Suckerfish on the Side of Your Whale

Me: "Alright, so you're at your computer?"
Customer: "No, hold on, I'll go there."
Me: "Sure."
Customer: "OK, I'm there. What now?"
Me: "Click on Start, then click on Control Pa--"
Customer: "Wait, let me put the cat down."

Why are you calling while holding your cat?!

Sometimes we get calls from people who aren't at their computer. Usually, that's because they assume that they'd have to be online for us to help. When we explain that they don't, it's no big deal; the customer goes to their computer and we proceed to look at the issue.

Other times, people don't have portable phones, or they don't have a phone in the same room as the computer. No big deal: you can plug a phone into the alternate jack in most desktop computers, or you can unplug the computer from the wall jack and replace it with the phone.

However, sometimes people simply refuse to do it. Like PushyKid.

PushyKid: "I cannot move the phone. It stays in the front room."
Me: "OK, then I'm afraid there isn't much left we can do for you, since you'll need to be at the computer to read some of the information from some diagnostics."

Now, that's not strictly true. We could have the kid take down instructions, go to the computer, open the appropriate windows, run a diagnostic or check a setting or make note of some information, return, and tell us. There are two major problems with that: time and the dramatically increased probability of being wrong.

It's like going to a doctor's office and telling him that the patient is still at home, then refusing to bring the sick person. Sure, he could ask you questions, you could drive home and ask the patient, and then relay those symptoms to the doctor, but that's several orders of magnitude more difficult (and silly) than just taking the patient to the doctor.

After PushyKid realized that I wasn't going to help unless she compromised on her phone-into-the-computer-room embargo, she said she'd move it and call back. This was her fourth call of the day.

Telling a tech support worker that "I'm not familiar with computers" makes zero difference at best. At worst, it tells me that you're planning on using your self-declared ignorance as an excuse. And although I realize this isn't necessarily intuitive for most people, your computer skill doesn't matter very much to us. As long as you're familiar with very basic computer usage, you should be fine.

What's odd is when people use their lack of experience on a computer as an excuse for stupidity. Take MrCautious today.

MrCautious: "Yeah, why's my account inactive?"
Me: "Well sir, that appears to be because when the billing was attempted on Monday, the transaction was returned with insufficient funds."
MrCautious: "Well I didn't know the billing would go through on Monday!"
Me: "The exact billing amounts and dates are explained on the web page you went through to activate your account last week."
MrCautious: "I didn't read those! I'm not familiar with computers!"
Me: "Uh, sir, those pages don't have anything to do with your familiarity with computers. They explain when the billing will happen, how much it will come to, and then they show you the terms of use. You don't need to know anything about computers to read them."
MrCautious: "Well I didn't read them because I don't know much about computers. I just clicked continue, continue, I agree, continue."

Yeah, good job. Somehow, in your view, inexperience with computers justifies your lack of willingness to read. I might be able to excuse it if the billing dates, for example, were halfway down a screen full of tiny print, but they're in large, bold letters surrounded by a vivid red box, directly below the page header. Even at 640x480 resolution, the box is still visible.

MrCautious: "I didn't know the billing was going through on Monday so I don't think I should have to pay this NSF charge and I want to speak to your manager!"

I'm sorry, I don't know how to transfer you. I'm not familiar with computers.

Me: "Is there anything in the box where it says 'Open'?"
User: "Yes."
Me: "What is in that box?"
User: "Nothing."
Me: "OK... I'm referring to the box immediately to the right of the word 'Open'. Is there anything in there?"
User: "Yes."
Me: "Alright. So what is in that box?"
User: "Nothing."
Me: "... See, there's either something in this box or there isn't. Is there anything in the box?"
User: "Nope."
Me: "OK then."

Argh.

I'm back from a bit of a vacation, and to inaugurate the work week, I'm posting to this blog even before I get back to work. Now that's dedication*.

Our thoughtful friend Gideon was manning the technical support email the other day, and he received a forwarded email from DramaticLady's daughter. You might remember DramaticLady from this post a while ago. She'd lost the trust of her daughter. She was very upset because we wouldn't fix the problem and/or refund her money.

Well, Gid had an email that at least served up some explanatory goodness! Turns out the daughter had addressed the email to DramaticLady@OurCompany.com instead of DramaticLady@OurCompany.ca. A subtle difference, one that's easy to make; I myself have forgotten whether some of my favorite web sites end with .net, .org, .com, or .info. Hah, that's just a little joke; no one reads .info sites. Anyway, since the former email address doesn't exist, the email was bounced back to the daughter with an error which explains that the user was not known on that domain. It could be in simpler English, sure, but at least it tells you that you've got the wrong email address.

DramaticLady had also mentioned that she had other friends "in Canada!!" who were having the same problem with emailing her as her daughter. Consequently, I consider it likely that she's giving out her email address with the wrong suffix. And I consider the fact that she had a massive fight with her daughter and they stopped speaking to each other.

Over this.

Over a couple of letters.

Is it wrong for me to giggle a little?


* Dedication can also, in this context, be taken to mean masochism.

"I'd like to disactivate my account"

Do I get all the ones like this, or do I just like writing short posts?

