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Tech Support - To Phone or Not To Phone?
flyingember asks: "With years of experience with tech support I have yet to come to a conclusion as to which form of support to use. Phone, or not phone. For some companies their online chat is great, I used it often with HP since you were much more likely to get through fast during a peak time of the day and the support was high quality. I recently used Philip's online chat to ask about a product feature (or lack of) and they demanded a name, zip and phone number, then claimed the product wasn't supported through chat and that I had to call when I refused to give this. I've had mixed luck with phone support. From half-hour hold times and little knowledge with some companies to well-staffed techs such as with installing a DSL account or getting the Internet on my phone. I have used email chat with some companies, and it does the job as well as email does allowing lots of detail but has lag sometimes. Which do you think is better, support over the phone or support another way?"
If you would like support by phone, press 1.
If you would not like support by phone, press 2.
While you wait for someone to tell you to reboot your computer, please hold and listen to some muzak.
On which one you can get access to the shortest amount of time. If you don't have net access or can't get to a place with it, you won't be able to get much useful help from a chat room. If you CAN get online and get help in a chat room, that would seem to be an easier and faster than meddling around waiting for phone support.
Which do you think is better, support over the phone or support another way?
Definitely "another way".
However, I'm not telling you what other way I would choose. You'll have to submit a new Ask Slashdot to find the answer.
Some places, chat will be better; some places, phone will be better. It all depends on where the company puts its resources and its best people.
In general, bear in mind that phone support is more expensive; many companies will be trying to move away from phone support and towards chat/email support. It's easier for a single support person to handle multiple concurrent incidents that way, plus you can outsource without worrying about accents and so on. You also don't have to make sure your support people have decent phone voices.
Also, phone support costs more money. You have to get the call center hardware and software in, you need a bunch of phone lines, and so on. Chat support is relatively inexpensive, infrastructure-wise.
So I'd expect that as time goes by, chat support will be better. It's just more cost-effective and it makes sense for a company to focus on the cheaper, more efficient method of supporting people. Right now, though? It still depends on the company.
is in fact answered by the person asking the question: it depends. Sometimes you better phone, sometimes you better mail.
I sometimes think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability. -- Oscar Wilde
RTFM
I think it is all about the company. If it is a large sized company, where youll spend more time listening to Elevator music waiting to talk to some half wit reading out of a book, then you are wasting your time on the phone. But I have always preffered phone, something about talking to the person real time is better in my opinion. Who knows, to each his own.
Support by google.
... what? What do you mean you can't accept my mail?"
The last thing you need when crap gets broke is some phone jockey talking you through the elementary steps you tried 3 hours before.
"Yes I restarted the service."
"I can mail you the apache config
"Monday? It's 6pm on a Thursday!"
Sure lots of companies have great service contracts that will have people on site quickly, but whose company pays for that kind of support? Certainly not too many in today's cost concious environment.
Or worse yet, the boss chooses an expensive support option at the cost of an experienced admin who would have never let the thing break to begin with.
You can find most of the fixes to common problems on a usenet usegroup or one of the tons of mailing lists in about half the time it takes you to wait for someone on the phone. Sure it's not perfect, but if all else fails you can always fall back on the phone support if need be.
Tech support question #1: Have you called the right company?
:)
Tech support question #2: Have they called the right department?
Tech support question #3: Is it plugged in?
Tech support question #4: Are you SURE?
Tech support question #5: Is it turned on?
Tech support question #6: Are you SURE?
(educate user about having to turn on the monitor separately from the CPU box)
Tech support question #7: Have they rebooted?
(educate caller about what 'reboot' means & instruct user to call back after machine has rebooted)
Average Call Time: 1.4 minutes = Tech Support Rep of the Month again, booya!
Laughing when one of Jerry Pournelle's lackeys calls for help AGAIN = priceless.
("No, sir, being one of "Jerry's kids" doesn't get you a special tech support number to call." Ugh.)
That was for "Internet in a Box," you punk kids. Back when we had to piece together our uuencoded porn bits by HAND before we could decode them! BY HAND!!!
By the way, after several other phone calls for other issues that ended with supervisors actually swearing at me or hanging up on me, I decided Gateway as a company really sucks and it must be their company culture that drives everyone to be so generally bitter and evil. I had much better experiences with Dell.
Here's the thing: unless you are doing something such as groundbreaking research, almost every problem or incident has happened before and has been logged somewhere on the internet. It's actually hard for some people to accept that they are just a drone in society, doing the same thing over and over and think they have unique problems.
I personally always search google, and then go to google groups for more obscure dilemmas. Tech support has always been a last option to me and i've really only used it a few times in my life, although I use google almost daily to deduce my problems.
