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Customers Treated as Culprits in Support Calls?
ApolloX asks: "I've worked in the software industry for a number of years and I understand how volatile large computer and database systems can be. Most of the time, I'm only called in when something breaks. I know first hand that issues such as a lack of concurrency control, or just a bad database optimization, can lead to corrupted or even lost data. What I don't know is, why most customer support representatives, in the event there is a data error, will treat the customer as if they are liars or are trying to scam them. I can recall many similar support calls to other companies over the years in which the phrase 'our computer system is never wrong' was repeatedly used as justification for an issue the representative knew little about. Since when did computers become so infallible such that the customer is always wrong? Why does it take multiple escalations of support calls before anyone starts believing that maybe the computer made a mistake?"
"On a recent call to a company, let's call it Givo, my account number was accidentally wiped from the system. Throughout the process, I spoke with half a dozen representatives who claimed I had never had their service before and at each step I was 'guilty until proven innocent'. What's worse was that at some moments, even when presented with evidence of my case history in their system, representatives would disregard it because the system told them my account did not exist and had never existed."
The problem, having worked for a time as customer support for an extremely large company, is simply how many people actually DO lie. It is excessively rare (relatively speaking) that a customer, in most fields, has a problem and its not their fault. Think retail: how many people will try to trade in something they broke? Think an ISP: How many people will claim their internet service is down, when they actually screwed up their PCs? By far, far, the majority. From my experience, its pushing 10 to 1.
So unfortunately, unless you want your company to go bankrupt, you can't take what the customer say at face value: they will, and DO abuse it. But at the same time, if you screw over too many innocents, you will go out of business too... so its a matter of finding a balance, unfortunately.
EVERYONE LIES.
People drop their iPods and claim that they 'died'.
People hotplug drives that aren't hotplug and RMA them to Newegg.
People push GPOs to servers, then claim "I didn't change anything" to everyone else.
Combine this with the fact that on the other hand, the customers are frequently more knowledgeable than the front line support, and you're bound to have an antagonistic relationship. How many times have you called about a PC problem, and had to wade through the "ok, lets reboot in Safe Mode" or "please click Start, then Run, then "C M D -dot - E X E".... just to fix a farking bad video card?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I agree 100% that most customer support calls are because of something stupid the customer did, but customer support reps often seem to forget that they are literally there to support the customer. If I have my techie friend fix my computer for free, he can condescend and make me feel stupid all he wants. That sort of attitude is not appropriate in a business relationship. If I'm paying for electronics, software, and in some cases the customer suppport itself, the person on the phone could have the courtesy to at least *pretend* they don't think I'm a drooling moron. There's no reason to use the tone of voice you'd use when speaking to a developmentally challenged toddler. Even if I'm displaying the intelligence of one. I've never really believed that "the customer is always right." But I do think that though we all know the customer is probably wrong, the customer should still feel like you do accept that platitude.
It's not really fair to beat up on tech support, though, as I find all the various customer service industries are getting more and more rude. It seems like everyone is forgetting that it's your privilege that I'm your paying customer, not the other way around. Once upon a time people tried to earn your business, and people who had to interact with the public/customers were trained with some sucecss to be polite and friendly. It's OK if it's insincere, if it's just an act for my benefit. You don't have to mean it when you tell me to have an nice day, but it's unprofessional not to say it.
First, most/many customers don't necessarily lie as much as simply being ignorant of what may be going on. My mother, for example, wouldn't be able to tell you anything more than "when I click on this web page, it doesn't do what it used to do". It's the responsibility of the CSR to ask questions to lead the customer to the point of describing what's going on so that some clue might pop out to identify the problem.
Second, customer *do* lie... particularly when they're embarassed about either what they did to cause the problem or embarassed for not knowing what the problem actually is and having to call someone else to help fix it.
Third, you get some customers who are convinced they are right (they are "experts" in the field already) and their description of the problem will be influenced by their 'conclusion'.
Too often, flowchart junkies don't know shit in my experience. They follow the flow-chart because that's all their training actually covered and they really don't know shit about what you're talking about. I mean, if your stupid ADSL modem has no power light, don't tell me to reboot my computer...