I am just dumbfounded by this last call.


OurCompany, how can I help you ?
"I signed up last week, but I haven't received my package yet."

We don't send out any packages. Are you sure you signed up with us ?
"Yes, I haven't received the modem though."

This is OurCompany. We provide a dial-up service. We require that you have a dial-up modem in your computer. We don't provide any modems. With which company did you sign up ?
"SomeDSLcompany"

Then you have reached the wrong number.
"Can you transfer me over?"

This is OurCompany, not SomeDSLcompany. This is a completly different company. I can't transfer you to them. You will need to call SomeDSLcompany.
"Can I sign up with you?"

Yes you can, but our service requires that you have a dial-up modem in your computer.
"Ok, I will call back tomorrow."

"Alright, now erase what's in the 'Connection name' box."
"It says 'Connection to 123456789'."
"Yes, you'll need to erase that."
"It says 'Connection to 123456789'. What do I do with it?"
"You'll need to erase everything in the 'Connection name' box."
"Hold on, hold on, hold on. What I see on my screen right now is--"
"Yes sir, I know what's on your screen. You see a box titled Connection name, and in that box, it says 'Connection to 123456789'. You need to erase 'Connection to 123456789' so that we can type in something else."
"Finally! That's what I'm getting at!"

Yes, it is. You are getting there, just very gradually. Also, you haven't noticed that I'm already there and waving you in with a huge flag. Don't get snippy with me because you can't follow instructions.

# posted by Terry @ 11:18 AM 0 comments

As Simon mentioned a couple posts ago, the fact that some people just will not read what's in front of them is a constant source of wonder and frustration for us. People will say "oh, I'm not good on the computer", but in these cases, it's not a computer skill issue, it's a please-just-look-at-your-screen issue.

Example:

"Alright, now click 'Finish'."
"OK, I've done that."
"Now, in this window, you'll see a new icon that says MyNewConnection."
"Ummmm..."
Time passes as I wait patiently.
"No, I don't have that here."
"OK, read to me what you see in front of you."
"I see Make New Connection, MyOldConnection, and MyNewConnection."
"... right, so you'll need to right click on MyNewConnection."

I mean, that person found the icon when I asked her to read everything (which, you'll note, was only three things), but couldn't find it when I identified it by name. Why is that?

Example:

"Now we'll need you to find the icon that says 'Modems' and doubleclick on it."
"I don't have that."
"It will be in this window, you'll just want to keep looking for a moment."
"Nope, it's not here."
"OK, what's the first thing in this window?"
"It says 'Accessibility Options'."
"And you see how everything is organized alphabetically?"
"Yes."
"So let's have you look a bit further down so that you're looking at things starting with M."
"OK."
"What do you see starting with M?"
"I see Modems, Mouse, Multimedia."
"Right. So doubleclick on Modems."
"Oh, I see. It wasn't there before."

Yes, that's right, it's a well known Windows issue in which the Control Panel spontaneously adds the icon you were looking for right as the technician is giving you extremely simple and detailed instructions on how to get there... I believe it's called the PEBKAC error.

When issues come up that require a customer's attention, we let them know. We don't call them, because it's cheaper to notify them in other ways. We'll make use of email and a proxy redirection. The latter is a source of frustration for some people.

A proxy redirection works by having a customer's Internet browser pointed to an alert from the company. The alert will generally explain the problem. For example, you might read that your credit card was reported stolen, and so we'll need new billing information, or your annual account is about to run out, and we'll just need to know if you want to renew or not. The important thing is that this is an alert about something, and consequently, if you read the message, you will find out what the problem is.

Now, admittedly, in some unusual cases, the notices won't display properly, and in those cases, the customer is a bit stuck unless they give us a call. Proxy redirections will require a user to respond to the notice before it'll take the notice away. Even so, a healthy number of the calls we get about the alerts are from people who didn't check them.

"Hi, I'm calling because I got some kind of message from you guys."
"OK, what did the message say?"
"I dunno. I just figured it was something about my account."

Yes, excellent deductive work. If you think about it, pretty much any message sent from us is going to somehow relate to your account.

What really grinds my gears is the fact if the customer had just read the message, then they wouldn't need to call us at all. For example, if your credit card had expired, you're prompted to enter the new number. If we've changed something about the service that requires you to know some specific information, you just need to click a button indicating that you've seen the notice.

Instead, some people see the alert and our logo and then shut their brains off and just call us. Yes, you can address the problem that way, but in most cases, you can address the problem much more quickly by just reading the issue and clicking the appropriate response. The whole reason we alert people that way is so that they don't need to give us a call. It lets them address the issue directly and quickly, and it means we don't need to expend resources dealing with something that we don't need to. That sounds selfish, but ultimately it means we're able to focus on more important things and keep costs down, which I think benefits the consumer in the long run.

At least, it would if they would just read it.

Today, DramaticLady called wanting to speak to a supervisor. No problem--that's me! She was upset and "not laughing anymore" because "I've lost the trust of my daughter!" Apparently, DramaticLady's daughter had emailed her, and then they'd gotten into an argument because DramaticLady didn't believe her that she'd sent the mail, and now they're not speaking, and so DramaticLady thinks she should get a refund.