If you're at work (tech support for work software), you almost certainly have both broadband/network internet and a phone, or dial-up and another landline (PBX) or a cell.
/.) or dial-up and a cell or a second line.
... do both. Send an email with your question, call tech support, and get "in line" for online chat support. Be sure, if you get an emailed reply, that you mention that email and its code #, ref. #, whatever they call it, when/if you get connected via chat or phone.
If you're at home, you probably have broadband (given that this is
So
This way, you get connected ASAP, *and* if one type of support is unsatisfactory, you've already done all or part of the waiting for the next type of support - or if you just happen to get connected with a moron, again, you're already halfway through the queue.
this is slashdot, we use open source software, what is this "support" you speak of? Is that like editing the code?
Poster, it seems in asking your question that you've already considered the pros and cons of all of the options and answered it for yourself.
With each company, try to call first. It you wait for more than 5 minutes or get an incompetent tech, hang up and try chat/email/web forms.
If you try online support, you'll eventually get told to call phone support. They'll tell you to ghost your drive with the vendor's original CD, which has like WinME on it or something.
My solution: when I know a part is broken and I need a warranty replacement, I call them up. I tell them I've already tried ghosting the drive; I suspect most of them know this is a lie but they aren't paid to care. If a part is misbehaving but not enough so that they'll send out a replacement promptly, I just lie and tell them it's outright broken.
Lesson I recently learned from Dell... their e-mail tech support is a lot less hassle than the phone version. Both are still mostly based overseas, judging from the names on the e-mails, but the techs that handle the e-mail support seem to be a bit more knowledgeable than their phone counterparts. Of course, for all I know, it's the same people.
Anecdotal evidence, sure, but it's worked on personal and work laptops about 8-9 times in the past month or two so far... Use the PremierSupport website, click the link on the left navbar called "Request Support," explain in normal terms what the problem is and the standard procedure you used to diagnose it, and you'll get a response back, generally within a couple hours, saying which parts will be replaced and to expect a technician to call you about the best time to come and fix it. As long as you use the usual magic words: "problem follows part", you escape 99% of the useless scripted "reboot and call us back" diagnosis.
One time when I said "Battery will not hold a charge" in somewhat vague terms, it wasn't a part replacement right away but they e-mailed back with a full and nicely detailed procedure of things to check, some of which I hadn't thought of.
Of course, most of this probably wouldn't work for the usual clueless user, but for us geeks here who know what we're doing, it'll save a lot of time.
[Yes, I am aware Premier Support is for the business/edu/govt customers, but they replaced most of the internals and the screen hinges on my personal Inspiron 4100 without a problem. Last time I checked, it didn't check any personal info when you registered.]
Which do you think is better, support over the phone or support another way?
Another way: Google.
Seriously, since Google, I haven't needed to call tech support numbers. Whatever problem I'm having generally falls into one of two categories: other people have had that problem, solved it and posted the solution to the web somewhere, or no one has ever had that problem, and in that case tech support is useless.
The only value of tech support is to the product vendor, who can then advertise that they have tech support.
Hell, I look things up on Google before I crack the manual. Google is faster, I can narrow down the search to exactly what I'm looking for, and I often come across a cool and informative website on the topic at hand.
Plus, using Google requires that you think about how to describe the problem, which can often solve it before you even need to follow a link. Tech support is kind of like "natural language" programming nonsense. Programming isn't hard because the language is hard, programming is hard because you have to specify your desires precisely. You do that without realizing it as you refine your search; the search process is educational.
Five percent of one year's DoD budget puts us on Mars.
I research every tiny freaking little thing before I buy it. This nit-picking includes cat5 cables and different types of USB cables, and especially includes software. The result? I haven't had to contact customer support for a computer part/peripheral in five or six years.
This probably doesn't help if you're in IT for a huge company where you're pretty much given the hardware and said, "Here, make this work," but it's better than nothing. For what it's worth, if I do have any problems with features, incompatibilities or whatever, I find that the most valuable place to look is in the company's user support forums. There might be a ton of people saying that this particular laptop has dead pixels, or that a certain function in a piece of software doesn't work with a certain sound card, etc. etc. Real people with real problems is better than tech support any day. YMMV.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
What would be really cool is if there was a good way of profiling users to see their technical competancy. Perhaps by a few simple questions or commands like "Okay pull up a command prompt", or "what Bios version do you have?", stuff like that. The times I've had to contact support I already know the problem, have tried the typical solutions (ie dropping it in another box, trying newer drivers, etc...) and just need a new unit. Not to jump through the typical hoops "yes it's plugged in". Of course the problem with this is the semi-knowlegable people that *think* they've tried everything but are really overlooking something simple.
