Diagnosing is the nurse’s job, as it is the tech support agent’s job. Explaining the problem is the customer’s (in your case the patient’s) job. It’s not difficult.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a problem with tech support and, frankly, there doesn’t seem to be much to it. Here are just some of my basic tips:
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Expect the level of tech support you pay for. You saved $4 a month for your ADSL, whoopdedoo, where do you think that money came from? If you have a choice of different companies, do some basic research on each one first. It’s fine if you want to choose the cheaper one but at least expect lower qualities of service. Nobody complains that their Miata doesn’t go as fast as a BMW, it’s just part of the package.
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Expect to be put on hold. Seriously, it should come as a surprise to nobody that they will be put on hold, possibly for a long time. Allocate a decent amount of spare time, put the phone on speakerphone and drop the volume, then go about your daily routine until you reach a human operator. Read a book or something.
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If at all possible, do it via email. If it’s not urgent then email it. On the phone, every bit of info you tell them is going to slow down the conversation. In email, you can include a whole bunch of irrelevant crap which they can just skim over and it’s most likely going to include enough to tell them how to fix it. Go through everything you’ve tried already. Indicate that you’ve already been to their online support and followed all the steps and tell them exactly why none of it works.
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Stay calm and prepared. Have all your info in front of you. Remain cheerful and polite. Asnwer questions honestly and without evasion.
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There are subtle tells that help tell the techie that you are a power user. Using mozilla/firefox used to be a fairly decent sign. So is making sure your windows is patched and up to date. For network issues, knowing what ipconfig and netstat is as well as stuff like DHCP, ping and tracert help a lot. For hardware stuff, knowing how to tell which part of the chain is causing the problem helps (if it’s the monitor, then plugging another one in should fix it. If it’s the video card, then it won’t). Indicating that you’ve tried a particular piece of hardware in multiple machines under multiple OS’s also tells them you know what your talking about.
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Be patient. Even if the techie knows your a power user, he still doesn’t know exactly how much you know. He’s still going to err on the side of explaining things too carefully just so theres no misunderstanding. Just follow his steps and don’t complain. Usually once they’re sure you’ve done the basics, they’re only too happy to bump you up to 2nd tier.
I’ve followed all of these steps and I’ve generally had a fairly pleasant time with most tech support. I think step 1 is the one that probably helps the most though. I developed a problem with my IBM laptop and tech support was a dream. They answered within 2 rings, it took about 40 seconds for the tech guy to become convinced that it was indeed a hardware problem and I knew what I was talking about and the laptop was shipped off at 9am the next day.
Just one addition if I may.
If you google randomly for a customer’s number because you want tech support after posted tech support hours if you hold of a live person on the phone you’ve likely reached an Operations Center or an Answering Service for an Operations Center. There’s a high likelyhood your call send a page to an on-call engineer waking him from a sound sleep. Do not be surprised if he’s more than a little rude when he calls back to discover that your “email problem” is that you have forgotten your password (haven’t known it since june, but feel 3am is a perfect time to call support about it) and even more so when he discovered you are a dial-up customer calling a number reserved for dedicated lines (T1’s and the like).
Glad to hear Dell’s moved their customer support back away from India.
I had to call there a few months ago to figure out a problem at work. That took long enough, as I could barely understand what he was saying. I’m not saying, “eek, a foreign accent, I am now utterly at sea,” but “hold on - was that English or Sanskrit?”
Finally got whatever the primary problem was fixed, after he treated me like an idiot for half an hour. And I had, indeed, told him everything I had tried and exactly what the problem was. (After I told him all of this, he said “Can you find the power button?” ARGH.)
Then asked him for help involving hooking up an older printer to a newer system (ancient LaserJet4 to a brand-new Dell). After a few minutes on hold, during which I’m certain he brought all of the collected tech support experience of the Dell corporation to bear. He came back to the phone and gave me the URL for aaacables.com.
Yes. He googled “computer cable” and gave me the first result.