Right. We're going to refund your money because you had a misunderstanding with a family matter, let it blow up, and are now upset about it. That would be a sound business decision.

She complained that she's had a few friends try to email her and they get the emails returned to them. OK, that happens sometimes, we just need to know what that returned email says to know why it's happening. "It says I'm not here!" OK... that's not really specific enough, maybe if you could have one of those people forward the error message to us? "It says I'm not here! Look into it!"

So it seems that there are two problems here. One is not related to our service, and one might be. If you send out an email and it gets returned to you, a lot of things might have gone wrong. I've seen situations where email gets returned by an antivirus scanning proxy, it gets returned from your outgoing server due to an authentication failure, or it gets returned by the recipient's incoming server due to account problems, network problems, an incorrect or invalid email address, a full mailbox... There are a few places that type of error could originate from. Most seem to be caused by people typing in an email address incorrectly or if the recipient's mailbox is full, but not always.

In short, we just need to know what that message says, and unfortunately if DramaticLady is offering up her own succinct paraphrase, it might not contain the information we need. We normally ask people to have the person who received the bounce message forward it to us, and then it's really easy to address.

But that wasn't good enough for DramaticLady. "You are a young guy and you don't have children overseas and if you did you'd react very differently!"

"Ma'am, I don't think it's fair for you to speculate on my personal life and bring that into the discussion. If you're having trouble with your email, then let's stick to that, let's get that error message, and let's fix the problem."

"No! This is ridiculous! I want you to FIX IT! LOOK INTO IT!"

"Ma'am, I need that error message to look into it. When I have that error message, I will tell you why it's coming up and what needs to be done to correct it."

"Forget it! I want my money back and cancel everything RIGHT NOW!!"

"Ma'am, I can cancel your service if you like, but understand that there is no refund on the account."

"No amount of money will repair my relationship with my daughter!"

Good... then it won't be a problem when we can't give you a refund.

Sometimes a caller is difficult to deal with for reasons completely independent of their computers. An example:

"Terry speaking, how can I help you?"
"Hi, I was looking for wireless access. Do you guys provide that?"
"No, I'm afraid we don't. This is a dialup service."

And then... 30 seconds of silence. Literally. Finally, I broach it: "Did you have any questions about our service?"

"No, I just wanted to know if you had wireless."
"I'm afraid we don't, no."
"OK, bye."

I don't know what to make of that empty 30 seconds. She didn't hang up, she didn't ask a followup question, she didn't do anything.

As our owner once had to explain to a particularly ridiculous customer, "you don't understand how a conversation works. You make a point, and I listen to it. Then I respond to what you said, and you listen. An exchange ensues."

That seems like common sense to most people, but every once in a while, someone just doesn't sound like they get it.

A customer had the following complaint: "My screen keeps blacking out... If this is a problem with your company, I will not be renewing". Now, I guess I can give her some credit for including the "if". We have customers that wouldn't. The thing I wonder about is: Does she ask the gas station attendant to fix her transmission? And although we aren't the problem, and I wouldn't lie to her anyway, does she realize how strongly she's encouraging a lazy tech support agent to lie if we were?

I fully understand that a business may use our dial-up internet for their needs. There is no problem with that. We make no distinction between a residential or business user. However, dealing with technical support issues from a business user can get frustrating. To explain why, here's a prime example of what not to do when calling technical support.

Technical support, how can I help you?
"Hold please"

Her reply sounded faint. There is a phone conversation happening in the background. I can only figure she has asked the other person to hold while she speaks to me.

The conversation carries on in the background. She may have inadvertently dialed into technical support, which seems to happen on occasion with some of our users.

Hello ?
"HOLD PLEASE"

This is going to go just swell. She eventually gets back to me.

"I can't connect to the internet"
What happens when you try?
"Nothing"
"Hold please"

(In the background)

"PartyCentre, how can I help you?"
"I'm sorry, there's no one here by that name"
"Ma'am, like I said. There is no one here by that name"

(Finally she comes back. We try the connection and sure enough nothing happens.)

It sounds like we'll need to recreate the connection.
"Ok"
"Hold please"

(She takes another call...)

I need you to start the connection wizard.
"Done"
"Hold please"

(And another call...)

"It says it needs to search for a modem"
You will need to go through that before we can proceed.
"Ok"

(Now she's not even bothering to TELL me to hold...)

"It couldn't find a modem"
It sounds like you'll need to reinstall the drivers for the modem.

(And she's gone again...)


Evidently you work in a happening place. If your time is better spent dealing with people calling you rather than fixing your internet connection, then don't bother calling me. My time is better spent moving on to the next customer who is ready to get my help.

Hold please

When using preauthorized payments, customers are asked to fax or mail a void cheque. While this is technically all they need to send, many like to add a note giving their username, that they want to renew, etc. I'm still trying to work out how, in one of these notes, a customer managed to mention her dead secretary.

"I can't remember my password"
"Well, sir, I can't give it out directly, but here's a hint: It starts with a 9"
"Is it 'woodwork'?"