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Worst Explanation From Tech Support?
Disgruntled-with-Tech-Support asks: "Let's face it: At some point or another, we've had to deal with some form of tech support. Quite often, it's a hit-or-miss experience depending on the level of support required. Occasionally, strange, bizarre, or nonsensical explanations result from the problems reported, such as this one: I had just had DSL installed, only to find it much slower than the 56K line I was looking to get rid of. On calling the provider, I was told (by someone who likely reading off cue cards) to visit one of their internal websites for measuring bandwidth. While there, I observed that they had both bytes per second and bits per second listed, and that the number of bytes/sec != bits/sec * 8, rather a factor around 13 or 14. I pointed this out as a possible problem, and the guy's reasoning: 'Uh, it looks like the bytes are getting through to you ok, but the bits are getting stuck someplace.' What was your worst explanation from tech support?"
As a former tech i've had to make up some pretty lame ones for people who were too dim or uninterested enough to comprehend the real explanation.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
Mine was sometimes the DFU drive or line was down...but that it would be back up soon, it always worked, I tried the I-d-10-t but someone caught it..that was fun explaining that to my boss.
Hacker rule #1: never run out of beer
At issue is the level of training provided.
All this is not to say that don't find the horror stories, from a tech's and customer's point of view, funny. Speaking for myself, half the people I speak to assume I can see their monitor and the other half think you can't open Outlook Express without connecting to the internet, despite the big 'work offline' button in front of them...
I haven't worked tech support, but I've worked at companies that provide tech support. And let me tell you, the worst user is the "advanced" user. Sure, the user may think you know what he's talking about, but in the end it just makes him arrogant and unwilling to listen. Heck, I've been that guy, only to feel completely sheepish when I realized my mistake.
Yes, you know the hard drive has failed. But for each user like you, there are ten users that THINK the hard drive has failed, when it really turned out to be something else. It's much cheaper to make everyone go through basic troubleshooting than to replace everyone's hard drives.
"Mechanics charge upwards of $50 just to take a look at your car to see what's wrong, and this has been standard industry practice for a long period of time."
No they don't. Any Mechanic I've even seen will look at a car for Free and try to tell you what's wrong. If its something which requires hours of diagnosing then yes they will usually charge a fee but its by no means automatic. I've been taking cars to dealers and private mechanics for estimates and second estimateas for years and I've only been charged a few times.
If tech support worked that way they would at least listen to your problem for Free and notify you if a quick fix is available. I'm not against charging for tech support if a problem involved lots of trouble shooting and hand holding on the Software makers part, but they should be making a determination if that's really necessary before they start charging you money or taking your credit card number. Asking for the card up front is just a scare tatic to try to get consumers to not call in. Personally I don't care for the pratice.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
I can't recall the exact events. But back in 98, I had to RMA an Iomega ZIP drive for the IT department. When I gave them a call, I got an automated answer on how to trouble shoot the problem. But, if I wanted to speak with a "live technical support specialist" I had to provide a credit card account first.
WTF!!? The damn thing was under warranty. I'm sure they wouldn't have charged the card. But still, I didn't have access to a corporate card nor would I have used my personal one. After I told my boss (Admin of the department) he agreed with me. From that point one, we took the loss and vowed never to purchase another Iomega product. Fuck em, never again!
Life is not for the lazy.
And yet you always have the option of hitting the back button in your browser instead of submit.
If only this choice was made more often....
I would have asked for the one port hub just to see what they would have sold you...
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
The problem is simple: you have a fixed budget which is universally too little to hire a lot of good people. You have a fixed (or increasing) call volume. So, what to do?
Well, in most places today they construct scripts and then hire peons to read them. They figure that most people will be deterred by this. They spend their nut on a theoretical third level person or people who are going to take care of the insurmountable issues. The rest of the people are there to obstruct the majority of people from the people who actually have a shot at fixing problems.
I've never worked that kind of desk. I actually know what i'm doing and if I don't, I find out fast. I hire people who are either tabula rasa, whom I can turn into something decent, or who have worked in service industries (I don't hire other people's help desk people, in other words). I prefer ex-military people. They are used to being treated like mushrooms and still solving problems. I also like to hire bright young women fresh out of college (or even those who didn't finish). Besides the obvious improvement in the surroundings, they tend to be pretty good at first level support if you give them a solid grounding. They're better at settling customers down in many cases. Then, garnish with one or two talented techs to sit in the middle and start spreading knowledge around. No scripts. Keep a team together for 6 months and everyone pretty much rises to the level of the 2nd level people.
The funny thing is that I can't keep employees very well (heh). They leave me and go make more money elsewhere with the skills they gain. Good money, too. I'm glad to see so many of them succeed. At my current job they have budget, and we've had the same team for 2.5 years. That's an all time record for me.
Even in 1994, imagine being told in NYC to hire 6 techs at salaries between $25k and $35k (preferred under 30). Even getting people to show up for that money in Manhattan is a pain in the ass.
As for problem solving skills, you tend to like those who worked in service industries. I personally worked at an appliance store for my parents from when I was 11 on. Me and my brother used to go out on a truck and fix refrigerators, washers, dryers, etc. It wasn't all that dissimilar to fixing up computers - there was a user interface, and a good portion of the time the problem was that the people were using the interface wrong. Say, not knowing how to use the washer timer or overloading the dryer or letting crap melt in the dishwasher and foul things up, or failing to clean the condenser coil at the bottom of the fridge (this is important). The rest of the time it was hardware issues. The hardware was modular and easily replaceable. Sound familiar?
Good support isn't unattainable. The sucky help desks have thrown in the towel though and basically don't care.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
As someone who has worked in tech support, I have to speak up and say that when I was doing it; 90% of problems, were user problems, and not problems on our side.
