I am so glad I'm outta there...

[grayhawkfh.livejournal.com]

Every other Friday, the HellDesk has it's departmental meeting. Usually, it's an opportunity for someone to bitch them out for something they allegedly did or didn't do, to introduce some new asinine procedure, or (rarely) disseminate important information. I, being a benevolent soul (and bribable with Jack Daniels), cover the HellDesk phone for the 30-45 minutes this takes. This is usually enough to make me remember why I hate end-users.

Last Friday, however, took the cake. These poor bastards not have to get VERBAL confirmation from the (l)users that THEY are satisfied with the work the tech has done before they can close a ticket.

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. Over!?!?

Um, sorry, but their job is to fix the problems caused by the (l)users. If they are happy in addition to that, that's even better! But most of these slack jawed, inbred, corpse-humping jackoffs from Entitlement Acres aren't happy unless we let them put whatever they want on the network, stream music and video all day long, and download mal/spy/grayware & virus infested crap (BonziBuddy, IE7, Yahoo toolbar) onto their machines. And if it's there, they have to remove it. No, they're not gonna be happy! And that doesn't take into account the ones who are grouchy dumbf**ks who exist for the sole purpose of making everyone around them miserable.

And so I turn to you, the brother-and-sisterhood of tech supremacy: Am I nuts for thinking this? Granted, half of the HellDesk here couldn't find their ass with both hands, a lantern and an ass atlas, but it seems to me that their primary purpose is to fix the problem, not hold their hands and wipe their tushies for them. What say you?

(x posted to TSC)

Comments

[grayhawkfh.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that the techs must get verbal confirmation for all tickets, INCLUDING Toner replacement tickets, either in person or via phone. If they say they are not satisfied, then the ticket must remain open. What happens at that point is unknown to me.

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

Does it ever happen that somebody fucks up a toner swap? Happened in my office, and the ticket got closed - found ourselves having to (technically) break security protocols to use another printer for over a week.

Then again, everything printer related was contracted out, which explains a lot.

[grayhawkfh.livejournal.com]

Is it conceivable that a toner swap could be screwed up? Absolutely.

In practice, it doesn't happen even once a year. Last time it happened was before I started here, and I've been here 1.5 years now. And IIRC, it was a printer that we're not even supposed to work on.

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

I've known places where a "toner swap" was a new cartridge dropped on the luser's desk, sometimes with instructions. Great for those people who knew what they were doing - it let the people who had more important things to do to get on with their day. However it did lead to more than one busted printer.

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

Are they doing some sort of survey? How are they going to track whether or not people are pleased?

My guess is they're doing some sort of customer-satisfaction survey, and trying to make sure they don't get any "dissatisfied" or "issue not resolved" responses. I guess this strategy is slightly better than doing the surveys on the back end and calling people on the carpet for "not fully satisfying the customer". Which, ultimately, comes back to why the whole concept of "customer is always right" is wrong.

"This customer wasn't satisfied. Anything to say for yourself?"

"Yeah, he wasn't satisfied because he was calling to demand a replacement machine, because his mail client is giving him 'password rejected' errors, because he didn't enter his password right. I didn't replace the machine, so of course he isn't satisfied."

There are some people who will *never* be satisfied, because nobody (in tech support at least) is insane enough to hand them the keys to the company. PHB's tend to forget sometimes that that's not the brightest idea they ever had ..

[aylinn.livejournal.com]

I share the pain. Unfortunately, we're stuck with something similar.

When the tech closes a ticket, an e-mail is sent to the user. they can opt to re-open a ticket if they feel the work is not complete. on our side, this option actually prevents major markdowns & kvetchings on the Customer Sat surveys we also request the users fill out.

Given that most people ignore both the re-open option AND the survey, the tickets usually stay completed.

but if I'm closing a second wave ticket that passed through the helpdesk & I'm keeping from sending on to a tech, I usually make the effort to ask "I'm going to close this ticket, is that alright with you?" and notate same in the worklog.

and then there are the folks who re-open tickets or won't let techs close them in the first place just for the feeling of power over us. *sigh* small people, small minds, small & petty grievances.

