I’m sick and tired of the back-and-forth between tech-support/customer service reps and the people who call them. After watching the debate from both sides, and experiencing it from both sides, I have discovered the truth of the matter:
We’re all morons.
What follows is a list of things to know if you’re calling tech-support/customer service. And then a list of things to know if you’re providing said service.
For customers:
Please know at least one of the following, though all three is preferable:
Your account number (and yes, this is a number, surprisingly enough, with few exceptions).
Your username/email address, if applicable.
The name your account is under. This should be your name, but a lot of people seem to have a problem with this concept.
Please do not start the call with “I just called and it’s still not working/ I did everything you told me and it didn’t work” or a bad pun on the company name. The person you reach on the second try is probably not the same person you talked to before unless you’re extremely lucky, and even if it is, they probably talked to several people before and after your first call. They’ll need a little more information to figure out exactly who you are and what the problem is/was.
Please don’t rant at the poor CSR/Tech. They aren’t being deliberately obtuse (OTOH, see below), and though they’ll try to fix your problem, being rude isn’t going to make them want to give their all.
If you are calling tech support, do not, in your snarkiest tone, tell them that they don’t know what they’re doing, or disregard everything they ask you to do. If you know better, go fix the problem yourself.
Ignorance is okay. We accept the fact that the reason you are calling us is because you don’t know how to set up the system or repair the problem. But please, for the love of Og, try to remember what we tell you for future reference. And in this case, I don’t mean server names or configurations; I mean terms like ‘right-click’ and ‘reboot’.
Don’t get mad because we made the mistake of assuming you weren’t a complete idiot. Foolish of us, we know, but hope springs eternal.
For techs/customer service
Keep in mind that, to the average user, your level of knowledge borders on the supernatural. Be patient. Be pleasant. Please don’t sigh loudly (or at least use your mute button).
Don’t bump calls. There is nothing more irritating than hearing the phone ring, getting your hopes up, then hearing the damn hold Muzak again.
If you tell me you’re going to have someone look at it, then do so. I can’t recall the number of times I’ve gotten calls from clients with simple issues that aren’t fixed yet because the last person they spoke to was a lazy piece of shit.
If you can’t fix it, tell me. Don’t fool around with my system until it’s broken, then refer me to a tech. Thanks. Now my computer store guy will have even more work to do.
Don’t treat me like an idiot, and I’ll do my level best not to act like one.
If you don’t like your job anymore, to the point where you find it impossible to be even close to polite, or are giving into the temptation to play with accounts and server settings, QUIT. Do not take it out on your clients.
Feel free to add on to this. These are just the things that bug me most.
Customer
Learn that operator error means YOU did something. You are the only idiot that logs onto this machine. IS department can only lock the machines down to a certain point (following hospital guidelines) and if you do something to make Novell lockout your account and your Windows background looks like James Dean (not hospital appropriate) then it is operator error and not the IS department changing settings in the middle of the night.
Techs/Customer Service
Don’t remotely connect to my PC and then click and flick aimlessly through all the things I told you I did, but did not work. I’m not lying when I say that Tools-Options-Mail Services is all greyed out. They click into it and then mutter, “Yeaaaah. It’s all greyed out. I’ll have to look into this and call you back.” Why don’t you just say that in the first place…
Tarantula if I has a cent for every fucker who told me something about their machine and when I remoted in found that they were incorrect/lying. I’d have about €10.50 by now.
Please don’t stop me in the halls, or come by my cube, and try to get support. We have a perfectly good helpdesk infrastructure which will route your tickets into our queues, and I’m not allowed to take jobs not in the queue. If you personally believe that your ticket is more important than anyone else’s, please let our helpdesk know and they will assign a higher priority (if they agree with you).
If after all of this you still insist on telling me your support issue, I will listen, nod sympatically, and not write a damn thing down. I can assure you that your name and extension will be gone from my memory before you leave my sight. Want to complain? Just reference the ticket number and send it to my manager.
Oh, one more thing. I DO happen to do home computer repair, but not during business hours. Please don’t bring in your home PC for us to fix, unless you have a personal agreement with one of the staff who will fix it on his lunch break.
Don’t get this wrong - we often double check things, and for the life of me I swear I’ve seen computers fix themselves a bajillion times, right after I start to try and fix it. And often we like to confirm it for ourselves before we go ask for some help or some information - techs don’t want to look like fools, either.
And I have had an awful lot of people flat out lie to me ebcuase they did not want to admit they didn’t know what they were doing, or they simply didn’t knwo what they were doing.
Oh yeah. The surest way to not get something fixed is to believe a customer.
DOCTORS:
I know you’re very busy saving lives and all, but one small request? “7:00 PM” is a time. “19:00” is a time. “7”, “7.000”, “7am.”, “noonish”, and “1/2 past midnite” are not times. They are bad data, which I have to fix one at a time by hand. This is why you are suddenly getting errors. A small point, to be sure, but this is how I have to spend my morning.
