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Why Tech Support Is (Purposely) Unbearable
HughPickens.com writes: Getting caught in a tech support loop -- waiting on hold, interacting with automated systems, talking to people reading from unhelpful scripts and then finding yourself on hold yet again -- is a peculiar kind of aggravation that mental health experts say can provoke rage in even the most mild-mannered person. Now Kate Murphy writes at the NYT that just as you suspected, companies are aware of the torture they are putting you through as 92 percent of customer service managers say their agents could be more effective and 74 percent say their company procedures prevented agents from providing satisfactory experiences. "Don't think companies haven't studied how far they can take things in providing the minimal level of service," says Justin Robbins, who was once a tech support agent himself and now oversees research and editorial at ICMI. "Some organizations have even monetized it by intentionally engineering it so you have to wait an hour at least to speak to someone in support, and while you are on hold, you're hearing messages like, 'If you'd like premium support, call this number and for a fee, we will get to you immediately.'" Mental health experts say there are ways to get better tech support or maybe just make it more bearable. First, do whatever it takes to control your temper. Take a deep breath. Count to 10. Losing your stack at a consumer support agent is not going to get your problem resolved any faster and being negative in your dealings with others can quickly paint you as a complainer no one wants to work with. Don't bother demanding to speak to a supervisor, either. You're just going to get transferred to another agent who has been alerted ahead of time that you have come unhinged. To get better service by phone, dial the prompt designated for "sales" or "to place an order," which almost always gets you an onshore agent, while tech support is usually offshore with the associated language difficulties. Finally customer support experts recommended using social media, like tweeting or sending a Facebook message, to contact a company instead of calling. You are likely to get a quicker response, not only because fewer people try that channel but also because your use of social media shows that you know how to vent your frustration to a wider audience if your needs are not met.
companies would rather you used cheaper online resources or online chat instead because anyone who calls support costs them money.
The outsourced tech support engineer is too busy trying to close tickets on you to issues they can't solve.
Frustrated customer tries to get them reopened.
Support engineer goes back to their boss and say "Hey, my KPIs in dealing with tickets is fantastic!", and the boss pats him on the head and says "Good job! You're doing a better job than local tech support staff... and cheaper too!"
Meanwhile, the customer is getting damn angry - but the boss isn't able to hear about it because tickets are getting closed, so his higher ups are happy with that.
Sure, there might be a customer survey after the call - but typically after having enough time wasted on the call that went nowhere, nobody is in the mood to fill these out. Angry responses are explained away as the customer was being unreasonable, etc.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Open source can be just as insanely irritating. There's nothing like getting some great open source daemon up and running, except for one niggling thing, spending a couple of hours searching the web and three or four mailman forums dedicated to the topic, trying out five or six things, three of which don't work, and three of which create configuration errors because you're either a version behind or a version too far. Finally, in frustration, you subscribe to the mailing list only to learn that you've subscribed to the developer list, where you're promptly told by the Gods of that particular Olympus to stop bothering them with configuration issues. So you go back, find the user list, subscribe to that, where you post a message, get no response, go look at the archives, find that there's a flame war going on about the usability of this project to some other similar project. So you post a second time, and this time someone responds, "Why are you using version 0.9.3.51a, that was just such a totally bogus version that a previous contributor, SnogRag52 before he forked the project, pushed through a bunch of untested revisions, so download 0.9.3.52b, you idiot!"
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
So you go back, find the user list, subscribe to that, where you post a message, get no response ...
You are doing it wrong. Subscribe twice, using two different emails. Ask the question with one account, and then use the other account to reply with an answer that is contemptuous, insulting, and completely wrong. Then the knowledgeable users will fall over themselves trying to correct the presumptuous idiot, answering your question in the process.
Seriously folks - Unicode gets yer panties in a bunch? That's about at the bottom of the list of things one should give a flying fig about. And if you do, consider yourself living a blessed life. Right around making certain you eat enough kale.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I don't deal with this kind of shit any more. If I buy a product or service that doesn't work as advertised, I call up American Express (or Visa, but Amex is much better), dispute the charges, and pay $0 for the hardware or service. Sometimes the company tries to fix it and sometimes not. It really doesn't matter to me.
Most recently, I got a Cisco router that was a flaky piece of shit that only occasionally worked. Newegg wouldn't take it back. Cisco, of course, is impossible to get a hold of, so I call Amex, and get my money back. I'm not going to waste my time with "tech support" for a product that doesn't work as advertised.
I don't respond to AC's.