Then my boss didn’t believe that I knew more about his computer than the tech support guy did. “Well, we should go there and get a cable from them, then.” “But we can get this cable ANYWHERE.” “He said we needed one from that website.” “No, he GOOGLED and gave me the web address.” “So the one on that website is what we need.” “Yes.” “Then order it!” “But…”
One time I was having trouble connecting to my (former) ISPs usenet server. I called tech support, and the idiot didn’t even know what usenet was. He kept saying “maybe that website requires a password.” I patiently explained that usenet is not a website, and that while I was connected to the internet and could open all the websites I wanted, I couldn’t connect to their usenet server. Only to be rewarded with him asking “does that website require a password? Maybe you forgot it.” :rolleyes:
Heh. I do believe we worked for the same company.
misses hanging out at the Turnpike
Consciously semi-competent here. And I like techies and all…
But the OP is just complaining about the fact that he/she has to commuinicate with the public.
Human beings ramble, talk about the weather, beat around the bush, and hate admitting they’re wrong. They talk in stories rather than in lists. They come with a wide variety of skills, or lack therof. They often don’t know (or care) what is relevant to your job. They get annoyed at having to wait. Some are pleasant; some are pissed off. etc.
All of that is what ANY person who deals with the public faces. Doctors, lawyers, accountants, teachers, salespeople, etc, anyone who interacts with their clients/customers as part of the job they have. And dealing with these factors is part of the COMPETENCY of having such a job.
I’m happy to read complaints like the OP; they’re funny because they’re true.
But the real complaint should be aimed at the JOB, not the customers. It’s your JOB to deal with the public. It’s not the public’s faulth that they act like people act.
That said, I still enjoyed the post and the follow-up stories.
www.techcomedy.com is a great site for all the techies out there. Nothing but complaints about “starfish” (techcomedy inside joke)
I’m a network admin for a large financial house, and I’ve been in the industry for nearly 10 years.
Sometimes, I’m lucky enough to find a tech support agent that can help me, but usually, it’s that new guy just out of school, that can’t find his OWN power button.
If I’m calling, it’s usually because I’ve troubleshooted the heck out of my gear, and have found that the problem lies outside my control, and I’m looking to the supplier for resolution. Not listening to what I’ve done/found is only going to get me angry, and asking for a 2nd level support engineer. I am able to distinguish BS from truth about most technical things, as I’ve often given a BS answer to a (l)user that won’t listen to my honest answer.
Once in a while, I find an engineer that actually believes that I know what I’m doing, and when they start telling me what they want me to do, I usually have most of those tools already up. I’m always amazed at the time they give me to “enter the command/load the tool” even AFTER I’ve told them it’s already up. After the third or fourth thing they want loaded is “already up” sometimes it starts to sink in… unfortunately not always.
Now if my own company will just stop outsourcing the jobs to India, and hire me full time, the world would be a better place.
Interesting. I was just talking to Papa T. about tech support, and while I knew our last broadband supplier’s tech support listened to what he had to say, I didn’t realize till he told me just now that they actually had our account flagged as him being of the “truly knowledgeable customer – he knows whereof he speaks” variety. Apparently they told him that, so he wouldn’t have to waste him time with folks whom he could teach to suck eggs, to mangle an old metaphor. Which explains why he could call up and say, “I’ve got a problem that will require level 2 tech support,” and he’d be connected to level 2 without argument.
Apparently they didn’t have me flagged that way. But that’s probably a very good thing. 
Luckily I don’t have to follow scripts when I am helping users out being in-house IT support.
There are actually two types of people looking for help:
- The guy who wants his problem fixed, wants it done quickly, and wants to get on with what he is doing. All you have to do for this fellow is fix his problem and he is happy again.
- The vast majority: Yes, they want their problem fixed like guy #1, BUT they also want to tell you how much inconvenience this has caused them, they want to tell you all they’ve done to fix the problem, they want to tell you how their buddy fixed this exact same problem by doing X, they want to tell you about how their dog pissed on the carpet this morning just as they were going to be late for the bus, etc. When dealing with this type of person it isn’t enough to just solve the problem. You must take the time to listen and empathize with them because this is what they really want. Keeping them focused on the task at hand can be a delicate balancing act. You don’t want it to seem that you are brushing them off yet you have to get the job done. Most serious complaints come from people like this.
I’m kind of unnofficial tech support in my department, since I usually remember what techies did to fix a problem, and I kind of use my own algorithm to figure out to solve new problems.
But apparently I’ve been watching too much Law & Order, because I tend to grill people like a cop. It’s actually kind of funny to make them squirm.
