Who Designed This Crap? Tech Support, Need I Say More?

[sweetpants]

The biggest gripe I have about my stupid cable is that they throttle my connection. Cableone being the only choice around at the time I eagerly jumped on the bandwagon. Now... it's horrendously slow (due to the throttling which by the agreement I signed states I can not download more than 600MB of information or upload more than 300MB of information in a month)...

 

[maelstrom80]

I have two experiences to share and some advice when you do have to deal with cutomer service.

First story was years ago with a video card that i got from 3dFX. I had a problem with a v3000 if i remember correctly. I sent in the card after the trouble shooting didn't work correctly and they said they would test it and send a new card.

Now in the time that they had the card (about a month) i moved. i forgot to tell them and when they shipped out the replacement card the package got rejected. i called up to ask where the card was and realized my mistake, but since they said the package was sent back they would ship it to my new address.

Now i waited another few weeks and still recieved no new video card. So i call them back up and ask what happened. I turns out that they shipped it to the old address another two times. On the third time someone signed for it, although not in my name. 3dFX tells me that there is nothing they can do now and that i will have to call the shiping company.

I wasn't too happy, but relized that this was partialy my fault. I asked the customer service person to look up my last chat, where i had given the new shipping information. They looked it up and saw that i had indeed given the new info but the last person i had spoken with had put it as a note instead of the shipping address. Even still they said they could not help me.

Now this made me upset since this time it wasnt my fault. So I sent a letter into the shipping department and to the VP of 3dFX. I got two letters back within a few days saying that they were very sorry and would take care of the problem.

The next day i get two boxes overnighted. One contained a special v3500 that had handpicked ram that wasnt offered on the standard card. A card from the "lab" i was told in a letter. The next box was from the VP and had a V5500 their newest video card. I was exstatic. It took a long time but they came through in the end.

Funny thing is that a few weeks later I get a phone call from the people that moved into my old place. They said they had been away, but had recieved three packages for me and hadnt had a chance to call. I go over and pick them up and it turns out to be the 3 new v3000 that had been shipped to the wrong address. Turns out that all three had been delivered, and the system just showed them as being returned.

After seeing this company operate so smoothly, it was no surprise when they went out of business a week or two later.





Second story was with a Dell laptop. The button that senses when the screen is closed and shuts down the LCD was sticking. This problem grew worse and worse over time to the point that the computer was unusable.

I build my own computers and am generally pretty handy so i decided to see if i could fix it. I took off the plastic cover, which took all of 2 seconds, and saw that the switch was actually part of an electronics board that plugged into the LCD, motherboard and other parts. This i didnt want to play around with.

So i called up the tech support. The person I spoke with started going through the procedures. Try restarting, what bios are you using, are you using Windows...... I tried to tell her that it was a physical problem and i could actually see the piece in question getting stuck. This information just bounced right off her. Every time I tell her it is a HARDWARE problem she comes up with something new to try, like Ctrl-Alt-Del. This goes on for an hour.

Finally she pulls up the diagram of parts. I tell her it is NOT the plastic cover and that it is actually the PCB board. This was just to much for her. It took 30 minutes of me describing all the buttons and cables plugging into the board for her to finally understand.

Eventually she says that she has it and will ship it out for me to replace. I say hold on, I am not comfortable replacing that part and I would like a tech to come out(i have in-home repair policy). She tells me that it is a user replacable part. I tell her that I dont think it is and that she must have pulled up the wrong part. She tells me I am wrong and that there will be a charge for a tech to install it. After another 30 minutes of trying to clarify what part it is, I give up knowing that she is sending the wrong part. She does send out a tech however, saying that it will be free this time as a curtousey.

The tech shows up a few days later after the part arrives. He opens the computer and tells me that they sent him the wrong part within 5 minutes. I told him that i already knew that. He shares my pain saying that a lot of the customer service people there are not to bright. Anyways he ordered the part and got it in a week and took care of the problem.



I have learned the best way to deal with customer service is to roll the dice. When you get a rep that is a real idiot, hang up, call back and hope you get someone better. That seems to be the best way. I rather wait on hold for an hour than spend 2 hours beating my head against a wall trying to explain something to someone who has an IQ smaller than their shoe size.

If this upsets any Customer servoce people out there, realize this: You are problably the smart ones that I hope to get. The idiots probably dont know how to use the internet.

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

If this upsets any Customer servoce people out there, realize this: You are problably the smart ones that I hope to get. The idiots probably dont know how to use the internet.

No doubt. My friend who is an AOL Tech said his training class spent a full day learning the ins-and-outs of Aol Instant Messanger........ eeks.

How does that dilbert cartoon go?

