Sunday, May 27, 2007
I'm calling you for help but I know what I'm doing
To further expand upon Terry's post about the 'know-it-all' customer, I'm going to share a recent encounter I had with a customer. One of THE MOST frustrating things as a technical support person is dealing with a person who's calling you for help but claims to know what they're doing or they second guess everything you do. It's obvious that more than often, these people are totally clueless but feel the need to be in control of the situation so they try and make themselves some sort of faux authority on the issue when it's clear they're clueless. Quite often, they're easily given away when they say things computer educated/literate people just would not say, like 'my server' instead of 'my ISP/provider'. They're two separate things and any semi-computer geek would know this.
Anyway, the call went something like this...
An elderly woman called me up saying her email wasn't working. Usually this is pretty easy to solve, but she didn't want to make it easy for me. After I told her what to do, I'd invariably get the 'Are you sure?! I don't think that will work.'-type comments. Clearly she's calling me for help, so why the fuck are you asking ME if I know what I'm doing?! I'll never understand people like this. The only thing I can think of is that these people need to be in control the whole time and just can't accept that they may not know anything about the issue.
Me: "So please click 'remove' on your email account in Outlook Express."
Caller: "Are you sure? We don't need to do that, do we?"
Me: "Well, actually Outlook Express sometimes messes up settings and more often than not, this is and easy fix. We'll just recreate the account and it should work."
Caller: "Are you sure? I don't think that's necessary."
Me: [wanting to say] "Well than I can't help you and you can fix it yourself!"
Me: "Well, if you want the issue fixed, we need to do this.
In previous versions of this type of call, I've actually given the caller shit for not allowing my job and asked them if they were calling for help. When they invariably answer 'yes', I then point out that I'm there to help them and that they need to trust me and let me do my job or nothing will get done. Usually, it shuts them up pretty quick because they know they've been called on their facade of being more knowledgeable than they really are. I don't know why, but I didn't really give this customer shit like I should have, so it carried on a little more than was needed for my sanity...
Caller: [long hesitant sigh like the world is about to end if we change a setting on her PC] "Ooookay, but I don't think this is going to make things better."
So we went through the malarky of recreating the account and it worked. I asked her if she was able to send and receive and I got this reply:
Caller: "Oh, it works!"
Of course it does. I know what I'm doing. You're calling me for help, right?! Now let me do my fucking job and let me help you. Why second guess me when it's clear you don't know what you're doing and that you do need help?! In fact, what's the point of me even sitting here *trying* to help you if you already know the fix to the problem?!
I wanted to ask her how her humble pie tasted, but I refrained.
Anyway, the call went something like this...
An elderly woman called me up saying her email wasn't working. Usually this is pretty easy to solve, but she didn't want to make it easy for me. After I told her what to do, I'd invariably get the 'Are you sure?! I don't think that will work.'-type comments. Clearly she's calling me for help, so why the fuck are you asking ME if I know what I'm doing?! I'll never understand people like this. The only thing I can think of is that these people need to be in control the whole time and just can't accept that they may not know anything about the issue.
Me: "So please click 'remove' on your email account in Outlook Express."
Caller: "Are you sure? We don't need to do that, do we?"
Me: "Well, actually Outlook Express sometimes messes up settings and more often than not, this is and easy fix. We'll just recreate the account and it should work."
Caller: "Are you sure? I don't think that's necessary."
Me: [wanting to say] "Well than I can't help you and you can fix it yourself!"
Me: "Well, if you want the issue fixed, we need to do this.
In previous versions of this type of call, I've actually given the caller shit for not allowing my job and asked them if they were calling for help. When they invariably answer 'yes', I then point out that I'm there to help them and that they need to trust me and let me do my job or nothing will get done. Usually, it shuts them up pretty quick because they know they've been called on their facade of being more knowledgeable than they really are. I don't know why, but I didn't really give this customer shit like I should have, so it carried on a little more than was needed for my sanity...
Caller: [long hesitant sigh like the world is about to end if we change a setting on her PC] "Ooookay, but I don't think this is going to make things better."
So we went through the malarky of recreating the account and it worked. I asked her if she was able to send and receive and I got this reply:
Caller: "Oh, it works!"
Of course it does. I know what I'm doing. You're calling me for help, right?! Now let me do my fucking job and let me help you. Why second guess me when it's clear you don't know what you're doing and that you do need help?! In fact, what's the point of me even sitting here *trying* to help you if you already know the fix to the problem?!
I wanted to ask her how her humble pie tasted, but I refrained.
Labels: futility
# posted by loopdokter @ 2:57 PM 
