd say "It is a five character alpha-numeric code on a white, bar-coded sticker on the back of the computer." I'd often get a 12 digit code from the back of the monitor. Counting is a grade-school skill. If you don't know the difference between 5 and 12 you don't need a computer, you need special ed. Of course it was usually the guy who introduced himself as "Dr. Soandso." So the problem was HE WASN'T LISTENING. Furthermore, a monitor and a computer are two different things. I'd say this is like being confused by tricky technical terms like "hood" and "trunk." I can just see some guy calling GM and responding to questions about the engine (which has been established as being under the "hood" with frustration from the owner: "There's no engine in here, just a tire!"
Once we established the service tag number I would confirm by saying "Okay, that's a XX" (Dimension XPS R450 or something). I would get seriously bent out of shape when the reply was "I don't know." Okay, it is written on the front of the computer. It is on the invoice. It is the thing they bought. It is NOT like knowing about he OS in a car, it is like knowing the model of the car. It's right there on the trunk lid. You bought the thing for Christ's sake.
In terms of the OS itself, it is printed right on the screen every time you hit the start button. For the love of god, help me to help you.
My bigger point, however, is about:
I had NO problem with customers who didn't know squat about their computers. I had a very nice call with a lady whose initial problem was that she wasn't sure which way the floppy went in the drive. Once I told her "Metal rectangle first, metal circle down." she was good. As it happens she got a POST memory error during the call. I talked her through re-seating a DIMM. It resolved the problem. Of course, she didn't know what the hell a DIMM was, but we were both patient and she LISTENED.
She was certainly ignorant, but she was no idiot.
OTOH, I was forever getting calls from guys (as often as not MCSEs) who were trying to re-install NT 4. (I worked in the server group at this point.) It said no disks were found on the system, so they wanted replacements. I would patiently explain that NT said there were no disks if it didn't have a native driver, that this was normal. I'd explain that help re-installing the OS is normally billable after the first 30 days, but since they were concerned about their hardware, and Dell is such a nice company, and I'm personally such a nice guy, I'd help them get the reinstall going.
"No, I want a tech out here with (as often as not 4) new disks."
"As I said, this message is expected on a functioning system. Since nothing out of the ordinary is happening I can't send hardware. But even if I did it wouldn't help. Let me help you make a driver disk, and I'll walk you through up to the partitioning portion of the install."
"No, I need new disks."
This is where the stress came into the job.
I don't think neurosurgeons have to put up with:
"Sir, you have a small tumor in your frontal lobe, we'll have to remove it."
"No, I want you to place a titanium stent in my medulla oblongata. Just do it, damn it. I read a book once and the customer is always right!"
-Peter
Power supplies. Most of them have large capacitors in them to smooth out the power. Those capacitors store power, and they take a few seconds to discharge when you shut off the incoming power. If you turn power back on before that discharge cycle is complete, the sudden change in incoming power combines with the capacitor discharge and the transformers (inductors) in the power supply to create a nasty voltage spike that can burn out components in the power supply and even, in the worst case, in the computer.
You can actually hear the discharge in your monitor or television. After you shut it off, you can hear a slight crackling from the tube for a few seconds. The tube's the capacitor, the coils for the beams are the inductors and the crackling is the charge bleeding off.
> But no matter what you tell them, they refuse to put down their precious script
> and accept that maybe, just maybe, I'm not running windows
In most locations atleast (My city for sure) road runner specifically states they only support Windows and nothing else.
They say you can USE any OS, but they only SUPPORT windows.
If that was the case, it is your fault for calling them.
Its like calling ford to ask a question about your chevy, knowing ford has nothing to do with chevys but assuming because they both are cars that ford can help you.
If you arnt running windows, dont call a technical support line for windows.
Duh!
Noooo siree.
I work technical support for a large ISP that provides high speed access through both DSL and cable services. Do you have ANY idea how many calls I get every day from people whose equipment isn't the problem, the problem is on our end? Very literally, 1 in a THOUSAND of these callers is right. Thus, if you are that 1 customer, you're going to be treated initially as the 999 who are NOT right.
When we go down in an area, most of our call queues light up like it's Christmas, regardless of time of day. If you tell me that internet in suburban Cleveland must be down, and we've got 16 people sitting in available, then you need to get on the floor and unplug your router, because the problem IS on your end, regardless of your education, certification, or self-teaching.
And don't tell me "it worked fine yesterday when I went to bed" or "it was working a few minutes ago". Hardware doesn't mail you Formal Invitation to it's inevitable failure. It's going to go, and it's probably going to go all at once, and just because you can access internal LAN on your router doesn't mean that it's still properly accessing WAN connections.
The worst part of all this is that I could go on all day. Everyone knows what they are doing when they call us. Everything is a problem on our end, and cant POSSIBLY be fixed by reinstalling DUN, registering URLMON.DLL, recreating your connection, reinstalling TCP/IP, netsh'ing your TCP/IP stack, disconnecting your router, disabling antivirus software and hardware/software firewalls, or powercycling your broadband modem. The problem must be on OUR end, and must be affecting every user in the southeastern United States, which is why the four guys next to me are playing Bejeweled and looking bored.
--- I'm going sane in a crazy world.
I had the same issue when installing a linux box as a router. It went something like this:
Tech: Ok now that you have your settings ready, Please reboot windows.
Me: Alright. (pause for 45 seconds)
Me: Ok, its all set.
Tech: Thanks for using our crappy service. Bye.
Its amazing how much time they could save by just trusting users from time to time.
The world is a comedy to those who think and a tragedy to those who feel.
This is the highest single praise I've ever heard given to any OS ever. I'm honored to be using it.