Dogbert at Techsupport:
Customer: My computer screen is hard to read. Its blurry
Dogbert: You need glasses.
Customer: But when I look at my couch, it looks fine! Your wrong.
Dogbert: I dont know, thats not my problem. Im transfering you to Couch Tech.

 

[dancnpete]

I think everyone here can agree on one thing give tech support to someone who knows nothing is completely different from giving support to someone who knows something. I think since we are being forced to sit through long wait times companies should use that time wisely and quiz their customers on thier tech savvy, this would do two things. One give us something to do other than listen to the extrodinarily low volume music. Two it would let the tech support know something about who they are talking to. I think overall this would shorten tech calls.

 

[sezyboy]

Having worked for several large companies which some of you guys are talking about right now and several ISPs, here is a little tid bit from me.

The techies that i worked with whom i had fond memories where techies that handled on site service. The ones i didnt like tend to be on the call centres. The thing we(call + onsite) have in common usually is the length of the training. Never more than a couple days (and not very constructive). I started out with an enthusiast experience but managed to learn a lot from the other senior on siters. 9 years later i have some horror stories.

Here is one to wet the palette:

Working at a major ISP as a onsite techie and i received a call one day during my most busiest days that there is a bad situation with a customer and they want me to go check it out. Something to do with a previous onsiter NIC install. So i go in and the customer who is basically at freaking point shows me the situation. The techie basically dismantled his whole computer and motherboard and was lying on the kitchen table. I unfortunately had to call back to the main centre and tell them i dont have time for this and if they really wanted me to fix this, somebody has to take the rest of my calls. That was not going to happen, so the customer rep on the phone told the customer that they would get back to him...horrid aint it?
There are tons of similiar horror stories and i spent a lot of time over the years tracking down punters/formatters/etc and after fixing all their stupid problems I get downsized all the time(and the punters/formatters etc keep their jobs). As i learned the hard way that most companies (that i worked for) dont want to solve the problem, they want volume problem solving (err volume pissed off customers imho).

*Note it looks really bad on my record when i get sent all those lovely calls where the responsibility of the hardware/software/etc failure is the companies fault and they want me to go there and tell them that it is otherwise. So i dispense "responsibility".

Then again there are customers all the time that make a techie's life absolutely hell. Examples:
!) A customer complained that the ISP gave him a virus and that we as the ISP should be responsible. Went there cleaned the virus and told him otherwise. The customer managed to convince the manager that I should write a letter explaining why we shouldnt be responsible when he the customer is paying for the internet highway.
2) Network 5 computers at a customers's home, get there and he has the equipment open everywhere. This is first gen wireless and mixing different manufacters will cause a problem. Told him this earlier, wont believe me and freaks out after there are connectivity issues.
The list goes on.......
Ah i should stop my rant.

 

[CMH]

Rofl.

This is one of the main reasons why I'm always nice to the guy on the other side of tech support. I might know something, but they've gotta make sure that I know what I claim to know, cos there's a ton of people out there going "I know this is stuffed" but turns out it isn't so.

Give them tech support people a break. I believe its alot faster to just restart that comp than to argue that you've already done it a million times.

I've sat through a million "please type p-i-n-g-space-<random numbers>". I've already given up telling them to just tell me "ping <random numbers>". They still spell it out for me. Heck, I have even given up telling them I know those numbers by heart. I've even had a tech which spelled out www.google.com for me.

I'm just glad I'll never be in the tech support business, but the sad thing is I'm gonna be in another problem solving business.... I do expect to see the same problems here, cept that I've got a much longer average "caller" time 😀

 

[ikjadoon]

This is a follow up to my first post. Well, somehow and some way the phone came in early! It came in yesterday! I'm jumping up and down! But, let me tell you. THE F*CKING PAIN DOES NOT STOP. I open it and I find that the joystick is acting extremely weird and will not do what I want it to. Secondly, the UP volume button is jammed, meaning I have no sound as I turned it down without realizing that the UP buttom was jammed. Thirdly, it has some of the same problem. I have bars, which makes me happy, but I still have this thing that, instead of saying Cingular, it says "Emergency Calls Only" and I cannot make any calls.

If you see a man on the 6 O'clock news who was found to have committed suicide in Richmond, Kentucky: It's me.

lol, I'm just kidding, really. I don't need help. At least I don't think I do. It doesn't matter, I'm letting all HELL LOOSE ON THAT POOR REPRESENTATIVE! THEY'D BETTER SAY THEIR PRAYERS!

~Ibrahim~

 

[unstable]

maelstrom80,

I had a similar situation with one of my end-users Dell laptops. It was a brand new machine with a defective keyboard.