Intelligent, informed tech-support specialists (which I like to think I am) will listen to your basic exposition of information, then ask specific, targeted questions to help them better understand the issue, and then attempt to fix the problem. Good tech support personnel doesn't use flowcharts.
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
Thanks for the generalization. I resent the statement that I lack the "motivation, nor the intellect to conceptualise or actually solve problems"
I work as a tier 1 support person on a scripted help desk. I have 25 years of computer experience- no formal training, but I can build a PC from scratch in my sleep, configure a wireless network with my eyes closed, and recite from memory most of the common scripts we use. We support 40000 users who use some subset of approximately 1200 applications ranging from Microsoft products to custom applications written by our own developers. My colleagues don't all have the same skill set I have, but we were all trained to the same basic standards. I've seen people fail the training and not be able to work in my department- I owe my job to one. Also, we are expected to reach customer satisfaction goals as well as call resolution goals.
For reasons I do not wish to discuss publicly, this job suits me very well. I'm motivated each day to come in, do my job, and when my shift ends, I go home and live my life without worrying about being on call, managing people, or other job related issues.
I get paid very well to spend my day resetting passwords, explaining to people how to archive their email, and creating tickets for printer jams. I deal with secretaries, executives, developers, and sales people, so I encounter end users of all skill levels. I also encounter problems not covered in our knowledgebase (the scripts). In every case, I do my best to resolve my caller's issues, scripted or not. Sometimes I do solve them. If not, I will pass them along to the appropriate Level 2 (or above) support team.
I find that some callers lie, some provide more information than I need, some won't provide any information. In short, they run the gamut of human experience, just like my colleagues do. The best callers are the ones who say "I don't know much about computers", because I can tell them that they don't need to be, they just need to answer my questions and follow the steps I give them. It's up to me to extract the information that I need to solve their problem from the things they say.
The bottom line, for me, is that if they knew the answers to their questions, I would not have a job. I treat each call as unique, and each customer with respect. I can't say the same for my treatment by the callers, but it doesn't bother me, because I do my best.
It's people like the parent poster that I have the hardest time dealing with- arrogance cloaked in superiority leads to more foolish mistakes than the people who call and say "I don't know much about computers", who tend to make more honest mistakes.
Live every day as if it were your last. Someday you'll be right.
Want better support?
Pay an extra $5 a month for your service.
Pay CSRs better to retain them for longer so that they become more and more skilled.
Call centers have massive turnover rates because frankly, the job kind of sucks. Bizarre shifts, sometimes extremely long shifts, and crap pay, depending on where you work. Customer service is something everyone complains about. A little more respect for reps would help a lot. Make it into a worthy career, and maybe people will stick around. Provide break time and ample vacation. Provide benefits. Encourage people to stay in the position for several years and become skilled at whatever it is they are supporting, rather than using the job as a stepping stone to other things. One skilled, experienced rep is probably better than 3 or 4 clueless new hires. In time, these reps should become coaches to new hires. People with generic management skills are *not*, simply by nature of having managed people, qualified to be a team leader in a call center. Handling even the most technical of technical support calls can be 50% psychology. It's not necessarily even that your problem is fixed, but that you leave happy and maintain your service.
But if you want bargain basement prices, that's where they're going to cut corners. It is where they have always cut corners. They're not going to cut the salaries and benefits of the executive officers in the company to save cash; that's for sure.
Don't take your frustration out on the reps. They've been dealing with upset, and sometimes childishly rude customers all day. As reps are bottom on the corporate totem pole, they have little influence over anything. Perhaps they are lucky and have a progressive management that listens to them. Probably not. They are probably underpaid or outright exploited contractors whose performance is based on metrics that have little to do with how happy you actually are, except to the extent that you affect the bottom line in some significant way.
If you get poor service, complain to the top. If a CSR is downright rude, mention them by name. They need to be disciplined or terminated. If you're ticked off about the service, spare the CSR, because it will be easier to fire the CSR than make systemic changes to the way the call center is managed (which may include things like training.)
I assume the Slashdot crowd here uses online "self servicing" before calling. Know that many people don't. Know that many people choose to engage in a 45 minute call (including hold time and navigating VRUs) rather than take 5 minutes to do a search on the website. The hold times you are experiencing may be a result of customers like this (and obviously, yes, if you're talking about an ISP, some people can't get online to use self-servicing, but you'd be surprised how many people are simply lazy).
