Monday, August 27, 2007
Another amusing customer quote:
"My default network is ExecuDINK?"
Say WHAT?! That vaguely appropriates the company name I work for, but it's not even close.
"My default network is ExecuDINK?"
Say WHAT?! That vaguely appropriates the company name I work for, but it's not even close.
Great logic, Mom
I don't know why, but I just thought of a recent conversation I had with my mother about my job. She was asking me about all of the stuff I deal with and how my nana was suitably impressed when she had some issues and the stupid questions I deal with.
Now, my mom is better-than-average on a computer. When she first started out, as you do, she was very paranoid but now that she's used a PC for around 10 years there's very little she doesn't know or can't figure out herself. She's what we as tech support reps would call 'the ideal customer'. They know enough about a computer that their problem is usually an actual problem instead of a PEBKAC error.
However, she told me that she doesn't like calling tech support because from her experiences we're usually condescending and talk down to her and she feels like a dumbass. She's not entirely incorrect. This job makes you very bitter quickly and makes you doubt the hope for the progress of humanity. We do our best to hide that tone in our voices, but sometimes it can't be helped.
My mom uses the company I work for as her ISP. However, her 'solution' to her issues is to call me - where I berate her (as only a son can), behave bitterly and make her feel like a dumbass. It's not intentional, but that's usually the end result because your children always get more frustrated with you quickly than someone else might.
Anyway, her 'solution' to her avoiding calling tech support seems odd to me, don't cha think?!
Now, my mom is better-than-average on a computer. When she first started out, as you do, she was very paranoid but now that she's used a PC for around 10 years there's very little she doesn't know or can't figure out herself. She's what we as tech support reps would call 'the ideal customer'. They know enough about a computer that their problem is usually an actual problem instead of a PEBKAC error.
However, she told me that she doesn't like calling tech support because from her experiences we're usually condescending and talk down to her and she feels like a dumbass. She's not entirely incorrect. This job makes you very bitter quickly and makes you doubt the hope for the progress of humanity. We do our best to hide that tone in our voices, but sometimes it can't be helped.
My mom uses the company I work for as her ISP. However, her 'solution' to her issues is to call me - where I berate her (as only a son can), behave bitterly and make her feel like a dumbass. It's not intentional, but that's usually the end result because your children always get more frustrated with you quickly than someone else might.
Anyway, her 'solution' to her avoiding calling tech support seems odd to me, don't cha think?!
"Well it worked yesterday!"
""Well it worked yesterday!"
That line in it's wholesome entirety, is perhaps my most loathed line out of a customer's mouth. I usually retort with something to the effect of:
Me - "Do you own a car?"
Customer - "Yes."
Me - "Has your car worked properly the one day and not the next?!"
Customer - "Yes, but this is a computer!"
Me - "And your point is???!!!"
Apparently computers are magic and run by themselves. This perception blows my mind. People can't seem to wrap their heads around the fact that computers break or things go wrong. Even my mother who's a very intelligent woman by all accounts, has said this to me when it came to her computer problems.
Usually when you use the car analogy, people clue in and 'get it', but there's the odd few who keep repeating that dreaded line.... ""Well it worked yesterday!"
Shoot me. Shoot me now. Actually, shoot them. I'd prefer not dealing with the trouble of making my own funeral arrangements.
That line in it's wholesome entirety, is perhaps my most loathed line out of a customer's mouth. I usually retort with something to the effect of:
Me - "Do you own a car?"
Customer - "Yes."
Me - "Has your car worked properly the one day and not the next?!"
Customer - "Yes, but this is a computer!"
Me - "And your point is???!!!"
Apparently computers are magic and run by themselves. This perception blows my mind. People can't seem to wrap their heads around the fact that computers break or things go wrong. Even my mother who's a very intelligent woman by all accounts, has said this to me when it came to her computer problems.
Usually when you use the car analogy, people clue in and 'get it', but there's the odd few who keep repeating that dreaded line.... ""Well it worked yesterday!"
Shoot me. Shoot me now. Actually, shoot them. I'd prefer not dealing with the trouble of making my own funeral arrangements.
More Fun E-mail
And by "Fun", I of course mean "Questionably Productive"...
Anyway, today's e-mail says simply "I don't have a server. Why"
It's really tempting to answer "because quad Xeons are expensive?" but somehow I don't think that's the answer they're looking for.
Anyway, today's e-mail says simply "I don't have a server. Why"
It's really tempting to answer "because quad Xeons are expensive?" but somehow I don't think that's the answer they're looking for.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
What?
So I got this e-mail:
Can we set up a second [insert misspelled company name here] account and load it to another pc using Microsoft office instead of just using the
Web? The system is XP and the ver of Office is 2003.
There are so many things wrong for such a short mail.
Can we set up a second [insert misspelled company name here] account and load it to another pc using Microsoft office instead of just using the
Web? The system is XP and the ver of Office is 2003.
There are so many things wrong for such a short mail.
- First and foremost, what the hell do they actually mean? I have no clue (presumably because they don't).
- How does one add an internet account using the web? Note: even in the ridiculously rare case that you have one account and want to set up another, our company won't allow you to do that over the web.
- I can write off the misspelled company name to a typo, but what's with the two carriage returns mid-sentence?
- Do the versions of Windows and Office really matter for this question? I suppose they might, since I have no idea what they're asking, but it may well just be that they add that information to everything they ever discuss about computers.
- Lastly, though this could well not be a problem, the person's e-mail address was with a telco that doesn't provide service in Canada. Knowing my luck, though, they probably will be addressing the wrong company despite naming us (well, almost naming us).
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Sometimes, the techs say the stupid things
New Tech: "Does anyone know what it means when Vista says ?"