Do not act like we did something to your computer when you unplug it, move it to the other side of the room, and then wonder why you can’t get onto the network or hit the internet. Especially when there is a cat5 cable dangling and no longer connected to the pc.
“What’s the text of the error?”
“It say’s it’s broke.”
“No, the exact text of the message.”
“It says ‘Damn thing ain’t workin’’”
“That’s the exact text?”
“Yeah, it says 'Stupid sofware sucks.”
“Uh, read it to me word for word.”
“Fine, you idiot. ‘This. Thing. Sucks. Big. Time.’”
“OK, now read it to me word for word, but backwards.” sigh “Fine. ‘?Save. To. Want. You. Do.’”
Do not tell me that my less-than-one-year-old monitor is ‘not compatible’ with Windows NT. Do not treat me like I’m such a mule-headed idiot that I would actually fall for that bald faced lie. You know full well, or you ought to considering your job, that the display device, provided it is capable of VGA display and can connect to the video card will at least show some sort of intelligible picture in Windows NT’s VGA mode. The fact that nothing but a roughly ameoba shaped green blob roams around the monitor screen regardless of whether the computer is on, pulgged in, booted up and not in screen saver, or the monitor is in ‘self test’ mode is not caused by an operating system conflict, so please do not waste half an hour of my time telling me that it is. Do not then get bitchy, nasty, and insulting by telling me that I should never have installed Windows NT on my PC or insisting that it is not possible to change operating systems, because I will inform you in a not-so-nice manner that computer engineers are generally aware of what ‘reformat and reinstall’ means.
If it is obvious to both you and me that you cannot solve my problem, please admit that this is the case and transfer me to someone who can. If you don’t, I will be forced to ask for your supervisor, and you will not like what I will tell your supervisor, because that typing you heard when you introduced yourself was me rapidly putting your ‘badge number’ and your name into a text file so that I can be sure to read it off to anyone I have to.
Please understand that when I call you and start by telling you something such as ‘I believe that the write laser in my CD-RW drive is bad because it does not recognize blank CD-Rs as being in the drive and indicates an ASPI error on the diagnostic, but it will read a regular CD-ROM with no problem’ your response should not be ‘Are you sure that power is getting to the drive?’ This causes retorts like ‘Pretty amazing that it would spin up without power, then.’
Please take 20 seconds or so to ascertain the level of knowledge of the person you are talking to before you start your canned responses. It will save both of us time. If the problem with my equipment is beyond your scope, please politely say so and transfer my call. I will not think less of you for admitting what you don’t know how to fix; I will appreciate it greatly.
User: Please try being polite. I appreciate that you have a problem, I really do. I will fix it. But, if the first words out of your mouth (or any of them actually) are abusive, relate to your thoughts on my parentage, or are otherwise insulting guess hwta is going to happen? Not much. I will become deliberately obtuse. I will put your problem at the absolute lowest priority. I will make every effort to be as polite as possible, and also as unhelpful as I can be. See, by being outrageously rude to me, you have made this personal. I do not care what your level of expertise is, I am here to help. I do, however, care what yor attitude to me is. Does it seem to you that I have broken it? That this is a vast conspiracy aimed directly at you? It is not, but if you continue like this; it will become so.
Tech Support:
Please actually listen to what I am telling you instead of assuming you know everything about my computer and its problems.
If I say, “It’s locked up, can you reboot it”, please don’t ask me to send you an email to you from that computer detailing the problem.
If I tell you I’m having a problem with program X, please don’t sit there and give me a condescending lecture for half an hour about the glories and great wonderfuls in store for me next time I use program Y, OR the problems inherent in Program Z.
I don’t have Program Y or Z, I’m not using Program Y or Z, and I don’t care about them. I want you to fix the fardling problem with Program X. If you don’t know, say so. Believe me, I’ve dealt with you enough to not be surprised when you tell me, “gee, I have no idea why it’s doing that.”
Users:
While I realize you’re not as versed in the programs and processes of your computer as I am, please don’t come to me with “it won’t.”
I’ll just have to ask you more questions.
Be detailed. It won’t what - print, boot up, load up your program, suck you off, WHAT?
“It’s broke” isn’t any help either. What, do you need glue, a reboot, a complete reload of that program, or do you just need to WAIT for the program to finish loading just like you did YESTERDAY when we had this same conversation?
Realize that repeated stupidities like this will just get me to ignore you, instead of help you.
Also, don’t load some esoteric, unauthorized program on your system and then complain to me when it crashes. Don’t ask me how to make your “nifty new program” do what you want it to - I have NO idea, since it’s not one of ours.
And stop unplugging your computer, moving it to the other side of your desk WHERE THE CORD WON’T REACH, and then complaining that it won’t boot up.
Sometimes, the hold times may be longer than usual. Like, say, the first hour we open, and lunchtime on both coasts (12-1 EST).
The canned message you hear while you’re holding for technical support gives the sales phone number, and also says “If you are calling to cancel your account blah blah you need to do so online at our website blah blah blah.com. Cancellations are not processed over the phone for your security. If you are calling to set up a new account, please hang up and dial blah blah blah.”
