Thursday, June 22, 2006
Perspective
People can lose their composure or perspective over very silly things. Everyone's seen that enough to know it's true. Some people have developed a mild case of fame because of it (see Waiter Rant for a brilliant example). We have abundant examples as well.
A few days ago, a woman called and said she was having trouble connecting. I asked her for the error number, which she supplied. It indicated that her username or password was wrong. I checked the logs, and the password box was blank. It's a common thing; in Windows XP, if you click on the password box, the contents of the box are erased and you're expected to enter the information again. We get a lot of calls like this.
I explain that the password line is empty, so she'll just need to enter her password and she'll be all set. I ask if she remembers her password, and she says she does. Then she asks how this happened.
"Well," I start, "Windows stores your password in that box which says 'To change the saved password, click here'. Usually, if the password line is blank, it's because someone has accidentally clicked there, so as soon as you enter your password again, you'll be all set."
"I didn't click there," she says defensively.
"OK, someone else might have, it's not really important, you'll just want to enter--"
"I'm the only one who uses this computer," she interrupts.
"OK."
"I didn't do that. That's not what happened. Tell me how this happened." She's sounding openly hostile, and I'm not really sure why.
"Well, I've told you what's most commonly the problem. I can't say for sure why that box is blank. But as soon as you enter your password again, you'll be good to go."
"But you haven't answered my question! How did this happen?" She sounds increasingly angry.
"Ma'am, I can't give you a 100% answer on that. Usually, it happens the way I'd described it to you before. I don't know if that's what happened on your computer or not, but as soon as your password is entered again, you'll be all set."
"I've had nothing but trouble with you guys!" She proceeds to launch into a good, long rant about what a terrible service we are. At first, I try to head her off, address her concerns, and calm her down, but she constantly interrupts and keeps talking over me, so I give up. In fact, I figure that since she's on such a roll, I'll see how long I can go without saying a word.
... Four minutes go by. I've decided to read a friend's blog update.
... Three more minutes wander along. I'm checking the news headlines.
... At nine minutes, she says something that requires a response from me. "Yes." I've contributed!
... At eleven minutes, she runs out of steam. She's been repeating herself for most of her spiel anyway. She's concluded with the statement that if I can't refund her money, I should transfer her to someone who can. Needless to say, we're not refunding her money simply because she's got a blank password.
"I'm sorry, but we won't be refuding your money, ma'am."
"FINE! Your service SUCKS!" She slams the phone down, but since I'm a bit of a veteran, I'm ready for this, and the volume is already turned down on my headset.
Here's the issue as she said she saw it: she's had problems, the contract she signed with us guarantees 24 hour service, she can't connect right now and she's had trouble connecting previously, so she thinks we've broken our end of the contract. And so, by her reasoning, since the contract is void, she's entitled to her money back.
Here's how the facts line up: she's had problems, but they've been problems on her computer. Previously, the trouble she'd called us about was a Windows problem. Windows was right messed up on her computer; some system files might have been damaged, malicious software might have infected the computer, I don't know, but she had to reinstall Windows and we'd told her as much. And on this occasion, her inability to connect was due to the fact that her password wasn't entered into the connection window. These things are hardly our fault.
Furthermore, our terms of service specifically state two things, one incredibly obvious, and one not so obvious. The former is that it's not our responsibility to ensure that a customer's computer is functional. An Internet provider is a lot like a door. The customer pays us to have that door opened. We don't provide them with shoes to walk around or a road map once they've gone through the door. Our job is simple and we focus on that job. The user's computer is something we don't ever touch, and so we don't have any way of guaranteeing that it'll always run smoothly. How could we?
The less obvious thing is that we can't guarantee that the service will work 100% of the time. Honestly, I'm surprised by how reliable my company's access is, but outages happen. To guarantee that they won't would be suicide in a business like ours. We rely on other companies. At one point, a road worker somewhere had accidentally cut a cable, which throttled traffic on a huge national company's infrastructure. It severely impacted their service, which in turn affected ours because we depended on that company. We couldn't have promised that that road worker wouldn't accidentally cut that cable, and we didn't have the resources to work around it when he did. Sometimes the world just doesn't work that way.
I could have explained these things to her, but she'd already been firing salvos for eleven minutes. She wasn't in a listening mood. I chose to say that we wouldn't be refunding her money and kept it simple. If she'd engaged me on that, I would have politely and rationally explained the issues to her, but she didn't. She just wanted to be loudly and rudely heard.
Well, it worked, but I wish you'd think about this, lady: you lost your cool and threw a ridiculous tantrum over a tiny, tiny thing. Was it worth it? Did you ever think about how you sounded to the person on the other end? Did you think about the fact that you were ranting and raving to a person at all? Or was I just a disembodied voice, floating on the outermost ether of a faceless company to you? Wouldn't it have been easier to ask your question, get your answer, and correct the problem? Wouldn't you rather save your own time, and dignity, and just move on?