For instance, the broker that arranges for our material to be printed called and said the header and footer bars weren’t solid. They were a bunch of lines compacted together instead. Never had that happen before. So, I found the guy who last worked ont he document and tried to get from him what he did that caused the solids to break up into lines. He kept hemming and hawing like he was in trouble and was trying to cover his ass, and kept telling me all this completely unnecessary crap to show that he wasn’t slacking off on his job. I about strangled him. JUST ANSWER MY QUESTIONS! I’M NOT TRYING TO GET YOU FIRED!
It turned out it was just a box he checked by accident that made the solids break up. Detective Knowed Out cracked the case.
I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about computers. I have A+ certification, and I have a home network of “homebrew” computers.
I have also been using the Internet since pre-WWW days, when you had to set up Winsock, e-mail, news readers, etc. from scratch.
I spent a couple of years doing tech support and computer training, and I currently teach computer science courses at a local university.
I rarely call tech support unless there is a problem I can’t fix myself. And the few times I have called, it’s only because 1) they have a piece of information I need, and I can’t get it any other way, or 2) I have tried every troubleshooting trick I know, and I’m hoping that I can get someone to give me some other things to try, or 3) I know that the thing is broken, and I need confirmation before I can return it.
For steps 2 & 3, since I don’t know the answer, and I possibly skipped something vital, I’m willing to go through a checklist with the tech support. I will even do so willingly, happily, and voluntarily, providing appropriate tech-level feedback along the way. (I do appreciate it, though, if the tech says simply “Let’s run IPCONFIG,” rather than going through all the steps to get there without explaining the goal first. In that case, I can say “I know how to do that,” and it lets the tech guy know that I really do know more than the typical user.)
For step 1, though, if I have a specific question, all I truly want is the answer to my question. And it irks me when I have to go through troubleshooting checklists when the first thing out of my mouth is “There is nothing wrong with my system/connection/whatever, I just have a quick question.” As an example, I was setting up Outlook as an e-mail client on a new cable Internet connection. The provider’s website was abysmally useless, so even though I can set up an Outlook e-mail account in my sleep, I had to call tech support to get the mail server and SMTP addresses. The conversation went something like:
Me: Hi, I’m setting up Outlook for my e-mail, and I just need to know the address of the e-mail server.
Tech: We don’t support Outlook. You have to use Outlook Express.
Me: I’m not asking anything about Outlook. I just want to know the e-mail server address so I can plug it in myself.
Tech: We don’t support Outlook. Can you please open Outlook Express?
Me: I know how to set up Outlook on my own, if you can just give me the e-mail server address.
Tech: We don’t support Outlook. If you open Outlook Express, though, I can step you through setting up e-mail in Outlook Express.
Me: <exasperated sigh>Okay, fine. {I pretend to open Outlook Express, since I know that at some point in the script, he will give me the answers to my questions.}
Tech: Go to Options, Accounts.
Me: Okay, I’m there.
Tech: Click New Account, then enter your Name in the correct box.
Me: Okay.
Tech: Enter your e-mail address.
Me: Okay, I’ve done that.
Tech: Now type in mail.internet.com.
Me: Okay.
Tech: Then type in smtp.internet.com.
Me: Okay. Thanks very much.
Tech: Wait, I haven’t finished yet.
Me: That’s okay. You just gave me the information I called to ask for. For future reference, in case someone calls in with this question, the mail server address is mail.internet.com, and the SMTP server is smtp.internet.com. You might want to write that down somewhere.
<click>
Yes, it might have been rude, but it was ruder on the tech’s part to make me have to go through all those steps when I had a very precise question, and he obviously didn’t have a clue what the answer was. I also didn’t see any need to keep the tech on the phone any longer, since there were probably more people in the queue who needed more help than I did.
For the record, I have learned a LOT about computers and troubleshooting from tech support people. I have also learned a few pat phrases that I can use to let the tech person I am talking to know that I really do have some clue about what’s going on. (“I ran IPCONFIG, but the computer isn’t getting an IP address,” for example.) Since I have and do provide tech support (without getting paid for it, usually), I have complete respect for the person on the other end of the line, as long as they listen to my questions. I don’t rant and rave about Aunt Mabel and Uncle Joe. I don’t complain about the fact that I am expected to use computers. But I have no respect for a tech who can’t understand a basic question like “What is the address of the mail server?”
