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Cat Forum / Cat Anecdotes / February 2008Tech Support (OT)
Just need to vent a little. I bought a Compaq (HP) Presario notebook PC on Wednesday from Best Buy. Since I'm used to a MS Natural (split) keyboard I bought one of those, too. (Trying to type on a cramped notebook keyboard drives me nuts!) Okay, the box the keyboard came in said Windows Vista is a supported opsys. The instructions said install the keyboard software first. First I had to d/l an update for this model keyboard from the MS website. Then I tried to run the installation and got a message that it's only compatible with XP s/p 4. I called HP tech support. After navigating my way through the voice-recognition menu system I finally got to a person... in India, of course. Without so much as the pretense of trying to help me he said, "Oh well, it won't work so you'll have to return the keyboard to the store." Gee, thanks so much for nothing. I called Best Buy. The man said, "Why don't you try turning off the computer, plug in the keyboard, boot it up and see if it finds it?" Now why didn't I think of that?! LOL Windows detected the keyboard, did it's thing and the keyboard works perfectly. I have no earthly idea what these huge corporations think they are doing (other than saving themselves a bundle) by outsourcing tech resources to countries like India and the Phillipines. I have only on very rare occasions gotten anyone in a tech support capacity who had the slightest clue what they were doing (or even what I was talking about). The corporations are not only short-changing their customers, they're also putting a lot of very qualified people out of work. It ticks me off in a big way. Jill > Just need to vent a little. I bought a Compaq (HP) Presario notebook > PC on Wednesday from Best Buy. Since I'm used to a MS Natural (split) [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > > Jill It is kind of a thankless trade, tek support. Difficult in the best situation. Cripple it with low bandwidth voice connnections, thick accents and poorly trained call handlers and you might be better off shotting your customers. At least they would be out of their misery. I no longer directly manage the help desk where I am employed but I keep my hand in it a little. It can be very frustrating trying to get answerers to treat people correctly. So many people who are good with computers just don't get the "pain" of the user. They need a good dose of empathy to do tek support well. /speech Andy >> Just need to vent a little. I bought a Compaq (HP) Presario notebook >> PC on Wednesday from Best Buy. Since I'm used to a MS Natural (split) [quoted text clipped - 32 lines] > accents and poorly trained call handlers and you might be better off > shotting your customers. At least they would be out of their misery. I'm well aware of what a (usually) thankless job it is. I did phone tech support for 15 years (11 at my last job). Even when I wasn't officially a tech support analyst I was always the "go to" person in the office. So I certainly know what the job entails. This dude didn't even put me on hold and *pretend* he was checking into anything! > I no longer directly manage the help desk where I am employed but I keep > my hand in it a little. It can be very frustrating trying to get > answerers to treat people correctly. So many people who are good with > computers just don't get the "pain" of the user. They need a good dose > of empathy to do tek support well. Yep. I'm a techie kind of person. But as a PC user from way back in the day when they only had two 5-1/4 floppy drives (hell, I remember using 8 inch floppies on one system and when I took programming courses in college it was done on punch cards!) I know how frustrating it is for the end user when something doesn't work. I am skilled at gauging the level of knowledge of the caller with a few simple questions so I'd know just how much to "dumb down" my answers if need be. I also knew when not to insult the callers' intelligence by treating them as if they were dumb as a bunch of rocks! That's another thing about phoning for tech support that bugs me. I'll explain my problem and give explicit detail about what I've attempted to fix the problem before calling. I don't know if it's the language barrier or what. If I've told you I shut down the computer and did a hard boot, or I recycled the modem, or checked X, Y and Z in the setup, I don't appreciate being told to do all of that stuff again. Don't patronize me as if I'm some ignorant child. It's a waste of my time and theirs (and no wonder callers sit in the call queue for 15 minutes before someone takes the call!) and never resolves the actual issue; if it was going to I wouldn't have had to call. Jill "jmcquown" <j_mcquown@comcast.net> wrote in ..I don't know if it's the > language barrier or what. If I've told you I shut down the computer > and did a hard boot, or I recycled the modem, or checked X, Y and Z in [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Jill It's not the language barrier. They are not taught to gauge the callers level. Most of the people who answer the phonr are only as "smart" as the database in front of them and the people who programed the database. Wouldn't it be nice if one of the first questions they asked was what your skill level was? Most people know the answer and are honest about it but have you ever been asked that? At my org we already know most of the caller (at least the staff) so we know that answer. The full time technicians (as opposed to student workers) can gauge their questions and answers to that skill level. As you say, it is VERY iritating to be walked through rebooting a computer or modem when your first statement is that it was just done. If course we have had callers who turned their monitor off and then on and thought they had rebooted their computer but I digress... Andy . If course we have had callers who turned their monitor off > and then on and thought