When tech agents are new, they ask a lot of questions. This makes sense, as no one is likely to have run into all of the bizarre stuff that can come up on computers, let alone all the bizarre stuff that people will say to you. However, whenever I'm training or supervising (and hence fielding more questions than usual), I'm occasionally struck by the silliness of some of the questions I'm asked.
When New Tech asked the room the question above, I typed into Google. The third result on the page showed the exact message in a context that seemed likely to help, so I clicked the link and discovered what it meant and how to get around it.
Me: "It means you have to run that command as an administrator. Tell the customer to right click on it and he'll see that option, and then it'll work just like in XP."
New Tech: "Thanks!"
Me: "Wait a sec before you talk to him again... why didn't you just google that?"
New Tech: "I did. I didn't find anything."
Me: "Well, what did you google? Because I googled, which is exactly what you said out loud, and I found the answer very quickly."
That's sometimes frustrating.
When tech agents are new, they ask a lot of questions. This makes sense, as no one is likely to have run into all of the bizarre stuff that can come up on computers, let alone all the bizarre stuff that people will say to you. However, whenever I'm training or supervising (and hence fielding more questions than usual), I'm occasionally struck by the silliness of some of the questions I'm asked.
When New Tech asked the room the question above, I typed
Me: "It means you have to run that command as an administrator. Tell the customer to right click on it and he'll see that option, and then it'll work just like in XP."
New Tech: "Thanks!"
Me: "Wait a sec before you talk to him again... why didn't you just google that?"
New Tech: "I did. I didn't find anything."
Me: "Well, what did you google? Because I googled
That's sometimes frustrating.
Labels: futility
Friday, August 10, 2007
Why we start with the basics
I don't think I've posted this story before, but it's a great example of why it pays for tech support to ask customers basic questions about the problems they're having (or, as this case will show, even more basic questions).
A man called in to report a problem with his mother's internet connection. She was experiencing packet loss, causing sporadic connection issues and disconnections. The man was obviously familiar with DSL infrastructure, as he'd gone above and beyond the troubleshooting I'd expect from a customer, and based on the information he was describing, he correctly diagnosed that the problem was likely with a bit of Bell equipment serving the DSL service onto his mother's line.
Me: "Well, let's log some of this in your mother's account. What's her phone number?"
Caller: "555-555-1234."
Me: "Hmm, I don't seem to have anything under that number. Let's try her username."
Caller: "It's 'example'."
Me: "Still nothing under that. What's her last name?"
Caller: "Her last name is Smith."
Me: "Well, there are a few Smiths, but none in the area you're calling from." At this point I had a thought. "What's her email address?"
Caller: "It's... oh geez, you know what? She's not even with you guys! You're my internet provider, so I just automatically called you up, but she's got service with someone else entirely. I'm really sorry."
Me: "No problem!"
The guy was nice, knowledgeable, and polite, a trifecta of qualities that I love to have in callers, but he'd waited about 10 minutes in our queue and then spent 4 minutes describing a complicated problem to me, only to realize that he wasn't talking to the right people at all.
There's a lesson that can be taken away from this, besides the obvious one (make sure you're calling the right company!). It's often best to have a one-sentence summary of the problem ready. Tell the agent what's wrong in concise fashion. For example, "I'm having trouble sending email but not receiving" or "when I try to connect, I get an error saying my password is wrong" is good: it gives me an idea of what's wrong, and if there's an outage or network problem, I immediately have a really good guess whether or not your problem is related. "My internet isn't working" and other similarly vague statements are bad, as is spending tons of time describing your problem before the agent has figured out who you are.
Sometimes the problem isn't very clear, and sometimes the user might not have enough knowledge to describe the problem in a succinct way. That's alright: giving it your best guess is usually fine. And hey, it might save you some time.
A man called in to report a problem with his mother's internet connection. She was experiencing packet loss, causing sporadic connection issues and disconnections. The man was obviously familiar with DSL infrastructure, as he'd gone above and beyond the troubleshooting I'd expect from a customer, and based on the information he was describing, he correctly diagnosed that the problem was likely with a bit of Bell equipment serving the DSL service onto his mother's line.
Me: "Well, let's log some of this in your mother's account. What's her phone number?"
Caller: "555-555-1234."
Me: "Hmm, I don't seem to have anything under that number. Let's try her username."
Caller: "It's 'example'."
Me: "Still nothing under that. What's her last name?"
Caller: "Her last name is Smith."
Me: "Well, there are a few Smiths, but none in the area you're calling from." At this point I had a thought. "What's her email address?"
Caller: "It's... oh geez, you know what? She's not even with you guys! You're my internet provider, so I just automatically called you up, but she's got service with someone else entirely. I'm really sorry."
Me: "No problem!"
The guy was nice, knowledgeable, and polite, a trifecta of qualities that I love to have in callers, but he'd waited about 10 minutes in our queue and then spent 4 minutes describing a complicated problem to me, only to realize that he wasn't talking to the right people at all.
There's a lesson that can be taken away from this, besides the obvious one (make sure you're calling the right company!). It's often best to have a one-sentence summary of the problem ready. Tell the agent what's wrong in concise fashion. For example, "I'm having trouble sending email but not receiving" or "when I try to connect, I get an error saying my password is wrong" is good: it gives me an idea of what's wrong, and if there's an outage or network problem, I immediately have a really good guess whether or not your problem is related. "My internet isn't working" and other similarly vague statements are bad, as is spending tons of time describing your problem before the agent has figured out who you are.
Sometimes the problem isn't very clear, and sometimes the user might not have enough knowledge to describe the problem in a succinct way. That's alright: giving it your best guess is usually fine. And hey, it might save you some time.
Labels: backtobasics, whoops
