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Techs Discover End Users Aren't So Bright

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the jury-still-out-on-tech-manager dept.

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.

2 of 650 comments (clear)

  1. Glass houses by Sanity · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The number of times it has been clear that the person providing me tech support has no real understanding of what they are doing is amazing. They make me follow steps that are totally unnecessary, and that I have told them are unnecessary. Often, the only way to make any progress is to get bumped up to second level support, or even third level.

    Before tech support people rant about the lack of knowledge of their users, remember that it isn't the user's job to be an expert in use of the software or hardware - but it is their job, and it is one they often fail at.

  2. forced to treat the user like two short planks. by trs998 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    i'm a tech, and I have to treat the customers as dumb, otherwise I find us getting out of synch, or assume the customer knows what an icon is or something.
    The problem being if you treat a user as intelligent, they'll catch you out by not bothering to tell you about something i would regard as blindingly obvious.

    For example:
    I was talking to a user who was trying to set up one of our mail accounts. When i tried to talk him through outlook expres setup, he irately pointed out that he'd be and engineer for 5 years and knew what he was doing. He tried to tell me that there was a problem with his mail account, despite the fact that I logged int it fine.
    It turns out he'd broken his DNS somehow, and my standard debug procedure, had he acted like a dumb user would have been far faster....
    can you send mail? no?
    can you see our web page? no? your problem.

    wahey, a early post!