they had rebooted their computer but I digress... My friend Matt worked for a time as tech support to a PC shop and he had the winner, this really indignant person called demanding to know why he wasn't there yet! Turned out she'd got stuck installing something on her new PC and when it said "Press F1 for help" she had done so thinking this would alert the shop to send someone round to help her Lesley Slave of the Fabulous Furballs On Feb 16, 8:40 am, Outsider <not@this_address.com> wrote: . If course we have had callers who turned their monitor off > and then on and thought they had rebooted their computer but I digress... My friend Matt worked for a time as tech support to a PC shop and he had the winner, this really indignant person called demanding to know why he wasn't there yet! Turned out she'd got stuck installing something on her new PC and when it said "Press F1 for help" she had done so thinking this would alert the shop to send someone round to help her Lesley Slave of the Fabulous Furballs LOL I can almost top that. I actually had a caller (this was in the 1980's) who got the message "Press any key to continue" ask me where the "any" key was! My boss got such a kick out of it he picked up a set of joke keyboard stickers when he was at Comdex; the one that fit on the Enter key was labelled "Any Key" :) Jill > LOL I can almost top that. I actually had a caller (this was in the 1980's) > who got the message "Press any key to continue" ask me where the "any" key > was I think that does top that! Lesley Slave of the Fabulous Furballs >> LOL I can almost top that. I actually had a caller (this was in the >> 198 [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > Slave of the Fabulous Furballs I don't know. F1; where the heck are you is pretty funny! That even beats out the cup holder! Andy >>> LOL I can almost top that. I actually had a caller (this was in the >>> 198 [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > > Andy You have to wonder how she thought the F1 key, had it actually had the capability of "calling" someone, would know exactly who to call and how it would be able to tell them where she was without a little input from her :) Jill > I don't know. F1; where the heck are you is pretty funny! That even beats > out the cup holder! One of my friends (another IT guy for some reason I know a lot of IT people) has actually seen someone using their CDROM drive as a cup holder! Lesley Slave of the Fabulous Furballs On Feb 16, 11:07 am, Outsider <not@this_address.com> wrote: > I don't know. F1; where the heck are you is pretty funny! That even beats > out the cup holder! One of my friends (another IT guy for some reason I know a lot of IT people) has actually seen someone using their CDROM drive as a cup holder! Lesley Slave of the Fabulous Furballs Do you suppose when it breaks he'll call to complain about how flimsy the cup holder is? LOL Jill >>> LOL I can almost top that. I actually had a caller (this was >>> in the [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > > Andy <FX: Beep-Beep! [POST boot-up check] > "Keyboard Error or Keyboard not present. Press F1 to continue." :-)  SignatureMatSav > "jmcquown" <j_mcquown@comcast.net> wrote in > [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > skill level was? Most people know the answer and are honest about it but > have you ever been asked that? Nope, no one has ever asked. As long as we have to go through those annoying phone menu systems why not add an option to your select skill level? "If you admit you need to read 'Computers for Dummies' press or say 1". > At my org we already know most of the > caller (at least the staff) so we know that answer. The full time > technicians (as opposed to student workers) can gauge their questions and > answers to that skill level. Yes, in my last job I was supporting proprietary software used by employees of the company nationwide. We all pretty much knew the skillset of the callers. I remember one user particular in particular who would call me and say, "Jill, someone released untested code again; tell them to send out a fix for whatever they thought they were fixing!" LOL > As you say, it is VERY iritating to be walked > through rebooting a computer or modem when your first statement is that it > was just done. If course we have had callers who turned their monitor off > and then on and thought they had rebooted their computer but I digress... > > Andy Ever hear the one about the person who called for support because her computer screen suddenly went black? Turned out to be an overall power outage... gee, if you can't turn on the lights how do you expect the computer to work unless you have a UPS? This story may be an urban legend but it wouldn't surprise me to find out it's true. A lot of people think the "any key" thing is an urban legend, too. Nope, it happened to ME! Jill <-- who thinks it's great fun to be part of the whole tech support did it really happen? club :) "jmcquown" <j_mcquown@comcast.net> wrote in >> Andy > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Jill <-- who thinks it's great fun to be part of the whole tech > support did it really happen? club :) Plus we sure get a lot of mileage out of these things. Not a few days go by we don't ask one of the teks if they told the caller to press the any key or if they had the caller check the cup holder. Ok, now that I put it to words we do sound pretty geeked out. Andy After navigating my way through the > voice-recognition menu system I finally got to a person... in India, of > course. Dave always finds it funny when he gets sales calls and someone with an obvious Indian accent says "Hi my name is George" (or some English name) My good friend Hugh was on the phone to his bank once and conversationally he asked "And how is the weather in Mumbai today?" The reply was "Not bad it's almost monsoon time...errr how did you guess?" Lesley Slave of the Fabulous Furballs |
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