So I dunno, any ideas on how to do said profiling? The only thing I've really noticed from the tech support I've done is that the semi-knowlegable people are typically assholes on the phone, whereas everyone else is generally calm.
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
It's probably trial and error. It depends on the individual company. Take ISPs for example. I could never get through to Earthlink on the phone, but I had decent luck with chat. My current ISP, however, is excellent in all areas of support. Email questions answered (not auto-replied) within an hour, a real person the phone immediately who was friendly AND knowledgable. They don't have chat support, but if they did, I'm sure it would be good
*slight crashing sound*
Exactly. It depends.
There is, however, a hint of a better question in flyingember's post when he talks about how he's got good response out of HP's online chat. What I'd like to hear from slashdotters is what type of response you get from specific companies in different mediums.
e.g. when you contact eBay through their webforms/email, they first respond with a form letter that doesn't answer your question and then you reply explaining why it doesn't answer your question and then on the second (or third) response, you get the answer to your question. When you use their chat service, you get good answers quickly, but the people manning the chat service are outsourcers and can only provide information on how to use eBay in general -- they can't answer specific questions about your account or anything that's gone wrong, etc.
<sig>Guvf vf abg n frperg zrffntr
Well, if the user says "I'm using Linux ..." - no, seriously, it doesn't mean they're a hacker, or even knowledgeable. But it does mean that they're more likely to:
-know vaguely what their skill level is
-be honest about their skill level
-be interested in learning, and understanding of the difficulty of troubleshooting - as opposed to, "make it work, dumbass!"
With the few tech support disasters I've had to deal with, by phone usually has worked best -- but there are tricks to getting it to work, like making sure you take notes of who you talk to so you can reach them again. With some companies there's a decided change in quality of tech support depending on the time of day. (Strangely enough for me, it worked out that calling from 2am-4am has netted the best tech support.)
I strong concur with the recommendation to Google first. I've also found that email tech support pretty much sucks -- I've had an email request to download updated firmware for a 3Com wireless router that's on week 3 of waiting for approval at the moment, and all too many similar experiences.
Like it or not, self-help (google, mailing lists) is pretty much the way to go these days.
I had the exact opposite experience with Dell. I had a problem with my CPU overheating. I contacted Dell email support with a very detailed letter of what I had tried and the results I had. Every response felt like a canned answer. I couldn't figure out if I was writing to a human or an auto-reply. We concluded that I needed to send my machine in for repair and that someone would contact me with the info. Several days later, no contact. I then called in to a tech who was very helpful, he saw no prior information about my email support. He arranged my pickup and I had the shipping box within a day.
I should also note that Dell's India support is horrible. You know when you're on it and it's like wadding through mud. The overall phone system has a lot to be desired. Sometimes I have been asked for the same information multiple times in a row.
They ended up shipping my laptop to the wrong location and it returned better but not solved.
After a few calls where I'd barely finished giving my phone number before they said "Oh yes, Port Saint Lucie, we're having a few problems there", I decided not to bother reconfiguring my entire DSL set up to use my Mac. That happened to be the one day ther wasn't a general problem, and I had to pretend, to the person I was talking to, that I had just had a temporary reconfiguration problem and went through the entire "configure a standard Mac to use DSL" thing.
I'm never doing that again. It's kind of embarassing. Earthlink are not as bad as the ISPs who insist you *must* use a supported configuration to connect, but they're still liable to get fairly pissy if you don't use a supported configuration and call for help before checking it works with the supported config.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
the less people that call me, the better! Actually I like email for a few issues. It's great even if a company has different people replying because you (and they should) have a good record of what has been said, and when they start to not understand, you can just copy and paste what was said/done earlier. Calling is more for quick questions, product replacements, or when your current and only internet connection isn't working.
I think they select the helpdesk people from a special pool of low IQ in-duh-viduals or these people really don't care if the problem gets solved or not because they are not paid on that basis.
Typically, if I can't solve a problem, I'm 99% sure a helpdesk moron can't solve it as well. OSS community support tends to be better but occassionally you hit the typical asshole. Expert-information sharing boards tend to be excellent in providing high-level support.
In many cases when you are communicating expert-2-expert level, the only thing you need is a lead, an idea, not a bloody "can you re-install your OS?" question.
If you are not an expert, you are stuck, good luck. If you are, probably you already have a strong idea about helpdesks.
And never do it. If we all actually read the manual, they might become respected as sources of information (which they once were) rather than welcomings to a product.
Seriously, if you want real troubleshooting, start with your brain, the manual, and google. You will probably end up back with just your brain and maybe the manual. Maybe a fellow geek too.
Good documentation is the best kind of tech support - the information is distributed to those who need it. And who says the manual is the only form of distributed support? A website with updates to the manual in electronic format, a forum, and some good FAQ's and tutorials can handle loads of support 24/7 at the customer's speed.