And the whole point of troubleshooting is to isolte points to failure- REset the modem, reset your computer, disconnect the router, still not working, next step, try a ping to the internet, try a ping to the server, try a ping to yourself, reset the modem again (just in case you ignored the tech the first time he sugested it, reset the computer again.
That above scenario will solve somewhere around 70% of all network problems, and if you take out the request to reset the modem and computer the second time the rate drops sharply, because peopel have a tendancy to assume that tech support people have no idea what there doing and can safely be ignored. We've been given a script to follow that says to do exactly that, and we get in trouble if we don't do that scenario first; so sit tight, let us establish that it is not your firewall, your computer, or your modem, and then we can get to some real tech support- or hell, do it yourself, first, before you call in, and be sure to say that you did it yourself, first, how you did it when you get connected and save time.
-Millions of Monkeys, Millions of typewriters, 6 hours of sorting through faeces encrusted pages to find: This post
Not necessarily. He may have just assumed the caller was a moron and was either having some fun or trying to get rid of him ASAP.
I always give the correct answer to any question given. Yes, it takes longer, and yes, you pretty much have to explain everything involved, at a really basic level.
Why do I do this?
Because educated users make less work for me than ignorant ones. This is a long term strategy, and I am telling you now that it pays off. Of course, if you are a temp or something, don't bother. Just fix and go.
Even then though, it's kind of fun teaching people who are about as technical as celery about the history of peripheral connectivity, and then getting the impression that they actually picked up something that would be useful to them in the future.
In the 1960's, yes. Now, no, not really- and your linking to a dictionary doesn't prove it. That dictionary definition is decades old.
For over almost 30 years, a byte is 8 bits, a nibble (no, I'm not making that up) is four. A word contains four nibbles or two bytes. Insisting otherwise is anal retentive at best.
Please help metamoderate.
The difference is that the mechanic that's charging you to look at your car isn't the company that made your car. I see a large difference in ethics between these two practices:
1- Charge someone money to diagnose what is faulty with someone ELSE's product.
2- Charge someone money to diagnose what it faulty with your OWN product.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Best Buy is fun-- I needed a crossover ethernet cable, went to Best Buy and asked the sales drone where they were. After finding them I gawked at the $30 price tag for a 10' cable. I said something about how I could get a crimper, cable and do it myself for that price.
His response, "if you know how to use a crimper you shouldn't even be in Best Buy!"
That's why you use "octet" when you want to be precise
Kibibytes as word is a failure. Outside of a few pedagogues on the internet, noone even knows such a term exists. Those familiar with computers are resistant to using new terms. Those unfamiliar consider it all gibberish anyways. And the new term are even more nonsensical as at least kilo and mega are somewhat familiar terms.
Besides which, kilobyte and megabyte and gigabyte is not jargon. It is a computer term. Sorry but your attempt to revise history has failed.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
It's funny because that's how Americans really talk. Bet they didn't teach that line at the VPJ Acadamy of English.
... that's just ugly. George W Bush making up words to better express his point - that's funny. The word 'fucking' is in the language for a reason, both as an adverb and an adjective - and when used correctly adds significant value towards expressing a particular sentiment. I wouldn't use it as a verb in an office setting however, that would be wrong.
... say 'Because you fucking have to.' The caller will relate, will understand the reply, and will probably respect you more for expressing yourself in a manner that doesn't try to hide behind technical jargon - you will be talking their language. No joke.
Customer asks : Why do I have to hit the Start button when I want to turn off the computer?
Not how Americans talk : I am very happily to be helping you with your problems. You see it says right here that for you to be shutting down your computer you must be pressing the Start button and then verily nicely selecting the shut down option. It was my pleasure to be helpingly assisting you.
How an American that didn't personally know the caller would reply : Because you have to.
How an American that knows the caller on a personal basis would answer : Because you fucking have to.
Once someone has mastered a particular instrument in music, they then enhance and personalize the music, make it -their- music, through improvisation. The English language is the same way - develop a mastery of the language and then extend it to better express yourself. A first year English student making up words and pronouncing them wrong, using the wrong tense and timber
To all the overseas Tier I tech support phone professionals : next time you get a call that is so blatantly obvious, something along the lines of 'Why do I have to (do something obvious)?'
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Anyone who has dealt with tech support/customer service at a large company already knows why the "insecure user" doesn't want to hang up: they probably had to navigate through a 10-level automated system and wait on hold for 30 minutes to get support on the phone--and they know if they call back again, they'll have to repeat the explanation/troubleshooting of the problem from square 1.
This is an old argument first heard echoing around the halls of international translation.
A Table in English translates to "(a Table)" in German, but the germans have different cultural associations with the word, and thus the word Table in english in fact conjures up completely different connotations, emotions and sensibilities in the english speaker when compared to the word for the same objeect in germany.
(Not my argument - a paraphrase of classical translation pedogogy)
What we have here is a translation between base 10 for humans and base 2 for bounded arrays.
Most people use arabic notation, but in fact store and think of large numbers in base 10 scientific notation. We are essentially zero-counters when it comes to large numbers.
Computers on the other hand are first binary, and secondly store numbers in multidimentional arrays. They are not zero counters, and do not favor round numbers. Generally computers favor memory blocks which are bounded by n dimensions each of which is a exponent of 2.
All thiis to get back to the main point.
The limitations of translation ensures one will never be able to express computer number comfortable in english - and thus the attempt should be governed by the law of diminishing returns.
AIK
Let's be honest. You can usually tell within the first four sentences spoken - including the greetings and introductions - whether the caller is going to be capable of following instructions and perhaps even useful toward resolving the issue, or will be completely, utterly fucking worthless.
It's amazing how much you can learn just from hearing someone's voice. And I haven't been wrong yet.
+++ATH0