My 2 stories from a summer in tech support:
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Woman that did not understand the difference between a computer and a monitor. (“Ma’am, is there a beige box with lights and cables under your desk?”)
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I got to listen in to the guy next to me take the “cupholder” call.
Kiminy,
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I don’t think you were rude, unless you used an especially snarky or agressive tone of voice
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Maybe the the tech support person was such a script monkey that he didn’t know what mail .internet.com and smtp.internet.com were – he only knew where you were supposed to enter them when configuring outlook express
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It’s really distressing how support people are programmed to panic the moment you mention the name of software they don’t support.
I called SBC/Yahoo about why I couldn’t get the iTunes Music Store to show, ever, and the first-level techs hand never heard of iTunes. When I asked one of the second-level techs, “No, seriously, what country are those guys in?”, he said, “You’re asking me to endanger my job.”
I have reached a point of sort of equanimity about both situations. I taught user-end apps to classes of clerk-drones, and learned that half the population really is below the median intelligence. I now teach high school, and the same thing applies. Should I get mad at kids because they’re not born or raised intelligent? No. Should I get mad at them because they’re short? No. Can I be Dad to 160 kids and live and die with their grades and decisions? No.
I’ve also learned not to believe anyone. If it’s important, get it confirmed from someone else. I know you think you know your job, but how do I know that? I’ve been told some huge whoppers by people who were supposed to know, and I’ve had enormous amounts of information skipped over by people who could have told me, but didn’t think to mention it because I didin’t ask, because I didn’t even know the topic existed.
Anyway, this all cuts both ways, and as someone who is given a random group to deal with and run, let me tell you that the idiots are running your life if you let them make you mad for more than 5 minutes and ruin your day. I had to let go of a punk kid yesterday myself, after I was deliberately defied and cussed at. I emailed his mom to get him back, and you know what? He’s too much of a punk to come in and fix his grade, so he’s going to flunk out at the semester. Problem and revenge solved.
Having dealt with idiot customers fixing cars, I understand the OP. (We don’t use ID 10T errors, in the auto world it’s a loose nut behind the steering wheel)
There is nobody that loves good tech support better than I, and there is no one that hates bad tech support more.
When I call for tech support I have always written down any and all error messages, rebooted the unit, and tried all the normal stuff. I find that this is a great help when dealing with TS in the aftermarket. However let me tell you about the drones they have answering the phone at my company support desk.
Oh jeez where to start? First off how about their name? At firs they were known as MIS, which due to their stellar lack of performance they got dubbed mis-information system. Then they changed the name to IS which one assumes stands for incredibly stupid. Now the are the IT department, which we end users are convinced stands for idiots playing with technology.
Let me give you some examples.
We used to have 2 first line support people 1 was superb, the other was dumber than a bag of hair. Of course my calls went to the dumb one about 75% of the time.
Me: I have a problem (describes problem in detail) I have rebooted, and done A, B, and C what’s next?
Dumb tech: OK reboot your computer
Me: So what is going to be different when I reboot this time from the last 3 times that I rebooted, while waiting on hold?
Dumb tech: Reboot please
Me: :smack:
We then proceed to go through A, B, and C by the numbers. :smack:
Compare that to when I would get the other tech on the phone
Me: I have a problem (describes problem in detail) I have rebooted, and done A, B, and C what’s next?
Smart tech: Well I guess we will have to go deeper, let’s try… or I know how to fix it, but it is 2nd level stuff, I will get them on the line.
Or a couple of other gems:
Me: Hi, I’m in an airport, and just went to boot my laptop. The computer is booting, I can tell by the sounds it makes between the hard drive, and the various beeps it makes, but the screen is black.
Dumb tech: OK, hook up your laptop to a CRT and let’s see if it works.
Me: Did you hear me say I am in an airport? I don’t know about you, but I don’t carry a 17" CRT with me when I travel. :smack:
About a year ago, we got a new central help desk for all computer calls. These people make the previous dumb tech look like Bill Freekin Gates
Me: Hi my CD drive physically broke when it ejected the last CD
Dumb tech: OK, let’s delete your cookies
Me: WTF? How is deleting cookies out of IE going to fix the little pieces of plastic that are laying on my desk?
