Thursday, August 03, 2006
Being prepared
Caller: "I'm calling about the Internet!"
Me: "Alright."
Time passes.
Me: "So... what is it about the Internet that you wanted to know?"
Here we have the first bit of fun with this caller: conversation skills. As it turns out, she wanted to sign up for dialup service. No problem! That's what we do. I explain the billing options to her, she selects the one that suits her, then I ask if the computer has a dialup modem.
Customer: "No, it doesn't."
Me: "OK, well it would need a dialup modem to connect to a dialup service like ours. You'd mentioned a phone cord before. Where do you have it plugged in?"
Customer: "In the computer."
Me: "And is there one phone jack there, or two?"
Customer: "One."
Me: "OK, that's almost certainly a network card, then. It's got a wider jack that's meant for a high speed connection, or for networking two computers together. You're sure the computer doesn't have another spot with two phone jacks?"
Customer: "Nope, it doesn't."
Me: "Unfortunately, then, it sounds like you'd need to have one installed before your computer would be able to get through to us."
Customer: "But my last computer had a dialup modem!"
Excellent! You know what? My last car had air conditioning. Even though my current one doesn't, I'll just turn on the AC in the previous car, and we'll all be cooler!
And from the very next caller:
Me: "You would need to be sitting at your computer, and we would step you through the account setup."
Customer: "I don't have that."
You don't have what? An account? I know, that's what we're about to setup. A computer? OK, you might want to get one. Something else? I don't really know; the response doesn't seem to directly refer to what I'd actually said.
As our loyal readers have probably seen, it's rare that our difficulties stem from actual computer problems, although I have an update to make about one of those...
Me: "Alright."
Time passes.
Me: "So... what is it about the Internet that you wanted to know?"
Here we have the first bit of fun with this caller: conversation skills. As it turns out, she wanted to sign up for dialup service. No problem! That's what we do. I explain the billing options to her, she selects the one that suits her, then I ask if the computer has a dialup modem.
Customer: "No, it doesn't."
Me: "OK, well it would need a dialup modem to connect to a dialup service like ours. You'd mentioned a phone cord before. Where do you have it plugged in?"
Customer: "In the computer."
Me: "And is there one phone jack there, or two?"
Customer: "One."
Me: "OK, that's almost certainly a network card, then. It's got a wider jack that's meant for a high speed connection, or for networking two computers together. You're sure the computer doesn't have another spot with two phone jacks?"
Customer: "Nope, it doesn't."
Me: "Unfortunately, then, it sounds like you'd need to have one installed before your computer would be able to get through to us."
Customer: "But my last computer had a dialup modem!"
Excellent! You know what? My last car had air conditioning. Even though my current one doesn't, I'll just turn on the AC in the previous car, and we'll all be cooler!
And from the very next caller:
Me: "You would need to be sitting at your computer, and we would step you through the account setup."
Customer: "I don't have that."
You don't have what? An account? I know, that's what we're about to setup. A computer? OK, you might want to get one. Something else? I don't really know; the response doesn't seem to directly refer to what I'd actually said.
As our loyal readers have probably seen, it's rare that our difficulties stem from actual computer problems, although I have an update to make about one of those...
# posted by Terry @ 11:57 AM 
