Suckerfish on the Side of Your Whale

Caller: "Hi, are you guys having problems?"

For some reason, when people call in and ask me that right away, it really bugs me. I'm not sure why. It's a reasonable question. Maybe it's just the fact that the problem is very, very rarely on our end, and that usually people who ask us this question are assuming that it is our fault and are sometimes unwilling to consider that the problem could possibly be on their computer.

Today, one such person called.

Me: "No, everything appears to be normal on our end. Are you having trouble connecting?"
Caller: "No, we had trouble for, like, two weeks, and then we replaced our hard drive, and we were able to connect again, so we kinda thought that the problem was you guys all along."

Here's an excellent example of inductive reasoning at its best.

1. Our connection was not working.
2. We replaced part of the computer, then the connection started working.
3. Our provider was obviously at fault.

This isn't anything more than a recent example of human stupidity, but I thought it was funny:

Caller: "So what, I can't connect now because you guys need the area code?"
Me: "Well, any local call that you make now requires you to dial the 10 digit number. Your dialup connection is no exception."
Caller: "This is completely unacceptable. I want to talk to a manager."
Me: "Well sir, I am the manager on this shift, and even if I weren't, there's no one else here that would be able to tell you anything different. Every local phone call in the province must include the area code. Your dialup connection is a local phone call. Therefore, you need to enter the area code. I can help you do that if you're at your computer."
Caller: "Where are you located? I'm going to come down there and I'm going to get a full refund on my account."
Me: "We're at 123 Some Street, but we will not be reimbursing your money. You don't even have a problem with your connection. If you'd let me help you put the area code in your connection settings, then you'd find that there is no problem."
Caller: "How long has it been since you guys started forcing me to do that?"
Me: "Do you remember how, when you called us for support, it was a local call? And how you had to dial your area code? And do you realize that your computer is trying to make a local call to connect to us?"
Caller: (grumbling) "Yes."
Me: "Then it should be apparent to you that we're not forcing you to do anything. This is a change that has happened to your phone service, not your Internet service."
Caller: "I'm just upset is all."
Me: "Right. Well, before you start complaining to us, you might want to make sure that you have your facts in order and consider whether or not we're the people you should be complaining to."

Job applicants can be stupid too. In that vein, I bring you the top 5 signs you aren't meant for a job:

5. You can't find the building (in fairness, this happens frequently as our city's layout is bizarre).
4. You show up 20 minutes late for your test or interview (see above).
3. You repeatedly use random technical terms as if you have the faintest idea what you're talking about, when I know what the terms mean and know very well that you don't.
2. You reek of perfume, cigarette smoke, BO, failure, or all of the above.

And the number one sign you aren't meant for a job...

You misspelled your own name on the application.

People never cease to surprise, here at the ol' tech support desk. A smattering of the issues we've had tonight:

- A customer who's called us upwards of eight times in the last 24 hours before we finally realize that not once has she been at her computer, despite acting like she is. We tell her she needs to be there in order for us to actually help her.

- "What does it mean if your monitor is smoking? Like, in the back? Does it matter if it's been on all week?"

- The customer from the first comment called back and said that there was a problem, but after five minutes, she couldn't describe what that problem was. I checked the logs, and everything I could see indicated that she was connecting just fine, so I told her she just needed to hang up and try again. I then spent eleven minutes telling her she needs to hang up the phone, including at least four minutes explaining that hanging up the phone is not the same thing as putting the handset down on a table. Like... I don't know how to express my incredulity. How is that someone is capable enough to use a phone to call us, but not capable enough to hang the phone up?

- "I can't install Need for Speed 3. I could before. What's up with that?"

- The customer from the first comment called back again. She had successfully connected again since the last time she'd called. As far as she could tell us, there was no problem, no difficulty. The agent could not determine why she'd bothered to call us back. Maybe it was just habit at this point. I don't know.

I think I've mentioned this before, but I'm too lazy to go back and check. Our company occasionally uses web page notices to alert customers to important changes or to confirm important information. It's a really efficient way to make sure that everyone gets the information. Some people feel that a web page is too obtrusive, but from an economic efficiency point of view, I think it's far less obtrusive than us having to possibly raise prices because we've had to hire three more people just to call or email all of our customers.

