Slashdot Mirror
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?
Shibboleet
Just take it in. Speaking for Comcast, I know that I can take any equipment in at any time and get a replacement. Done.
I come here for the love
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."
If the first tier is not working for you, ask for the next level. If that fails, contact corporate customer service with details of your problem and how support has failed you, and what you need to have the problem fixed. I once contacted investors relations with a horrible tail of Microsoft support to Microsoft, and they called me back the next day with orders to fix all problems. Of course the tier 3 that called me was far better, than their outsourced support that tried to sell me pirated Windows key instead of activating a valid machine.
I have learned a long time ago that I must have a well working unrestricted and reliable internet connection. To get that you must pay for a business level account. This will usually mean that you talk to more qualified help desk members and even the engineers. Side benefits include static ips, no caps, Higher service priority, etc.
It costs more, but as an IT pro, I consider it a fact of life.
Currently I have a business level account account that I write off 100%. This is the middle tier that runs around 90 a month for 25 down and 5 up. I then have a second consumer grade line @ 120 down and 10 up ( with restricted ports) @ 75 a month. The access point and family crap is connected to that. I then have the consumer connection set up as a second wan on my pfsense firewall.
Expensive, sure until I deduct the business connection as a business expense. This setup also allows me to test things like vpns,etc. This also means that I can experiment with stuff and do not hear the family complain because Netflix is not working.
First level support have a script which their employer tells them to follow. Let them do that or you derail the process.
You have a serious problem, because you are trying to buck the system. The best solution is to pick an ISP that will listen to you and treat you with respect and intelligence. For most customers, who know very little about networking, that may mean the standard frontline support. But a good ISP will listen, recognize that you know what you are talking about, and talk to you at your level. After all, it's in their interest as well as yours.
Where are you located? I'm in England, and for some years I have used an ISP called fast.co.uk (Dark Group). Things very rarely go wrong - and when they do, it's usually the fault of BT, the wholesale provider. But when the problem lies in my setup or theirs, the tech support people are outstandingly helpful.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
First, play along. Let the rep run down his flowchart sheet. If that fails, disconnect the device, call them and complain that your device can't connect and seems to be broken.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
but clearly you are not a member of the Freetechnicians, a fraternal organization that traces its origins to secret academic groups in the early days of computer science. Only when you acquire the rank of Master Tech can you receive the mystical codeword that reveals your inner self and acquire the truth you seek. If you wish to become a member you must be invited by the Grand Poobah and acquire the necessary degrees to ascend to Master Tech.
May the Random Number Generator Smile Upon You!
Honestly, as a last resort, it's not a bad idea. I have a fair amount of ESD test gear at work, including a bunch of static discharge guns and the like that can be dialed up to some crazy levels. I was once stuck in a situation much as you - they controlled the modem/router and it was crapping out every few hours, and they were the only game in town for non-dialup access (this was 15ish years ago). I'd already replaced it with a spare that did not have the issue, but since it wasn't provisioned, the only place I could go was their internal pages.
I spent probably two hours going through L1 support, L2 support, and then had them tell me that "oh, sometimes the boxes just do that". So I took the box to work, fried the shit out of it, plugged it back in to let it power up and do real damage to itself now that half the fet gates were probably cooked, and then called them back to tell them that the box had finally crapped out and started smoking. They promptly sent me a new one, and told me "must have been lightning or some sort of power surge."
Yup, a power surge indeed.
While nigh impossible to get a good techy on the call support line, sometimes you do. And sometimes they listen.
When working on the 1 meg modem project, some of us had developer units. Internet goes down. Pattern of blinky LEDs on modem indicates that issue is with line card at other end.
Call tech support, ask them to reseat the line card. Get massive confusion on their end, as I've got access to better diagnostics then they do. And I know what their GUI looks like. And which alarm is active on it at the moment. Eventually, it sinks in with them, that they have someone who actually helped build the product they were supporting.
In the end, they did reseat the card, and my backup internet came back up.
At this point, I've given up trying to help with the problem. I've gone through all the research and diagnosis so many times, with no impact on the phone reps, it's beyond frustrating. I've also demanded to go to the next level of support umpteen jillion times and sometimes it works, but nearly every time, the time spent waiting and going through the problem with two levels of reps isn't worth it.
So at this point, I go through the phone charade.. err script... and make up responses ("Steady green light? No... I see a bright orange light flickering randomly!"), which totally puzzles the rep ("I haven't come across something like that before..."), which almost immediately starts the RMA process.
If the different companies had a way of filtering more tech adept customers, I'd be willing to help out (and I have been for a long time now), but if they aren't investing in that option, neither am I.
So your point is that some problems can't be solved. Indeed.
There are many code words... "please", "thank you", "yessir" and the name of the guy on the other end of the phone (take a moment to write it down).
With those jobs, most of our callers have no clue what their talking about - so we won't believe you anyway.. Or the one the killed me was "My son/brother/neighbor's kid is in IT and he says ..." Even if that person really knows what they're doing, by the time it gets to your ears it's usually wrong.
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.
My advice is to let them go through their motions and if it takes a long time - like you're without service for days - ask for some sort of compensation. Otherwise, you'll be bashing your head in and getting angry at the "idiocy". Drop their service if they refuse - customer retention may give you something.
And one last thing, I have been on the other end and thinking I knew better, the tech came out and solved the problem and showed how wrong I was. It was something I would never have thought of and it was so stupid, too. Arrrrrg!
They may be angry at one of the 7 or 8 other customers they are chatting with at the same time as you.
