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Ask Slashdot: Dealing With Service Providers When You're an IT Pro?
New submitter username440 writes: So, a lot of us will have been here: You have a problem with your ISP, cable TV, cellphone whatever technology and you need to call the provider. Ugh. Foreign call centers, inane fault-finding flowcharts (yes, I have turned it off and on again) and all the other cruft that you have to wade through to get to someone with the knowledge to determine that YOU in fact also have a degree of knowledge and have a real problem.
Recently I had a problem with my ISP, where the ISP-provided "modem" — it's a router — would lock up at least 3 times per day. I had router logs, many hundreds of Google results for that model and release of hardware showing this as a common problem, and simply wanted the ISP to provide a new router (it's a managed device). I replaced the router with a spare Airport Extreme and the problems disappeared, to be replaced with a warning from the ISP that they could't access my managed device" and the connection is provided contingent to using THIER router. However my point was to prove that their router is at fault.
How do you fare when trying to get through to a service provider that they actually DO know something in the field? How do you cut through the frontline support bull*hit and talk to someone who knows what they are doing? Should there be a codeword for this scenario?
Recently I had a problem with my ISP, where the ISP-provided "modem" — it's a router — would lock up at least 3 times per day. I had router logs, many hundreds of Google results for that model and release of hardware showing this as a common problem, and simply wanted the ISP to provide a new router (it's a managed device). I replaced the router with a spare Airport Extreme and the problems disappeared, to be replaced with a warning from the ISP that they could't access my managed device" and the connection is provided contingent to using THIER router. However my point was to prove that their router is at fault.
How do you fare when trying to get through to a service provider that they actually DO know something in the field? How do you cut through the frontline support bull*hit and talk to someone who knows what they are doing? Should there be a codeword for this scenario?
When they complain about not being able to connect to their managed router suggest that it might be because it is faulty and perhaps they should try sending a replacement device. ðY
"Hi, I'd like to terminate my service."
First level support have a script which their employer tells them to follow. Let them do that or you derail the process.
As funny and nice as this would be, the inevitable leak is precisely why no such thing exists.
If the author is really in tech, they should know why trees exist and it's to keep Tier 1 questions from reaching Tier 2+ support. Programmers shouldn't be doing password resets. DBAs shouldn't be copy/pasting FAQs to users. Engineers shouldn't be telling people to "Turn it off/on" again, and so on. (Of course, if it's a small enough org there may be some "all hands on deck" events which occur that require everyone to field all questions).
The problem with having an auto-escalation path is that it allows problems that never should have escalated to get escalated. Yes, you may have a fairly specific problem that requires a T3 tech, but the T1 doesn't know that, and the majority of [Company]'s customers don't know that either, but every single other customer think's their issue requires a T3 tech. The scripts and the tree exist to keep some order and structure going. Think about it this way - suppose you were a business customer who had a T3 question - do you really want your call being queued up behind someone who insists that Internet Explorer is the only way to get to their email? When I managed a first response desk, we had people calling in for the Sysadmin, Enterprise Manager, DBAs, Senior Devs, pretty much every upper-level employee, insisting that "Only they can solve this". Most of the time it turned out to be basic desktop troubleshooting or password resets or just basic "how to" questions.
This is why a lot of the big businesses have empowered their T1 to basically send replacements without oversight. When I had Comcast briefly last year, I had a modem that seemed to be capping speeds. I waited out the script, and at the end of 20 minutes, there was a new modem sent to me via Next Day.
The problem in the question does not require escalation; It doesn't need a tech higher than T1, and it's not a matter of the T1's not understanding. To me it seems like the author is just impatient; if I were to expand on that, I'd also suggest they think they're better than the T1 and as such deserve better treatment.
What is this "competitor" thing that you speak of?
I have actually worked in support. A phone call is the worst possible medium for resolving a technical issue. Either email or chat is far superior. So the reason you are treated like a moron when you phone in, is because you are a moron. Furthermore, since dealing with morons is unpleasant, only the dregs and newbies work the phone lines, and are quickly promoted to chat/email as soon as they display the least bit of competence. Nearly all companies offer chat as an option, since is both cheaper and more effective. So stop using the phone.
I am an IT professional, and even I make simple mistakes sometimes. There is a reason rubber-duck debugging is a thing. Tier 1 is a rubber duck. Deal with it, you self-important asshole.
Most people younger than me know exactly shit about how their black monoliths (with brightly colored protective cases) actually work.
It's very rare to get a caller who knows what they're talking about - so rare, that it's much more time efficient to ignore every caller's suggestions. Sorry, for the insult. Newbie techs who listen to their callers usually run down the wrong bunny trail and waste a lot of time and money.
From the perspective of a company wishing to save money on tech support, wasting customers time with tier 1 is absolutely the dumbest thing to do. The process should instead be geared towards an overall reduction in tier 1 calls. These calls are a waste of everyones time. First, examine your call center statistics. What are you getting the most calls about. Look hard and long for ways to modify your product to eliminate these calls. If you're company is getting 100 of these calls a week, its worth paying for an entire engineers salary for a year to fix just that one issue in the new designs. Properly done, the number of customer calls to the help desk will decrease over time saving a great deal of money. There are intangible benefits as well, such as increased customer satisfaction (A customer who never has to call the help desk in the first place is going to be far more satisfied than one who calls, no matter how well the help desk deals with the problem). This translates into free advertising in the form of satisfied customer, and a reduction in unsatisfied customers telling people your company is shite.
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
Support: "Hello, this is Ranjit/Deepak/Rakesh/George Washington at tech support. Can I get your name/account number please." Me: "Yes, my account is 12345. Can I get second level support, please?" Support: "Do you have a ticket or reference number?" Me: "No, but I'm a network engineer/software developer/I.T. professional, and I know everything you're going to ask me to try, I've already done. So, rather than waste both your time and mine, it'll be a lot easier if you just put me through to second level." Support: "Ok, I can do that. Hold please."
No audible clicking, then
Support: "Hello, this is Ranjit/Deepak/Rakesh/George Washington at second level tech support. Can I get your name/account number please."
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
There is a technical solution
I have Verizon FiOS. They require their router for video on demand, program guide, etc. My solution -
1. Force release DHCP on their router.
2. Clone MAC on my pfsense box.
3. Reacquire DHCP via pfsense
4. Create a DMZ with a separate interface that hosts their router (without any connection to my internal network, but open access to the internet).
5. Connect the DVR box to their router
Everything works. Everyone is happy. Their router thinks it's doing the routing. The DVR box thinks their router is its bridge to the WAN and lets me use VoD.
Took me a few days to figure it out
Me: "So, if you'd just done as I asked in the first place, we both could have saved a bunch of time here, couldn't we?" Support: "Yes, I guess we could. Next time I'll do that."
So, even the one time it didn't work, the first level support guy was educated that when somebody knows enough to ask for second level, they probably know enough to have done what the first level script says, too.
The problem is that every second caller says the exact same thing, but not all of them actually do know what they are doing. You might be smart, and know the exact problem, but your line of reasoning doesn't account for the other 90% of people who think they're smart, but aren't.
When I worked a service provider helpdesk years ago, this was the number 1 main cause of frustration. People who thought they knew it all but didn't. So you spend much longer on a call because the know-it all wants to skip the basics, even though they usually help isloate the fault.
This is why the 1st level have a script, because there is simply no other reliable way of determining the quality of information from the other end of the phone at this price point.