Dumb tech: Well let’s do it anyway
Me: No let’s send me a new drive.
or my favorite:
(A little back story first) I work remote, I connect to the company LAN in person once every six months or so. The rest of the time, I use VPN. Our company for some reason does not understand that some people don’t work in a cube on the LAN so software updates are only distributed via LAN. So when I do get to the office, it sometimes takes 4 hours to do all the updates The following happened after I had visited the office gotten all the latest update (no choice in the matter, they are force fed into the box) and I was now remote again in Vancouver BC.
Me: HI I am remote and can’t log into VPN
Dumb tech: OK let’s delete your cookies
Me: I don’t think that will help, but hey I’m game (deletes cookies) I still can’t get in.
Dumb tech: OK, then your Secur-ID needs to be resynced. (we resync)
Me: I still can’t get in
Dumb tech: OK, then you need to change your password
Me: How do I do that, the password change site is behind the firewall, and I can’t get there when my VPN won’t log in
Dumb tech: Oh, it’s easy, I will e-mail you the instructions.
Me: And just what e-mail address are you going to use?
Dumb tech: Your Outlook address of course.
Me: You do realize that I can’t read my Outlook e-mail if I can’t log into the VPN
Dumb tech: oh, I didn’t think of that.
Me: Send it to my personal e-mail (gives addy)
Dumb tech: OK
Me: ::: Reads e-mail::: I can’t do this, you have to be inside the firewall to do these instructions
Dumb tech: OH, just go to your neighbors cube and do it from there.
Me: Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear at the start of this call, I am in a remote facility, I am the only company employee in this building. I don’t have a cube, I don’t have a neighbor, and there is no cube next to mine, because there are no cubes in this building.
Dumb tech: Well you have to have someone behind the firewall do the change for you.
Me: You are behind the firewall, can you do it?
Dumb tech: No, we are not allowed to do it.
Me: Why not?
Dumb tech: Policy
Bottom line is I had to go to my boss, out of vacation, his boss out of the country, and I would up with a vice president on the phone with me resetting my password. if this is not a waste of company resources I don’t know what is.
But we aren’t done yet, I still can’t get in. So I call the dumb tech back (I have their name)
Me: OK, I had the vice president reset my password, and I still can’t get in.
Dumb tech: OK let me get 2nd level on the phone
Me: Good idea
Dumb tech: 2nd level says that you need to go to your neighbors machine that is on the LAN and do the following…
Me: Do you recall my telling you that I am a remote user, I am not on the LAN, I don’t need VPN when I am on the LAN, I only need VPN when I am remote. The fact that I have a VPN problem should tell you and the guy on the other end of the phone that I am working remote
Dumb tech: just a moment ::: talks with 2nd level idiot::: OK, he says that you have to go to the nearest office and boot up on the LAN.
Me: I am in Vancouver British Columbia; the two nearest LANs are across the international border in the US. One is about 1300 miles away in Southern California, the other is in Detroit. Are you offering to buy me a round trip ticket?
Dumb tech: No.
Me: Let me call you back
So I put a call into the head of IT. The answer came back in about 30 seconds. Oh, you got downloaded a new version of VPN and it isn’t stable, if you have a personal e-mail account I can send you the previous version.
This brings up a couple of questions.
- Why did you release an unstable program, that effects mission critical programs
- Why didn’t level one know this?
- WTF didn’t 2nd level know this?
Working with outside vendors I have had excellent results. SBC/Yahoo has been excellent when I have helped some of my less technically inclined friends set up their service.
Oh good Og, yes. I ran into that with the idiots at our former broadband supplier. Who didn’t seem to grasp that I had no desire to load their software onto my computer to gum it up; I had my own Outlook running and just needed the mail and SMTP server addresses. It took ten minutes on the phone to persuade the idiot to at least go ASK someone since he didn’t know what they were himself and clearly had no idea what I was talking about.
I understand tech support gets a lot of dumb questions. But when they get a very basic question and are completely clueless, it makes me wonder if they just hire anybody off the street who knows how to turn on a computer and turns them loose on unsuspecting customers. I’ve gotten fabulous tech support, and then I’ve gotten the ones who haven’t figured out themselves what the cupholder is for. It’s a frustrating crapshoot.