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.

Comments

Re: tl;dr

[ShanghaiBill]

Only the phones get you the full, real time attention of an agent.

The people put on phone support are at the absolute bottom of the hierarchy. They are the least knowledgeable about your problem, and the least empowered to do anything about. Oh, and they also hate you.

Email becomes unbearable if there are more than 1 or two rounds of back and forth.

Except that the email likely contains a cut-and-paste that may solve your problem, or at least a helpful web link. Likewise, with chat, you can send a cut-and-paste of your error message, or a screen shot. That is much more likely to lead to a solution. The people doing chat support have been promoted from the phones, and the people doing email support are higher still. These are the people that can actually solve your problem.

Re:Sucks for the support people too

[Gussington]

So the local management started pushing for higher wages in order to reduce turnover and keep the quality people.

Here is your problem. I worked for a large international call centre once years ago and became "friends" with one of the female trainers. She explained that the business model doesn't expect worker retention. Customer Service has a short burnout time, which they calculated at an average of 18 months to 2 years which got factored that into the business. Their training process could train any monkey with sufficient language skills to do the job, and if they got 2 years out of each employee it was a win.
Why pay people more if you can just as easily replace them? If you have the training and QA process in place, retention is unnecessary.
I know this sucks, but if you are "quality" then customer service should only be a stepping stone onto bigger and better things.

Re: What typically happens

[whoever57]

The problem with that is then you're stuck talking to the offshore guy (I broke a desk phone handset slamming it so hard in frustration once.).

I can understand this. I bought an HP multi-function device which was defective. On its first and any subsequent power-up it gave an error. It took approximately 40 minutes to go through its power up routine and get to the error.

The support made me go this process twice. Once with the first level support and again with the second level. The second level support did not ask me to do anything different. I wasted 40 minutes of my life because the second level support apparently did not communicate with (or perhaps did not believe) the first level support.

My level of frustration at the end of this was very high.