That and can someone PLEASE tell me how to open a unix console without having to pull up the help screen first.
Ummmm.... I have no idea how to open Terminal via the help menu. But
Applications > Utilities > (double-click) Terminal.
Once Terminal is launched either [cntl]-click or clic-and-hold the mouse over the icon in the dock and select Keep in Dock. Now not only are you running Terminal it's stays in your dock forever so you can start it simply by clicking on it from the dock.
What could be easier? Well, you can simply drag the Terminal icon to the dock and it's little icon will lodge itself there. Same with a document. Have a document you open all the time? Drag it to the dock and it'll live there for you as well.
Want more? If you REALLY want access to a document or an application at anytime? Drag it to the toolbar at the top of any Finder window and it will live there. You can access it from any Finder window at any time.
For god's sake, I thought we established you had abandoned god with your choice of OS X. But anyway I've been using Macs for years, but I feel like a complete idiot using X
Okay - I'll be serious here for a second. Buy a book. OS X has packed with features and everyday I use it I like it more. It's wildly customizible and you can set it up any way you want - but you have to have the desire and the willingness to play with it or read a book and find out what you can do. I have friends whose set-ups are completely different then mine. They hide the harddrive(s) and work completely from columned file windows and they love it that way. (The interface of 10.3 is more like this.)
How many people have never even used View > Customize Toolbar in the Finder? Want the Path of a current folder or Get Info or Burn commands in the toolbar? They're there along with hide or text-only display options. Also check out Finder > Preferences for some other cool stuff you can do. Hiding Hard drives as I mentioned before or even change the languages you are using when you searching file contents.
OS X is amazingingly customizable but if you're not the kind of person who is going to find these things by tinkering and trying then think about buying a book and use someone else's work.
I've worked with people at ALL levels of Mac usage and I'm constantly amazed at the number of people who went from 7 to 8 to 9 and NEVER used any of the new features that were added to OS. They don't understand the power of aliases or they don't know that you can type in any window to automatically find the file you're looking for alphabetically. I always get "How'd you do that again?" when I'm just navigating the Finder or something simple. I guess it's a tribute to Apple that their OSes were so consistant that people could use each successive one without ever reading a manual but maybe the time has come to actually spend $20 or so to learn how to fully use the new OS.
=tkk
Bill Gates - Creationist?!?
Here is three facts from my time doing Tech Supp.
:).
1. Most companies have a time limit per customer, which varies between 5 and 20 minutes. Time is money to the company and also aginst other customers who are waiting.
2. Management is generally poor and these are the ones who try to make sure that each agent follows "the script", unfortunately if you know the answer and give it you can actually be penalised for doing so. Not all managers/supervisers are techs!
3. Your mileage will vary. Even within companies you're going to get quite a varience with regards to tech quality. Rule here is that if you're not happy, call back until you are.
Never doing tech support ever again, just too repetitive and boring
AHMEN!
I worked front line support for Microsoft Windows ME. The first 'live' call I had was from an ER doctor that specialized in trauma. The guy was a genius compared to 99.9999% of every tech in every company in the world. I spent 8 hours over 2 days removing the bunged up 98 -> ME install, restoring his 5+ years of medical notes, convention presentation, and 2GB+ Outlook data (that was a mess!).
At the time MS and their outsourced tech flunkies (CONvergys)did not worry much about call time. It was 100% customer satification driven. A marathon call like that would be nonexistant in the current outsourced to India MS call center, I'm sure his hardrive would have been formatted and his data would be lost.
We geeks sometimes forget that some people use computers as tool for their proffesion, rather than FIXING or building said tools as their profession. I'd much rather have an ER Doctor researching life saving techniques than investigating whether or not his hardware and software are compatible with some new toy operating system.
There is NO excuse for the elitest bastard tech attitude that I am seeing in all these posts. God like tech skills mean crap if you can't get along with the caller. If the caller is ignorant on the inner workings of his computer, then you need to have the skills to help them fix their machine. If the caller is a fellow geek, you need to have the skills to extract the data you need in oder to fullfill your documention procedures without making them feel like an idiot.
Sure you can feel all high and mighty when hanging up on guy that dumped butter in his floppy drive to remove a disk, OR you could walk the guy through the process of cleaning the system up, installing a new floppy drive and getting his system fixed, OR assit him in finding a reputable local repair shop in the area to fix it for him.
~Z
I worked 2 years as tech support for Road Runner.
Often it's not that the techs don't want to help; they simply can't. There is a QA dept. that randomly monitors call. Sometimes the QA guy sits right besides you and evaluates your call. If you happen to support an unsupported product, you're in trouble (basically you fail your audit). The techs are doing their best really, but it's management that sets the rules and gets down on you if your stats aren't quite right.
I don't know why I'm responding to such obvious flamebaiting nonsense, but....
There are quite a lot of ways to eject media.
- To open/close the CD tray, there's an eject button on the keyboard
- If your keyboard doesn't have an eject button (an old model or third-party), you can use F12 to open/close the CD tray
- You can install a menu-bar icon for opening/closing the CD tray. The program for this comes with MacOS X
- Some apps (like iTunes) provide thieir own button for opening/closing the CD tray
- You can also select a disk icon and pick "Eject" from the menubar
- You can ctrl-click a disk icon and pick "Eject" from the popup menu
- If you have a multi-button mouse, you can right-click a disk icon and pick "Eject" from the popup menu
Enough possibilities for you?Oh yes, and FWIW, in OS X, the trash icon changes to an eject icon when you're dragging a disk, just to avoid the confusion that some people have with the concept of using a trash-can for eject.