For some reason, some of the keys stuck. I was able to remove a few of the keys and reseat them to fix the problem...but I wasn't as lucky with all of them.

I called Dell and explained that I would like a new keyboard for this system because the keys are jamming. The lady on the other end of the phone wanted to know what operating system I was running. I told her "Windows XP...but it really doesn't have anything to do with the problem". I tried to explain the keys were jamming, there was a physical problem with the keyboard itself.

This went back and forth for a good 10-15 minutes until she finally understood what I was saying. I honestly cannot fathom how I could have been any clearer in explaining that the brand-new keyboard had keys that were sticking and binding in the down position.

End-result was a new keyboard being shipped out and installed by me the next day...problems solved.

 

[ikjadoon]

I call, and they tell me to run a firmware update. Yeah, like that is going to help. I did, same effect. I call back, and now they are accussing me of water damage. Hey, it happened when I got the damn phone! I tried looking at the liquid intrusion detector, but I can't get a good look. I'm taking it over to Cingular to have them check it out and for a new SIM.

~Ibrahim~

 

[Tommon]

To reiterate, I do NOT call up tech support and tell them how great I am. When I call tech support it falls into one of the following two categories:

A) I already have spent time troubleshooting the issue. I may have already even replaced the faulty parts (i.e. hard disk, video card) so I am reasonably confident that I know what needs done to fix the issue.

In an "A" scenario, I find it frustrating when a technician doesn't have any faith in me. He doesn't want to talk "tech-to-tech". He would much rather waste my time and HIS walking through troubleshooting screens.

As I stated before, there are not usually any 'troubleshooting screens'. Also, most hardware warranties I have dealt with (Dell) require troubleshooting via phone/chat/email etc, before dispatching parts.

Read your contract!!

This is why I pointed you towards Warranty Parts Direct, specifically for any Dell issues you may be having. Otherwise, you will more often than not be required to t/shoot with a tech before parts are issued. It has nothing to do with whether you know alot or not. It his his/her job to follow a process. Dont like the process? You have an option, pay to get certified as a tech, and order parts without t/shooting with the tech.

You remind me of many techs I would work with who would sigh, groan, and pitch a fit because I wanted to t/shoot. Nine times out of ten, we resolved it without a required dispatch. Why you ask? Because I knew something the customer didnt, and was able to get the issue resolved. More often than not the part isnt faulty, it just wasnt properly maintained by the customer.

In contrast, I often gets techs who are pretty cool, where I can say "I've done X, Y, Z and I need a new ____________". They'll usually agree and dispatch a part.

There are some techs that will just cave from the beginning. I knew several, it was usually because they either didnt care, or was in a rush to get through calls. It does you a great dis-service to approach troubleshooting this way. More often than not it will require a 2nd dispatch for the correct parts, or wont resolve anything because of outdated firmware/drivers.

In conclusion I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a technician to ADAPT to the customer. I understand they deal with all sorts of people with different experience levels. I feel that efficiency can be realized by working WITH someone who has experience rather than treating them like Joe Average who knows jack shit about computers.

Not gonna happen. Not as long as companies have bottom lines, and continually find that most of the parts returned by customers are not faulty. If I have built up a repore with a customer, I would be more inclined to take his word without troubleshooting. However this would also get me in trouble if they (Mgmt) audited the call. It is my job to troubleshoot. It is your responsibility to t/shoot on every call, and likely required by the contract you have.

Like it or not, it is the nature of the business.

 

[Tommon]

The biggest gripe I have about my stupid cable is that they throttle my connection. Cableone being the only choice around at the time I eagerly jumped on the bandwagon. Now... it's horrendously slow (due to the throttling which by the agreement I signed states I can not download more than 600MB of information or upload more than 300MB of information in a month)...

Now that sucks. They (Time Warner Cable) throttled my internet at the modem, but it was capped at like 2MB down, 256kb up, no limit on size. They did on occasion cap the modem lower if it appeared I was using alot of bandwidth, but it didnt happen often.

 

[killernotebooks]

I have one on the flip side though.

I had a system that the user was having a problem with. I received this system today to trouble shoot.

There were
6 different web browsers - 2 of which were BETA software.
Opera 9 BETA
Explorer 7 BETA 2
Netscape
AOL Browser
FireFox (I almost want to say this was a BETA too)
and I.E. 6

3 different fax programs
WinFax and 2 others I have never heard of - All running in the system tray at startup.

Windows Defender
Yahoo Anti-Spyware or anti-virus one of the two
Symantec Anti-V
Some other Anti-V that did a sub dive alarm at system start up
Ad Aware
at LEAST 4 more anti V, spyware, malware blockers removers etc.

