I Pit people who call in for TV tech support

The BBQ Pit
1

I do phone tech support for a major satellite TV provider. Before you hate me, I’m one of the good ones. I know my job backwards and forwards, I can install and troubleshoot every piece of equipment my company sells, uses, or installs, and I am (more or less) patient.

This is to those who call me for simple issues that most people already know how to fix, like putting the TV on the right channel/input, putting the remote in the right mode, etc…

It’s an open letter::

Look, callers, you already are less knowledgeable than most customers, if you’re calling in with this simple issue. Don’t get angry with me because you can’t even competently use the TV you bought, or the one your kids foolishly bought your elderly self. Approach me with humility, because I can fix in 10 seconds, blindfolded, what will take me 5 minutes to talk you though. Listen to what I say, I don’t like repeating myself. Let me ask the questions, unless I seem stumped, because I already know what to ask, 99.9% of the time. If you let me control the call, we’ll get your issue fixed a LOT faster.

If you’re irritable because you’re in pain from recent surgery, etc., don’t try to take that out on me. Keep your mouth shut and do what I ask you to, without bitching. Why? Because your bitching just keeps you on the phone longer, instead of on the couch/bed in a less painful position.

And finally, recognize that I don’t get paid enough to put up with your extraneous anger/frustration. I didn’t tell you to unhook your equipment and move it across the room, or to buy a TV you can’t figure out how to use, or unhook all the wires on the back of your TV while hooking up a DVD player, etc., etc… I’m here to fix your problem, and I can do it pretty fast if you’ll shut the fuck up and do what I ask.

Also, quit asking for a tech to come to your home. I am the one who is competent to decide when a tech visit is necessary, not you. Usually I can get your issue fixed WITHOUT a tech visit. That’s good for you too, because you’ll get your TV working again sooner than waiting until the next day/week. Also, it costs the company around $100 to send you a tech, so recognize that you have NO right to get angry about not getting a tech visit setup immediately for something YOU caused, and that I can help you fix in 5 or 10 minutes over the phone.

I’m the pro, don’t argue. I do this 40 hours a week, for years on end, and you NEVER know more than me, EVER. If you did, you wouldn’t have to call.

Assholes.

2

God, I always hated that shit! “I’m in pain, so I don’t have to be a reasonable, competent Human being. I can be a totally unreasonable screaming dipshit who can’t manage to plug the jack into the wall and it will be ALL YOUR FAULT! I DEMAND TO SPEAK TO YOUR MANAGER! You obviously don’t know what you’re doing it you can’t fix my TV yourself over the phone without me touching it!”

Sound about right?

Oh so glad I don’t do customer support any longer.

But I think everyone should have to do it for at least a couple of months in their life just to have that experience in their headspace.

3

At least since the TV doesn’t work you don’t have to say “Ma’am, if you turned down The Price Is Right, you might be able to hear me better.” Can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to say that, and it’s always The Price Is Right. If you’re going to say “What?” after every sentence, why do you still have the TV turned up to 11?

Also, I’m sure you’re not allowed to do it, but I have a rule. You only get to swear at me once at which point I’ll say “Sir, if you swear at me again, I’m going to hang up”. Then a minute later it’s “I don’t give a fu[click]” Seriously, you got some bad strawberries. I told you that you can bring them back three times already. Why are you still swearing at me. Hell, why are you that worked up over it?

4

Yeah, I had a call last week that came close to getting me fired. The customer had just had surgery for a rampant jaw infection, and she was in MAJOR pain. It literally hurt her just to talk, and, since she let her cell phone run out of charge, she was having to go up and down stairs in her house every time I asked her a question about what she saw on her TV screen.

The QA agent gave me a failing score for the call, because I said “really…really…,REALLY?!!” after the customer hung up. My supervisor listened to the call, though, and basically said he thought I hadn’t done anything wrong. His words were “she was such a BITCH!!”

Incidentally, I would pit QA people in call centers, but they’re incapable of doing a better job, IMO. They just suck, 80% of the time, and there’s just no fixing it. There’s no point in pitting them.