If companies actually sought to educate their customers with information rather than brands, product lines, buzzwords, and marketing hype, their products could reach their potential. There is no easier and fundamental step to educating users desiring to solve an issue than good documentation. This is especially true with technical, computer-oriented things. When I get a product, I want raw information in a format I can read and browse fairly quickly. And details. Hide them in the back so people feel safe if you must, but put them somewhere.
In fact, bad documentation may actually promote sub-par tech support. If the majority of questions are basic and could have been put in the first page of the manual, why waste any money on someone with a clue? Why even train the staff you have? Why not use scripts if they resolve the most common and simplest questions? From an MBA's standpoint, if the majority of callers ask the same basic questions, there is no reason to alter the very poor and all to common tech support model of scripting, basic or no training, and possibly even outsourcing.
Tech support often fails because information is unnaturally scarce. Chat, phone, and email.
A techinician will answer your call. Please try our internet service at www.service.mog.
PLEASE HOLD
PLEASE HOLD
PLEASE HOLD
PLEASE HOLD
PLEASE HOLD
I just have to tell this, rather eberassing, story.
Once I needed to know what hardware was supported by an old 486 compaq computer. So I found this online support chat on their site and spent the better part of an hour trying to explain what information I needed. After a while the answers became very repetetive and I realized, I was chatting with an expert sytem, an AI...
I must admit that keeping me fooled for an hour was a feat, but they could have saved me the embarrasment by actually telling me the truth. The whole site was set up to make me believe I was chatting to a real person, called Laura or something...
Most of my experience has shown the amount of good tech support given is in direct relationship to either a) how much I'm paying for it, or b) how easy it is for me to drop their product and go to a competitor in the marketplace.
In other words, if you have them by the wallet, you have their attention. Most tech support organizations are ultimately motivated by the company's success/failure (i.e. when the company is struggling and they're working lots of long hours with no reward for it, or times are good and they're fully staffed and the company is paying well), and will go up and down in quality along with those waves.
Cisco seems to take overall customer satisfaction with tech support pretty seriously and ask the customer after the ticket is closed how happy they are with the answer. I assume they also base internal compensation and maybe even reviews on this data, because they're consistently very good for such a large organization scattered across the globe. But again, getting a Cisco front-line guy to ESCALATE anything if it's not a Network Down Level-1 ticket is virtually impossible, or if you don't have a high-$ support contract with them.
+++OK ATH
If you can't find the problem on-line. Use the phone.
With HP, they have a WEALTH of online informaiton PLUS user forums organized by product. I found solutions to numerous Compaq/HP issues from the User Foums and never had to consult support professionals.
Another example is Roxio. Many moons ago, I had purchased Easy CD Creator 5 to use on my XP system. At the time, XP had just been released to the masses. I had so many issues with the installation it drove me nuts. I consulted Roxio technical support and couldn't find anyone there that was smarter than a brick.
I then went to the User Support Forums and found someone who had step by step instructions on how to correctly install this product on XP.
Microsoft has public news groups that have experts assisting with issues for just about every issue imaginable.
Exhaust the On-line options first. Chances are you'll never have to call support pros.
Dolemite
_______________
Save the World! Use a Quote!
As far as I am concerned, the best way to deal with a computer problem is chat combined with a message board (for log files, or in case the people in chat don't have a clue). This assumes the problem hasn't escalated to the point that the PC can't get online.
My message board helps hundreds of people remove advertising parasites every day. They post, someone strolls by and answers the question, and generally the problem is cleared up pretty quickly. If they want help immediately, they can come into the chatroom and point us at their message board thread and we'll take care of it then and there.
Everyone at my site is a volunteer. It would be easy for a company already paying to provide tech support to pay employees to do the exact same thing we do.
I can't imagine trying to tell people over the phone how to fix a problem. I'd sooner have them install RealVNC on their box and let me log in to do it myself (something I've done a couple times).
Only on
I am a senior support person for BEA Weblogic products. We can take cases over the web, phone and (to some degree) via email.
:-) )
:-)
In my experience, it is better open/create the cases with email/web, send all your information and then (if the problem is urgent) call. That way everything is in writing for future analysis by the support person, senior support person (on escalation) and/or supervisor on review. You can also guarantee that the important keywords are not misheard/misentered.
The phone conversation is good when there are multiple angles of the problem to discuss or when you are working with a senior support person and he/she still not understanding what your exact problem is. Just remember, while you are talking to them, their research capacity is diminished. (e.g. 2 parallel threads of research for your case instead of 4
Of course, we are trained to make the best choice for the customer ourselves and use the best communication method. Still, you are the only one who knows whether we understand you.