Wouldn't you?
A few days ago, a woman called and said she was having trouble connecting. I asked her for the error number, which she supplied. It indicated that her username or password was wrong. I checked the logs, and the password box was blank. It's a common thing; in Windows XP, if you click on the password box, the contents of the box are erased and you're expected to enter the information again. We get a lot of calls like this.
I explain that the password line is empty, so she'll just need to enter her password and she'll be all set. I ask if she remembers her password, and she says she does. Then she asks how this happened.
"Well," I start, "Windows stores your password in that box which says 'To change the saved password, click here'. Usually, if the password line is blank, it's because someone has accidentally clicked there, so as soon as you enter your password again, you'll be all set."
"I didn't click there," she says defensively.
"OK, someone else might have, it's not really important, you'll just want to enter--"
"I'm the only one who uses this computer," she interrupts.
"OK."
"I didn't do that. That's not what happened. Tell me how this happened." She's sounding openly hostile, and I'm not really sure why.
"Well, I've told you what's most commonly the problem. I can't say for sure why that box is blank. But as soon as you enter your password again, you'll be good to go."
"But you haven't answered my question! How did this happen?" She sounds increasingly angry.
"Ma'am, I can't give you a 100% answer on that. Usually, it happens the way I'd described it to you before. I don't know if that's what happened on your computer or not, but as soon as your password is entered again, you'll be all set."
"I've had nothing but trouble with you guys!" She proceeds to launch into a good, long rant about what a terrible service we are. At first, I try to head her off, address her concerns, and calm her down, but she constantly interrupts and keeps talking over me, so I give up. In fact, I figure that since she's on such a roll, I'll see how long I can go without saying a word.
... Four minutes go by. I've decided to read a friend's blog update.
... Three more minutes wander along. I'm checking the news headlines.
... At nine minutes, she says something that requires a response from me. "Yes." I've contributed!
... At eleven minutes, she runs out of steam. She's been repeating herself for most of her spiel anyway. She's concluded with the statement that if I can't refund her money, I should transfer her to someone who can. Needless to say, we're not refunding her money simply because she's got a blank password.
"I'm sorry, but we won't be refuding your money, ma'am."
"FINE! Your service SUCKS!" She slams the phone down, but since I'm a bit of a veteran, I'm ready for this, and the volume is already turned down on my headset.
Here's the issue as she said she saw it: she's had problems, the contract she signed with us guarantees 24 hour service, she can't connect right now and she's had trouble connecting previously, so she thinks we've broken our end of the contract. And so, by her reasoning, since the contract is void, she's entitled to her money back.
Here's how the facts line up: she's had problems, but they've been problems on her computer. Previously, the trouble she'd called us about was a Windows problem. Windows was right messed up on her computer; some system files might have been damaged, malicious software might have infected the computer, I don't know, but she had to reinstall Windows and we'd told her as much. And on this occasion, her inability to connect was due to the fact that her password wasn't entered into the connection window. These things are hardly our fault.
Furthermore, our terms of service specifically state two things, one incredibly obvious, and one not so obvious. The former is that it's not our responsibility to ensure that a customer's computer is functional. An Internet provider is a lot like a door. The customer pays us to have that door opened. We don't provide them with shoes to walk around or a road map once they've gone through the door. Our job is simple and we focus on that job. The user's computer is something we don't ever touch, and so we don't have any way of guaranteeing that it'll always run smoothly. How could we?
The less obvious thing is that we can't guarantee that the service will work 100% of the time. Honestly, I'm surprised by how reliable my company's access is, but outages happen. To guarantee that they won't would be suicide in a business like ours. We rely on other companies. At one point, a road worker somewhere had accidentally cut a cable, which throttled traffic on a huge national company's infrastructure. It severely impacted their service, which in turn affected ours because we depended on that company. We couldn't have promised that that road worker wouldn't accidentally cut that cable, and we didn't have the resources to work around it when he did. Sometimes the world just doesn't work that way.
I could have explained these things to her, but she'd already been firing salvos for eleven minutes. She wasn't in a listening mood. I chose to say that we wouldn't be refunding her money and kept it simple. If she'd engaged me on that, I would have politely and rationally explained the issues to her, but she didn't. She just wanted to be loudly and rudely heard.
Well, it worked, but I wish you'd think about this, lady: you lost your cool and threw a ridiculous tantrum over a tiny, tiny thing. Was it worth it? Did you ever think about how you sounded to the person on the other end? Did you think about the fact that you were ranting and raving to a person at all? Or was I just a disembodied voice, floating on the outermost ether of a faceless company to you? Wouldn't it have been easier to ask your question, get your answer, and correct the problem? Wouldn't you rather save your own time, and dignity, and just move on?
Wouldn't you?
# posted by Terry @ 1:40 PM 