I'm pretty sure I'm not capable of doing their job.
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
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.
We had some guy who set up cacti to monitor his connection and he claimed he went down every evening around 6:00pm. We looked at our monitoring and sure enough every day his modem went off line around 6:00pm. The cable modem right next door to it never went offline. Sure enough on the day we showed up around 6 to look at what the possible problem could be we noticed the cleaning lady had unplugged the whole rack and had plugged in her vacuum cleaner. Then suddenly the 'pro' noticed that his router had a up time of less than twenty four hours. He didn't have any monitoring on that, just traffic. So I would say around 80% of the time when a 'pro' calls us with a problem, its not our problem.
Granted. But if your internet connection ain't working, it's kinda hard to chat/email...the ole "keyboard error, press F1 to continue" problem...
"Your call is very important to us. We have been experiencing unusually high call volumes lately. Your estimated wait time is 2 years, 37 minutes. Please stay on the line." music
As a customer and as an IT manager... I confirm 90% of help desk people do not know anything. And they are often openly hostile as you calling telling them the problem. Go figure. They also have strong instructions not to escalate the problem because there are to many morons out there. So the better strategy is to go through the motions, and describe quite well the symptoms, even exaggerating them if need be. If that solves the problem, it is easier. If you cannot solve the problem this way, an email describing everything in detail would be the next step. As for the ISP making/forcing you to use their own equipment to monitor, well install a bridge on front of it, and use your own. As an example at home I am using bridging home and providing my own setup. Last time I had problems with the cable line, I measured the signal, and knowing it was already out of working spec, I called them and told them the symptoms I knew they would be there. I knew I would have a lot of problems explaining why I knew the signals were out of sync, and furthermore explaining how I was supposed to measure them if the equipment is protected. At the end of the day they just called me in a couple of hours to mention the problem was further up in the distribution side, and they would fix it up without coming to my home.
I'm pretty sure I'm not capable of doing their job.
That gives you something in common with them...
Not everything that can be measured matters; Not everything that matters can be measured.
That error message is no where near as dumb as most think it is.
It exists for a very specific purpose
http://alphahole.net/?p=1011
Enjoy the story!
Telling them it "Smells like smoke", "It's hot enough to burn myself on" or since I used to work printer support "It's leaking ink/grease/something".
Will skip a lot of the BS and get you a replacement asap, since they don't want to deal with the legal fallout of it setting your house on fire (or staining a new couch) while troubleshooting. At one fruit themed computer call center we had a "Red Flag Word List" in which if a customer used any of the words, it got transferred immediately to Tier 2. They were all words like Smoke, fire, melting, sparks, swelling (batteries).
I noticed there is a bit more perceived hostility when dealing with "text chat" support than over the phone.
Depends on if it is a real person. I've tried to use chat support on several occasions with different companies, and each time I've started out writing four or five sentences that outline my problem, what I've done to resolve it, what happened. I've *been* T3 support, after all. Every single time, the descendant of Eliza chatting with me started out asking me to confirm the nature of my problem, and continued asking me one by one the exact questions which I'd already addressed the very first time I hit Send. It is only when they have arrived at wit's end that a human (sometimes) steps in.
You're an asshole. Now, could I have a discussion with someone more intelligent?
I can tell you if you have CenturyLink and you get "call-a-me-Bob" when you call up, ask them to transfer you to the US staff. they do so, and you talk to nice folks in Boise who can shift off the script once they know you have done all the tier-zero stuff already.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Hi, I'm an enraged customer, I'd like to speak to your escalations manager.
It helps to say that in the kindest possible tone, too.
"Escalation manager" is the normal term for someone who talks to "enraged customers". It may or may not be what your ISP uses, but the two phrases in the same sentence tend to get you to the right manager.
--dave
Did escalations for a while at Sun, some of the problems were real fun. Others weren't.
davecb@spamcop.net
http://gethuman.com/ will often give you a decent number to get to an actual human in a lot of organizations. Biased to the US at the moment. The person on the AT&T number has actually asked in puzzlement 'how did you get this number?'. I have no connection with the site, but have had the occasional success with it.
I understand several counties in the State of Imaginationland have such ordinances in effect.
For those of us who live in the actual USofA, there's no such worry.
Make sure you get a receipt! It's no fun getting billed for gear you've returned!
And make sure if you buy your own gear that you get a receipt, both the one for your gear and from the ISP for whatever gear you turn in/don't get. I once had Comcast try to bill me for not returning a modem I had never rented.
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
Take ISP's modem / router, place on top of microwave oven (I *know* you have long cables, if necessary, sitting around somewhere). Fill a very large bowl with water and heat on low for 20 minutes.** Do not touch bowl of water for at least an hour.** Take portable AM radio, tune to a station low on the dial, and place on top of modem / router. Call tech support.
Enjoy the story!
A nice story indeed, but utter bullshit. It has enough snippets sounding vaguely plausible, and similar enough to real facts, but assembled in a way that makes it wrong. To get info about the real deal about the A20 address line, check Wikipedia instead. Interestingly this wikipedia article is also linked from the "nice story" article.
Here's where the "nice story" is wrong:
The real explanation for the strange error message is actually the following: "No keyboard (or broken keyboard) connected to the computer. How could anybody possibly use a computer without a keyboard? Please connect a (working) keyboard to the computer, and Press F1 when done".
It's still stupid, but for a different reason (servers don't need keyboards). That's why modern BIOSes allow you to disable keyboard check, if you want to deliberately run your computer without a keyboard.