5

See, I find it’s often Fox News.

Back when I used to install Uverse, at every old person’s house that I installed, I would rush superfast to get the first TV working, and immediately turn it to Fox News, to keep them out of my hair. It’s like cartoons for the elderly. Keeps them occupied. It’s soothing for them, I think.

ROFL

For young people I would rush to get the internet working. Same reason.:smiley:

I know my customers, what can i say?

6

You have some good points, and personally when I call a tech support I do exactly what you have laid out, but there are a couple asshole moves you just brought up.

Amazing, so you are a magical doctor now that can judge if they can lift, bend, climb, lay down and get back up, assest arthritic conditions of fingers, hell I guess you can do any of that, you are the competent one.

oh yeah…

You damn well do get paid enough. I do not care what it is, it’s still a damn job. If you think you can get better pay somewhere else then go…if not, then deal with it.

7

Don’t call the Butterball hotline if you’re too ill to open the oven door.

8

If you can’t physically do something, or are just having trouble, TELL me. Don’t just get angry, or think I’m an awful person. Often there’s a workaround. However, since I really am the expert, it’s best just to tell me what you are having trouble with, or can’t do, and then let me figure a workaround.

The point is to start the conversation about what you’re able to do. If there’s no dialogue, there’s no exchange of information, and we’re not fixing your issue.
As far as a better-paying job, I’m actively looking, and when I get one that seems better, I’m out of there.

And that’s the fault of the same goddamn ignorant jerky people who call in and make my day extra long and frustrating. Why? Because their pension plans own the stock, or they directly own the stock, and the stockholders’ demands for profit keep wages down.

In addition, their TV ignorance keeps them calling in all the time, which costs the company more money, which ALSO keeps wages down.

And they’re screwed TOO, because competent people like ME who can actually fix their problems without a lot of BS tend to leave. The ones who are left are the ones who can’t find anything else.

So yeah, there’s that. :stuck_out_tongue:

9

I’m an Old People, and I wish there was a way for a tech to say "Okay, let’s start with some ground rules: I’m the expert, I’m going to guide you through this and it’s going to get done quickly IF you don’t interrupt or second-guess me.
“Now, are you okay with that?”
"But my son-in-law was wiring…"
“What did I just say?”
"See, I was trying to get the Dick Va…"
“Uh, uh, uh, remember the rules?”
"Okay, I’m shutting up."
“Great! Now, find the cable that says ‘Plug Me Into The Yellow Hole’…”

Unfortunately, I’m not sure there’s a way that doesn’t sound rude. Maybe a recording as they hold for a tech…

10

Yeah, I get a similar rant from people in the ER

11

That’s where you seriously want to go: “And why the bloody blue fuck did you HAVE to call us right now? You couldn’t wait until your phone was properly charged so that you didn’t have to play this stupid game? Are you a complete fucking masochistic moron? Did your jaw infection seep into your brain? PLEASE dear god, for the love of all that is holy, hang up and call back when your phone is charged and you’re not in so much pain. M’kay?”

But no, they don’t let you do such things.

And oh yeah, QA people. We had some fairly good ones, but as I’ve said in previous threads, our management was fixated on ignoring people with real knowledge, experience and skill and promoting only new people who came in, put up a couple of months of good numbers and hadn’t yet had their good attitude snuffed out by bad management. So we’d have people with three months of Level 1 experience trying to QA calls involving Level 2 people about issues the QA people had never dealt with. Yeah, that works ever so well. Especially when the Level 2 people had a lot more leeway about how they could handle customers and the QA people didn’t grasp that.
“Um, you can’t tell them you’re going to hang up on them because they won’t do X”
Sure I can, it’s right here in this article.
“I’m pretty sure you can’t do that, so I’m still going to mark you down for it.”
Look son, I’ve been doing this job for 2 years and I know what I can and cannot do. A Level 1 person can’t do that, but it says right here in the Level 2 guidelines that we can. So eat it. You mark me down for it and I’ll just go talk to your boss and he’ll change it and then talk to you about it.