There's a notice that comes up that asks people to confirm that their address is correct. I wouldn't have thought we'd need that, but it turns out we have customers who have been at a new address for years, and we never find out. For most people, this notice is very simple. They look at the address, update it if necessary, confirm that things are correct, and it's done.

This is apparently too hard for a lot of people, because around a third of my calls for the last few days have been people calling about that page. A few are genuine issues, such as their Internet browser having weird security settings turned on that prevents the page from loading correctly. However, the majority of the calls go something like this:

Caller: "I saw your notice, but my account doesn't renew for five months. Why do I have to renew now?"
Me: "The notice doesn't say anything about renewing your account. It asks you to make sure your address is correct."
Caller: "It was!"
Me: "Excellent. That's all it was asking about."
Caller: "Oh. So I didn't renew my account?"

Now, there are a couple of things about this kind of call that strike me as bizarre. For one thing, the customer didn't actually read it. This is another one of those "you could save yourself time and effort by looking at the thing directly in front of you" situations. There are very clear, simple instructions on the page, things like "Please make sure that your address appears correctly" and "Please click OK when you're finished". I don't understand why people would rather skip the 10 seconds of reading in favor of calling us, potentially waiting on hold, and spending more than 10 seconds while an agent explains what the notice says and what you need to do about it.

Another is the sheer number of people who think it's about billing (due to not reading it) and go ahead and complete the page anyway, then call to ask if they've done something with their billing. We offer dialup service. A lot of our customers use it because they don't want to or can't afford to pay more for high speed. I find it incredible that some are so cavalier about their finances that they blithely proceed through something that they aren't reading but vaguely think might be committing them to a financial contract.

And although this is a slightly different situation, a similar trend can be observed. A call earlier today:

Caller: "Hi, I'm trying to reactivate my account. I see the instructions on my screen. I haven't finished them. Why can't I use the Internet?"
Me: "Uh, well, those instructions are the steps to reactivate. You need to finish reactivating before your account with us is active again."

I mean, seriously? You just prefaced your question with the answer. Do you not understand that if you haven't finished your end of the steps, then you're not finished? Or are you just calling to be an ass?

And finally, on an unrelated note, a call I received recently: "Hi, do you have AOL's number?" "Um, no, I don't." "OK, thanks!"

It's pretty rare that we have to hang up on people here at work, but it does happen sometimes. I think that some call centres have a policy in which you never hang up on a customer no matter what. We don't. If a call is going absolutely nowhere, like if a customer is arguing about the fact that we don't offer refunds for upwards of 20 minutes, then an agent is justified in warning the caller, then hanging up if they have to. And if a customer is being excessively rude, we'll also hang up at that point.

In my time here, I can only remember hanging up on two people. One was the case of a man arguing about his billing and saying he didn't agree to the things he'd agreed to. We went in circles for about 15 minutes before I told him that we weren't covering any new ground, we weren't changing the billing terms retroactively for him, and that I was going to have to hang up to help other people. He then launched into a tirade about how he was a university professor and even though I wasn't educated, I should be able to appreciate that we don't live in Communist Russia and that we should accomodate him. I told him that since he was making derogatory personal remarks towards me that I was ending the call.

The second was much simpler! A lady who had repeatedly encountered billing problems often called to bitterly complain. The first four times her billing failed, it was because she had given us completely incorrect banking information. The fifth time, she did finally give us the right information, but she NSFed. She called, got me, and right away proceeded to yell, scream, and cry about how we were ripping her off. I waited for her to finish, and explained that we can't help it if she gives us the wrong numbers or doesn't have the funds in the account. She cut me off and screamed that you can "cram it up your ass!" So I hung up.

Today, I was on a long, slow call while another coworker fielded several calls in a row from a lady. I don't know what her original problem was, but I know that she became rude, and the coworker had to hang up on her. She called right back, got him again, and said something like "you hung up on me!!" He said "I sure did." "Why did you do that?!" "Because you were being very rude." She proceeded to complain, and said she'd call back to deal with someone else. However, the rest of us were all on calls. This means that when he was finished, my coworker jumped right to the front of the available agents list. Each time she called back, she got him again.

I believe she was eventually convinced that he's the only person who works here.

Anyway, there's a lesson to be learned here, and that lesson is that if you're being rude to someone, they might not want to help you anymore. Just because you're calling someone who is working doesn't mean that the veneer of a business-client relationship permanently innoculates you from the consequences of being a jerk.