You ever call technical support?

[Romier S]

I've spent the better part of my life doing technical support for various companies including Earthlink, Sprint, Rite Aid, and more. I've lost two of those jobs to outsourcing. I've also spent time training and preparing training outlines for the people who would eventually replace me at my position for a far cheaper price. Now for anyone that's actually called technical support, I think you will find this quite amusing and all too real...

 

Having problems with your computer?

[foogledricks]

I have to say, I am a prime candidate for tech support humor. My experiences and frustrations run far, wide, and deep. But although I like the squeeky voice and looselip carmen-like swearing, and the requisite shot at the indian ascent, I thought this could be a lot funnier given the material. There is just so much to work with. Like:

 

• Getting "Your call is very important to us" for two hours straight
  
• Like your phone call being transferred from idiot to idiot and then eventually being disconnected, or more likely hung up on.
  
• Support guy asking you to do something you've already tested yourself, then not believing you and forcing you to go through it all again
  
• Them having you do something that makes the problem worse
  
• Them saying "Let me ask my manager" when you know they're just keeping you on hold to take a piss or something
  
• Tech support guy masturbating while talking to you
  

Anyway, I've learned that speakerphone is your friend when on tech support, never put a phone to your ear for two hours.

[Romier S]

Support guy asking you to do something you've already tested yourself, then not believing you and forcing you to go through it all again

Unfortunately that's simply policy at most tech support places, even with American employees. In general, tech support agents are trained over time to not trust what a customer is telling you (and rightfully so in many cases), and to follow "proper troubleshooting procedure" whether they or the customer likes it or not (calls are often listened to and graded).

 

Having done technical support for almost 8 years now, I can tell you that customers can and do lie quite frequently just to make it seem as though they did nothing wrong. It's an unfortunate truth. Though on the other side of the coin, any intelligent tech agent would know not to rerun through idiotic steps with a user that tells you they are proficient with a computer (something I do regularly if I call a technical support department to avoid such issues).

 

Them saying "Let me ask my manager" when you know they're just keeping you on hold to take a piss or something

Correct. If not, they have you on hold to ridicule you with thier fellow co-workers.

[JoeyN]

Yep for a while when calling Dell Tech support you could not understand what the person on the other end of the line was saying. I got fed up and asked for someone who spoke "English without a accent". Eventually i got someone to help me. Its happened with a few other companies as well. Nothing is worse though then calling Verizon DSL tech support in Virginia. Oh boy dont get me started on that

 

capt

[jhfagan]

OMG.....

I couldn't watch that the whole way through.

LOL

[Josh]

Tech support guy masturbating while talking to you

 

:eh

[foogledricks]

:eh

Sorry, I always throw in one list item to check if people are paying attention. Though I do recall a friend of mine who said he'd masturbate up to three times at work in the bathroom. So if I got him on the line, I wouldn't be surprised.

Correct. If not, they have you on hold to ridicule you with thier fellow co-workers.

I knew it!

[merlot]

I always tell tech support I'm in the IT field, so they don't have to to give me step by step directions.

 

The funniest part of that skit was when he asked about the weather... so true. I've had that happen at least twice.

[PoisonJam]

Them saying "Let me ask my manager" when you know they're just keeping you on hold to take a piss or something

 

I just started a tech support position myself, and I can tell you that when I say something like that and put a customer on hold it is because I haven't a clue how to help him and I am going to get assistance.

[JTello]

Support guy asking you to do something you've already tested yourself, then not believing you and forcing you to go through it all again

 

The worst is when you are forced to redo something extremely basic. Something you already tried three hours ago. At this point, you realize that if they go over everything you've already done in the last three hours, you're looking at spending the next 3+ hours on the phone just to get the tech guy to the same point you've already reached. :thud :bh

[JoeyN]

Yeah telling me to redo stuff i have already done is a pain but i do understand why they have to do it. Just keep saying "Ok i did that" without actually repeating the stuff

[MrJames]

While it isn't tech support I thought this would fit in here.

