…no, wait while I check my resume…Okay, I’ve been doing customer service off and on for 40-some years, even for products I don’t believe in.
Oldest has a friend who does Level 1 customer service for the manufacturer of phones and tablets that don’t use Android. He thinks I should do it when I get out of this dump. Work from home; make my own hours; make more money than I did working in a call center like a schmuck. I could stand that, but other than setting up Wife’s tablet I haven’t had experience with their products since the 8- and 16-bit days.
Daughter already mentioned this to her friend and her take was, “What is the basic trouble-shooting procedure for any electronic product?”
“I’m Level 1? I ask if it’s plugged in. If the customer says yes, I ask him to check if it’s really plugged in, making comforting noises about plugs and electricity, all implying he’s not brain damaged, though he probably is. That solves most problems.”
“And if it still doesn’t work?”
“I escalate the call to somebody who’s paid to know more than I.”
“There you go. You can do this job.”
She’s right, you know. I can and have done it in my sleep, and it’s a chance to test everybody else’s contention that I’m easy to talk to. Especially women, since I’m a manly man who’s convinced that only women buy this brand.
Depending on the product that can be Level 1, though with modern tablets and phones it requires Level 3 or better to accomplish. People laugh at my burner flip phone, but I tried to fix Middle’s Android phone and nearly threw it out a window before saying, “It’s fucked up. Buy a new one.” The manufacturer said call Android and their customer service doesn’t extend beyond Level 2.
In the British sitcom The IT Crowd, “have you tried turning it off and on again?” is within the scope of Level 1 support. It’s also the only solution they have for any problem. And it’s also the only level of support they have.
I had to call Amazon support once when a Kindle firmware update borked my Kindle. They were very helpful but only after escalating it to Level 2 who called me back later. The problem turned out to be fairly straightforward for anyone who had any knowledge at all of the update process, which makes me wonder what on earth their Level 1 is good for. The fix could have been handled by anyone who could follow a flowchart, including most customers themselves.
Hello. Hi? Are you there? Hello. My computer’s cup-holder isn’t working any more. My old desktop used to have this really convenient cup-holder, but now when I push the cup-holder button it just makes this funny grinding noise.
Asked Middle to get her mom’s old tablet out of mothballs so I can bone up on it. And root it since I have no idea its password and don’t need any old files cuz she used it for nothing but YouTube, Candy Crush, and window shopping for horses. Plus I really [del]don’t[/del] need another tablet because I have only two within reach, a generic RCA from Walmart and a Kindle Fire because the kids couldn’t find the RCA which was exactly where I said it was, and the Fire barely qualifies. Plus it makes me look more like a company man than saying, “Yeah, I have a Your Brand IIc set up in my basement.”
Yesterday my TV/DVD combo (this is what is in my “office”) had a weird issue. On certain channels I would get a blank screen and then the unit would reboot. It would continue (it would turn on, show a blank screen, then turn off an on again)
There was a limited time after it turned on to change the channel. On some channels everything was hunky dory. I did try unplugging it for ~15 min.
All the channels that worked were x.1, but one x.1 channel did not. (OTA)
This morning I figured I would try a channel scan. This solved my problem. Not sure why I didn’t think of it yesterday.
I was once recruited to sing in a strolling carolers group one winter. I was driving one of the ladies to a gig one evening, and she mentioned that her primary income came from being a sexy talker for a 1-900-type phone service. According to her, she worked from home AND set her own hours.
I’ve had jobs which allowed that within limits. We had to be available within a certain timeframe (“meetings hours”), and we were expected to have the computer switched on 40h a week (but so long as your response time was adequate, nobody cared if you were sitting at it or doing laundry; also note that it is possible to have Bright Ideas in the middle of laundry), but some people worked 0500-1500 with two 1h breaks (to take the kid to school and for lunch) and some 1100-1900 with no breaks, no problem.
I’d love to see what she puts down on her income tax return and other formal documents that request the filer’s occupation. “Occupation: Sexy talker” would certainly be … unique. I suppose I could put down my own occupation now that I’m retired as “talker, although not really very sexy at all, to be perfectly honest”.
I’ve known a guy who owned a “sexy talk” company. The employees were mostly middle-aged women, and maybe half of them were working from home. They had fixed hours, though.
The market having become saturated, he decided to diversify and one day half the employees switched overnight from being hot women in their early 20s with a huge sex drive to being wise and experienced tarot-readers and astrologers. They adapted well. I guess they could have been level 1 IT people too. It requires less imagination.
It’s also the only solution they have for any problem. And it’s also the only level of support they have.