[grayhawkfh.livejournal.com]

Ah, if only it were an automated process. No, the techs must get verbal confirmation for all tickets, INCLUDING Toner replacement tickets, either in person or via phone.

[jecook]

Charming.

Our ticketing system also emails the customer when the ticket's closed, with instructions to call or email the support manager if there's a problem.

Your management sucks.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

lol@"ass atlas"

Stealing that one.

Thoughts - if you've volunteered to fill in, are you actually bound by the same rules the regulars are?

"Helpdesk, reboot, suck it, goodbye, no you can't speak to anyone else."

[prevailing.livejournal.com]

Oh fecking hell. That's ridiculous.

Granted, I stopped expecting sanity when my father downloaded some program that has a dog run across his screen with a letter in his mouth every time he has email, regardless of the fact it's a memory hog, then whines about his computer running slow. Gah. Sorry. Sidetracked.

Anyway. The average person I know uses IE. (*quiet sobs*) Even my stepfather, who works with computers for a living as a draftsman, uses IE & Yahoo! toolbar & surfs porn sites, then comes to me with his head hanging low to tell me to fix his computer because he messed it up. Good news is, now I even charge family.. But my point is..

When will people learn one simple fact?
It's a machine, you do not STOMP ALL OVER IT AND EXPECT IT TO WORK THE WAY YOU WANT IT TO.

[prevailing.livejournal.com]

I suggest a major price-hike for all tech support. Nobody that I've ever seen work with the computer-illiterate public gets paid enough.

[prevailing.livejournal.com]

Definitely. It's ridiculous.

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

I've often liked the idea of a mandatory support-customer-training class .. with some way to look up the person's certification for the class before proceeding with a call. :D (Or even some way to not provide the support number without an automated web screening process that looks up the certification first.)

I've also often liked the idea of having the support go through every possible knowledge base article relevant to the problem before giving out a support contact, with a flowcharted workflow that discourages random-clicking through to get to somebody on the phone. :)

Wouldn't solve the problem, but it would sure reduce the number of people who call straight in to support for every single problem they run into, and then latch onto whoever is unlucky enough to take their call until they've got what they feel like is their "money's worth" of time talking to agents. As well as the ones who call whichever support line happens to be answering, no matter what their actual scope is, and demand support for whatever their actual problem is. (Especially if they're calling for phone support on something that *isn't* supported on the phone at all .. "well, if they don't have phone support for it, then you're *&^&*^*& well gonna help me with it!")

But yes, raising the prices might make some people a little more hesitant to jump on the phone .. at least, the ones who don't just call and immediately go ballistic at the first mention of having to pay for support ..

[hisamishness.livejournal.com]

The Customer Is Not Always Right (http://positivesharing.com/2006/07/why-the-customer-is-always-right-results-in-bad-customer-service/) ... I liked reading this....

[politas.livejournal.com]

I think the trouble here is correctly identifying the caller. If the problem you are fixing is a user's misbehaviour, then the person you are doing the job for is not that user, but the network managers who set the policy.

[bekscilla.livejournal.com]

We had a user once demand that we re-open a ticket because he lost $40,000 due to an outage. He stupidly cc'ed his CIO when he whinged, who basically told him the issue is resolved, the ticket will be resolved, suck it up. That's how it should be for everything though - issue resolved, ticket resolved, suck it up.

[geeklovepoetry.livejournal.com]

Granted, half of the HellDesk here couldn't find their ass with both hands, a lantern and an ass atlas,

BAHAHAHA.


But, um, yeah, I agree with you. I know I've worked on machines that hasn't left the customer happy, but with a working computer. Better yet, I do work on a college campus-- these professors aren't supposed to be putting limewire and bearshare onto the school owned machines, but they get IRATE when you ask them to take it off.