 

 

Customer Service Revenge

[Zathras]

Though on the other side of the coin' date=' any intelligent tech agent would know not to rerun through idiotic steps with a user that tells you they are proficient with a computer (something I do regularly if I call a technical support department to avoid such issues).

[/quote']

 

Well this can be a double edged sword - you get the people who "think" they are proficient with a computer and will try to get ahead of you when you are walking you through something and then you have to restart the whole process several times.

 

Then there are the people who say they have been using computers forever and know whats going on etc etc etc and then when you ask them to open a command prompt they tell you to slow down.

 

I've worked in support at an ISP/Hosting provider for >7 years straight now.

[Romier S]

Well this can be a double edged sword - you get the people who "think" they are proficient with a computer and will try to get ahead of you when you are walking you through something and then you have to restart the whole process several times.

Certainly, but you should definitely be changing your call style depending on how the call/customer is reacting. However, If I call and tell you I've been doing internet/networking/PC technical support for almost 10 years (which I have), I think you can skip the step by step.

 

I think one of the key problems with a majority of technical support industry is that they require thier techs to be utter robots. They want you to hit certain marks and goals and if you don't, you will be penalized. Call times and monthly numbers is what most of these places care about and not so much with how thier techs are helping the customers (or if they even are). It's why I removed myself from the industry recently after having lost my last job. It's why I won't do technical support ever again in a call center environment. I want to talk to people in person if possible, and if I need to do it on the phone, I don't care for some formal checklist that I'm going to be graded on at the end of the month. It's why I'm completely loving my new job.

 

I mean, when you call tecnical support, do you really give a shit about how the weather is? Do you even care to talk about it? Do you really need to talk about what your dog is doing just because the tech needs to make sure he is having a "conversation" with you? I remember at Sprint, we had the 3 "C's". That standed for Conversation, Compassion, and Committment. When you took a call you needed to make a compassion statement "I apologize for that". A Committment statement "I'm going to do my best to get that working for you". Finally, you had to make the Conversation portion which could be anything from "How is the weather?" to "So you are getting married huh?". It's all horseshit to me really. I thank god every day I don't do it anymore.

[Chris The Rock]

I think one of the key problems with a majority of technical support industry is that they require thier techs to be utter robots. They want you to hit certain marks and goals and if you don't' date=' you will be penalized. Call times and monthly numbers is what most of these places care about and not so much with how thier techs are helping the customers (or if they even are). [/quote']

 

I agree, mostly because I work in the industry for one of the largest companies around. After 2 years on the phones, I moved into more "project office" type roles where I prepared reports based on our call center's performance. The only things that mattered were what could be measured: How Fast Did We Answer The Phone, What Percentage of Calls Did We Answer in XX Seconds, What Was Our Customer Satisfaction Rating.

I hate tech support. I hated performing it, and I will do almost anything to avoid using it. I have pretty decent troubleshooting skills, so if I ever do have to call tech support, I usually start by telling them what I believe my problem is, not what symptoms I'm having. My latest experience was calling Linksys when trying to configure my new Wireless Print Server. I discovered that the configuration program wouldn't run on my HP Laptop - it would freeze up while trying to detect the device. I called simply because I thought that MAYBE someone else had reported the problem and a solution was available. Of course, the person who took my call did not have English as a first language, and after 50 minutes of putting me on hold and "looking in her database", she told me that she couldn't help me and said she was sorry. In the meantime, I had configured the Wireless Print server using my other computer. *sigh*

 

That being said, not all my experiences have been bad, and I have known several people that were VERY good at doing the job. They are few and far between.

 

At the end of the day, tech support is a necessary evil. In my experience, 80%-90% of the tech support calls we took were answered rather easily. It's that darn 10%-20% that we all hate to think about.

 

One word, computer users: GOOGLE. By simply looking around a bit before picking up the phone, that 10%-20% could be reduced significantly. I have found 99% of the answers to my questions by using google.