12

3 years working in a TV call centre while at college, most of it spent as a “Manager.” For “Manager” read “The person who the calls get escalated to so the real managers don’t have to get their hands dirty.” I had a bigger credit limit, and was allowed to be a bit more creative to sort customer problems.

I was a bit more permissive when it came to language. If you are the sort of person that drops a casual F-bomb into conversation, without it being directed at me, then I’m going to ignore it. Start swearing at me and you get warned once, then the second time is a “fu[click]” I made it clear to all my team that I would back them to the hilt if they dumped a caller for swearing - they were not paid to take that.

If you are complaining to me about your TV being cut off, be nice and I’ll try to sort something out. If you’ve not paid your bill for three months, and you see TV as a right and not a luxury, then your loud complaints will not get you far. I’m at the other end of the phone watching Star Trek on our TV screens while you get it out of your system.

On the whole, the customers for the adult stations were a more pleasant bunch…

13

What I find annoying is the tech support people who think they know better and insist on telling you things anyone moderately intelligent could have worked out or done on their own. Or the ones who insist on “controlling” the call when if they just shut up for second we could take a huge short cut to me explaining the problem properly. OK, so some dumb people call. I don’t care; learn to the tell the difference between me and those people.

By the way, I often find when it get dumb questions it helps to remember that it’s these dumb people that keep me in employment.

14

‘need answer fast,’ or ‘I need someone to fix my cable’?

15

They never usually complained. The majority of calls were from new subscribers who were wanting turned on.* We rarely got any wierdos. Sock Man** never usually phoned us.
*nudge nudge… :smiley:
**it’s late. I may post in the morning.

16

I bet so.

Suddenly I feel silly for complaining about people who are raging at me because of their pain. ROFL

17

I have no problem with the smart people. It’s the

  1. ones who think they know what the problem is, but are wrong, or

  2. are stupid, know it, but STILL aren’t humble about it

that are the most annoying.

And I do my best to remember that it’s the dummies of the world who create my job, by being dumb.

18

I think we all know exactly how you feel.

19

I don’t know what company the OP works for, but I have Dish, and they have a very nice automated menu at the beginning of the call which I figure solves most of the problems. It has changed over the years - now the first thing they recommend is rebooting the receiver, which solves the problem 90% of the time.
You can quit at any time, and when you do I’ve always gotten a person who actually believes that I know what I am doing when I explain the problem, and who doesn’t read from a script. (If she does, it is an excellent script.) My problems have always been defective hardware, but Dish call center people are awesome.

As for old people, I help my 96 year old father in law with his computer from across the country. I’ve noticed that while his is in great shape mentally he has a harder time holding instructions in his head, and asking him what he sees on the screen is sure to make me lose half my hair. I can imagine the frustration for some random old person. But they aren’t trying to be stupid.

About the only solution I can see is giving customers an IQ test before you sell them service.

20

I hereby pit Sock Man

Sock Man was a nuisance caller that we would regularly get in the TV call centre. You would be presented with a call, and after you had got out your standard greeting, he would ask…

“what colour socks are you wearing?”

And if you were really lucky he would ask:

“Do your feet smell?”

All in a sort of creepy, raspy voice. Now we had caller display, so we knew where he was calling from, mainly payphones in a major city centre in England. (On genuine calls, the caller display was connected to the computers, so as soon as you called I would have your account on screen.) Sock Man phoned us regularly for a couple of years, and you could always tell when an operator had an encounter by their distinct WTF expression.

And then Sock Man stopped phoning us. We don’t exactly know why, and we can’t guarantee it was the same person, but we saw an article in a paper that told of a man arrested for stealing items from washing lines. When the police found him, his house was crammed with stolen socks. And our criminal came from the same town as Sock Man. Coincidence? Possibly.

So, Sock Man, I hereby pit thee, for being a failure as a pervert.

But just for old times sake, Marks and Spencer, black, size 11. Freshly laundered.