10% of customers are simply unprofitable due to the havoc they wreak on their own computers, and the number of times they call technical support. Many customers will attempt to disguise problems they themselves caused, as a problem with the service whose tech support line they are calling. For example, a customer downloads malware which screws their system up. They will call and say that "your software" did this to their system and you damn well better help. Or it's Microsoft's problem, or some other piece of software they insist on running is interfering with your product.
Customers expect reps to be experts on every piece of software, OS, and possible configuration. I've seen people call reps "morons" because they don't know how to support FreeBSD or obscure desktop-altering applications on their $7.50 an hour salaries.
Sometimes CSRs are bastards because they've been dealing with childish jerks all day. Some CSRs are incompetent, or ill-tempered and don't belong on a company's front lines, but this is probably the exception rather than the rule. There are many reasons for bad customer service, but most of it has to do with shortcuts take
When I call tech support, 90% of the time it's because something is wrong outside of my control, if it was in my control I would have fixed it already.
Seconded; it's also sometimes the case that it's dead hardware. The problem is when the script reader tries to force an "almost" situation into the flowchart, or when the script writer faces a situation not in the flowchart. ("Not using Windows" is the classic.)
Here's an example that recently unnecessarily pissed me off. The product was not this flash drive from Think Geek, but one similar enough for illustrative purposes; let's call the manufacturer Foonly, since I don't think the actual company deserves their name attached to this anecdote. I bought a drive about six months ago, and it worked fine. Then, it randomly died, despite being carried around quite carefully in its little plastic case. (Less likely to lose than with the keychain hanger.) This sort of thing happens once in a while with flash drives. No big deal, just irritating.
So, I checked out the Foonly.com website, looking for a number for warranty replacement. After poking around in their self-help area (and being led in circles), I found a phone number for Foonly computer hardware support. The phone system there (a) put me on hold for half an hour, (b) finally connected me to someone that said their system had crashed and I should call back the next day, which (c) involved a second half-hour wait and (d) when I did get through, finally had someone tell me I had the wrong department, and that I should call Foonly Computer Media instead. So, I'm not in a good mood already when I reach the right department.
The script reader asks (with a slight tonal accent) if I'm using my Foonly computer (due to the previous call, no doubt) with the drive. I respond I don't own one of theirs. They ask what computer I am using. I cheerfully inform them that I've had the problem with my home Dell WinXP laptop, Shuttle Win2KPro mini-desktop, and LianLi/Gigabyte homebuilt Win2KServer; plus my work OS X.2 desktop, the OS X.4 desktop next to my office, the Win2K3 Supermicro server, Fedora 5 Supermicro x86 server, and Fedora 6 PPC server on the old G4 that was lying about. After a distinct pause from the other end from this list, I politely ask which of these machines the script tech would like to try to repeat the troubleshooting from.
After another pause, they elect (of course) the Windows XP laptop. I boot it up, log in, plug in the device, and get the cheerful "USB device not recognized" message wont to come from something that has fried it's self-identifying chip. There's a pause on the other end, in which I jump to the standard Microsoft Management Console and check the device manager; I mention that it's shown attatched as an "Unknown Device". After some thought (click, click, click), they ask if I've installed any software lately; I inform, just the regular Security patches on the Windows and Linux machines. The script person decides this is a way out, and insists that since my machine has trouble seeing the device, I should order an adapter from yet ANOTHER (toll-free) number. I ask if this is an adapter to change the USB adapter from the funny USB to a standard USB-A-Male connector; I'm told I should order one. I ask what makes her thinks this will fix the Mac problem, which has not had any software installed; I'm told I should order one....
I hang up; I note that the "adapter" information is on the web-based self-help troubleshooting guide, but for if the device is "not detected", as opposed to "not detected correctly". From morbid curiousity, I rustle around my box of SCSI adapters, Syquest drives, Elder Seals and other such, and pull out another company's bare-pin-USB-M to USB-A-M adapter from another manufacturer (which includes the adapter standard with its products). It fits. I test with the three machines at home. No effect; still d
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