NO LESS THAN 4 toolsbars on any browser you open, Yahoo, AOL, Google and some other one.

MULTIPLE windows washer, cover your tracks cleaning programs

All sorts of Google Desktop, Google updater, Google this and that all trying to run at startup.

There literally had to be 25 programs in the system tray most of them fighting each other to do the same job at start up.

The PROGRAMS menu was 3 colums wide on a 1680 x 1050 monitor!

In the end you know what was wrong with the actual machine... nothing.

Kids... finally, when you send your machine in for warranty work, for Pete sakes put the freaking GAY PORN on an external drive or something!

 

[CMH]

Rofl. I can't imagine the startup time on that machine!

I'm already groaning on my 30 sec startup time, thus guy must have had 5 min (or is it closer to 50?) startup time there.

I troubleshot a PII for a friend just last week. I got so frustrated with the 5 minute startup time that after 2 days of doing nothing, I just ripped the CPU out, and said it was malfunctioning, and directed him to a cheap P4 instead.

Imagine: 15 minutes to access a USB drive. This was after I closed a significant portion of background running programs, and cleared any bugs/malware. I still believe I'm doing my friend a favor.


p.s. I assure you he can afford a cheap P4.

 

[killernotebooks]

Yea, this is a Core Duo T2500 2.0 Ghz CPU, 7900 GTX w/ 256 Mb, 2 Gigs DDR2-533 low latency memory and there was so much crap the machine it could run PCMark'05 and return horrible numbers, it actually crashed 3DMark'05 and that isn't THAT incredibly tough of a program on the GPU normally.

The first thing when you get a system shut down when running benchmarks as any cagey veteran overclocker knows is that you probably have a power supply problem. In a desktop you more than likely have the imfamous cheap-o weenie hutt junior 420 watt (rated) P.S. from Ho Chi Mihn and the GPU is just saying, "I can't do it w/o power captain." That wasn't it in this case.

There was some driver hiding out in one of these programs conflicting with another anti-something like two bitches. Needless to say, I got out the axe and started hacking away and got the thing back on its feet.

I can almost guaranty that the reason that we have so many programs like this: toolbars, anti-virus/spyware/malware, window washer programs etc on this system is the desire for freee porn.

These sites are notorious for installing all sorts of junk you don't need/want and that degrades the performance of your system. The moral of the story... Please keep America strong and pay for porn. We need the investment into this one thing we are still leaders in.

 

[killernotebooks]

Happy to review K/N's notebook. Send me email K/N at *****@tgpublishing.com

I repeat K/N let's see the notebook. We'll review it. It sounds like a screamer, so let's get going here.

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[sigh] What was this article about originally?

 

[ikjadoon]

All right. I think I can finalize my on going problem with Sony Ericsson.

I sent the phone again in at about 12:00 PM. And guess what? I got a brand new phone at 8:00PM later that day.

WITH ALL THE PROBLEMS FIXED!!!

Sorry for the large font, but they have finally have listened! I've battled these problems for over 5 months, and I have gotten a FREE phone upgrade, an upgrade worth over $300. BRAVO, SONY, BRAVO! I am having a few reception problems, but that is Cingular's fault, not Sony Ericsson.

The first phone took 2 1/2 months to come in, the next around 2 month, the next within 2 weeks, and this last one WITHIN 8 HOURS. Damn, that is fast. I'm done.

~Ibrahim~

 

[killernotebooks]

Don't even get me started on CELL Phones and services.

If these guys put one one hundreth of the effort into making their service decent as they do to enforce contracts for "phone service" which DOESN'T have service I would be happy!

 

[ikjadoon]

Well, that is more of a Service Provider thing than a phone manufacturer. I was having some build quality issues, to put it lightly, on my Sony Ericsson phone(s).

I've been checking out your site, BTW. Amazing laptops, I now finally have a gaming laptop manufacturer that I could really recommend, over expensive Alienware. I just might get one, looking at those prices, but I still need to clear the cob webs off my account, lol.

~Ibrahim~

 

[killernotebooks]

Sounds good.

I am going to have some real benchmarks PCMark'05, 3DMark'05&'06 and some superPi numbers for the Executioner with the 64 bit T7400 Core 2 Duo. My initial tests are very positive.

And of course since I am like all overclockers, glutten for punishment, I have to go Vista Aero Ultimate BETA 2 64 bit.

 

[ikjadoon]

They are looking mighty fine; "real" benchmarks? I can't wait! 😀

I think you guys are close to becoming the Overdrive PC of laptops, minus the overclocking; which is a good thing, trust me: I want to have kids.

~Ibrahim~