So. You hear this message at least 5 times if you’re on hold for 10 minutes. When you get thru to me in tech support and want to sign up for a new account, don’t get pissed when I give you the phone number for sales. No, I can’t transfer you, we’re on a totally different phone system. Yes, you will probably have to hold if you call them. No, I really can’t transfer you internally I swear.
My biggest complaint with people (users and techs alike) is their inability to listen.
Please push the buttons I tell you to, in the order I tell you to, and just the buttons I tell you to. Deep within the heart of your device are sophisticated electronic thingies that will respond to Menu-5-4-9-6-8 by displaying important information on the screen. They will respond to Menu-5-6-4-3-8-9-**-6-#-8 by displaying nothing on the screen.
We don’t yet have access to the technology that would let me see what’s happening, so it’s important that you tell me what’s going on. Just breathing into the phone until I ask if you’ve done what I told you to do, and then just breathing into the phone until I ask you what happened when you did it makes the call longer for both of us. The call also gets longer if you try to skip ahead. The first thing showing on the menu is not necessarily the one we want, and if you choose that without telling me my next instructions aren’t going to help solve the problem.
I like that episode of Star Trek or Family Guy. I probably like it as much as you do, if not more. As much as I’d enjoy taking a break to listen to it, it would be helpful if I could hear your voice as well. I can help you find the volume control.
Multitasking is great, and people lead busy lives. That said, is it really necessary to call in while having a fight with your significant other in a crowded bar while watching the baseball game you’ve got money on? We’re open 24 hours a day. I can almost guarantee that the problem will be solved in less time if you can devote more than 2% of your attention to it. The same goes for calling in while driving. If you don’t have a hand free to poke and prod at the thing, we won’t be able to get very far with fixing it.
Tech folk:
(NB: users may have it bad when they call the techies, but their real venom seems to be reserved for the front line types who have to call in. We’re supposed to know things, and there’s no real incentive for them to be nice to us.)
I realize we’re both busy people, but try to put some more words in there, maybe even phrases. “ID? Team? Number? Status? Reprogram? Hold. Registration? Cycle. Switches. (clicking sounds) Wait. Cycle. Bye.” may be efficient as all hell, but it doesn’t really give me much to explain to the customer, nor does it help me learn what happened so that next time it happens I won’t have to call you.
I really am not so mind bogglingly as stupid as you may think. Saying, “do me a favor, and press the little key next to the key with the Windows log on it, then then hold that down while pressing the one on the other side of the Windows logo, and then the Del key” is tedious for both of us. I know how to reboot my computer, and have in fact done so 3 times before I even called you. Now we have to wait while it reboots again…
Also, when I have told you that I cycled my DSL modem already, by turning it off and on, even though I may not in fact know what the technical term for it is, and that it looks like it’s working fine, asking what all the “little lights on the front” are doing wastes both our time. I obviously have noted that all the little lights on the front are solid green before I called you. Asking me to cycle it again is also a waste of time. And telling me to unplug the USB and then plug it in again so that I hear the little “click”? Honestly.
So, let’s just get right on to where you tell me how to get into the guts of my computer and click some settings already. And keep in mind that although I probably have no idea what you’re doing the first time we go through the process, if for some reason we need to do it again, I do in fact remember what you told me the first time, so please don’t walk me through it again, because I’ll be 5 steps ahead of you by the end, telling you that it didn’t work this time, either.
That said, I am always very nice to tech support. And I am aware that there are people who do need this type of help. But once we have been talking for a few minutes and you become aware that I actually seem a tad knowledgeable about my computer, please back off on the babytalk.
When I send you a list of actions that I have done to try and fix the problem. Please believe me.
I realize that sometimes you can’t and you are forced to send me pre-printed “help” 134-7. (Which invariably is a subset of the actions I already said I had done. If it was that easy, I would have fixed it myself.) When I send you another note back saying “I have done everything on this list, and it still isn’t working.” Please, please, please do not
(a) send me help page 134-7 again.
It didn’t work the first time, it isn’t going to work now. If you don’t have the answer, (which you probably don’t otherwise you’d not be just forwarding people pre-printed “help” files) escalate it to someone who does.
(b) ask me for information which is in the letter.
Read the damn complaint. It helps to do that before trying to fix something. If I had a dollar for every time I was asked “specify your operating system” or some other piece of info when it was in the original request (and I know it was in the original request because if you scroll down the email, hey, there it is! Often it’s there 3 or 4 times because they keep asking me to “specify my operating system.”) I could buy a new machine.
Personally, when I worked in tech support, I always fixed problems faster when I assumed users weren’t telling me the whole truth (whether intentionally or not). I don’t think the users were trying to be deceitful (most of the time) they just usually gave me misinformation.
Oh, man, I hate the “Random Page O’ Crap” responses. When I email you saying, “Yea, X is happening, and I’ve already checked WindowsUpdaye, updated my drivers, made sure DirectX is current, defragmented my hard drive, and rebooted”, please don’t send me a response saying “Please try updating your drivers.”
