Success story

[skylion.livejournal.com]

Lots of us bitch and moan here, which is very useful in it's own right. But, for my first post, I was waiting for an honest to goodness success in my job efforts, before I would put in word here.

In short, I am a Tier One agent for my local ISP. Basic connectivity troubleshooting is the name of the game. Part of that is assisting the punters on their very first installation of our equipment; modem support basically. In most other calls we are under the twenty minute time limit before we pass up to the next level (with about ten minutes being in line with maintaining a profit margin for the company). On the installation calls, however, the sky is nearly the limit in regards to time. Get them connected, get them on email, introduce them to a search engine, educate them on basics of a browswer etc.

One of my calls, yesterday, I regard as a great success. It took nearly an hour to get from start to done, but under the circumstances, it was a good call. The customer was an elderly woman, a complete N00b in all regards, and knew so. By and large it took 35 minutes just to get the modem and cables attached and get the phone filters fitted properly. Yes, it was a bit exhausting, and I must have covered the same ground seven or eight times before it finally sunk in and the dsl light went from flashing to rock hard solid. She pulled IP, launched IE, got on to our homepage and got into her mailbox.

On two occasions, she wanted to give up and schedule a costly tech visit to get the job done. I pointedly, and politely, refused. In fact, I asked that she step back, grab a cool drink, and just let it go for a moment. She did so, came back, and the deed got done. At the end, she was happy, and very please that I worked with her to get her going.

Sounds a bit like I am patting my own back, but, it was a tough call, and my patience was getting very well and truly grated.

Hope y'all have the same type of stories out there.

Comments

[d-l-leonine.livejournal.com]

Those calls did always make me feel kinda good too....

Ignorance is something I had no problem dealing with as long as the caller could follow directions and had a decient disposition. It's the hard headed, brain dead, obstinate, arrogant, know-it-all 2 year olds that keep communities like this in existance (and kept me in comic strip material when I was doing tech support).

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

Obstinate + dense + know-it-all + little actual knowledge is definitely a poisonous combination. :) And it's interesting how that combination correlates with certain geographical areas .. some of which I wouldn't expect ..

[kyidyl.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to say a call like that has never made me feel good, but most of the time I'm so frustrated by the end of it that I feel little else but relief that it's over.

My favorites are the ones who start out pissed, but end up kissing my butt...especially when the fix takes like 2 seconds. I also like the ones where the caller is in a good mood and is grateful that you've helped them.

[skylion.livejournal.com]

I haven't had the two minute calls; it took the full t/s to get it done, but the customer was impressed that I told him that I wanted to "own his problem". He too, started off pissed, ended up kissing my ass and praising our ISP. FTW.

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

The go-take-a-break strategy sometimes does wonders when you're talking to someone who is obviously in tunnel-vision mode and needs to refocus. Sometimes it's amazing how much faster and more smoothly things happen after they've had time to step back from it and breathe and clear their heads for a bit. I've been known to recommend it myself. :)

[jecook]

+ MANY.

Sometimes if you are banging your head against the wall on a problem, it can help to take a [caffine|smoke|both] break and step back for a bit.

I know it helps me to relieve some of the frustration I have when I'm working on a hard issue.

[canray.livejournal.com]

Yep, had one poor fellow that paid for a full installation ($300+) for TV and Internet then had the tech drop the stuff off and leave (That's a different rant, however.).

The guy knew that he wouldn't have been able to do this on his own, but tried anyhow. Getting more angry and pissed off as time went by.

Finally, he called in, and got me. Luckily, we weren't busy that night, and there was no wait on hold with the crappy music. (Here's a question, why *DOES* the music suck so bad?).

He comes on, yelling, angry (And rightfully so), and demanding a Supervisor. I get the reason, and agree with the Supervisor bit for the Tech and what he did, but, well, "Perhaps I can help you set things up so that you won't have to wait for another appointment?"

"DAMNIT! I can't figure out this Techno-Babble crap! I'm a Mechanic not a Computer Tech!"

"Mechanic? OK, here's the deal...." And then explained how to set up a "Cable System Fuel Injection System" using automotive analogs to the equipment.

He gave me a compliment to the "Supervisor" before he got into the complaint about the Field Tech.

One more for the pile the company never read. :-(

[tadiera.livejournal.com]

Our hold music doesn't always suck. Sometimes it does, but that's fairly rare. :D

[skylion.livejournal.com]

I think I heard the rumour that it had the old disco version of the Star Wars theme...

[tadiera.livejournal.com]

It changes.
Some days it's 80's. There have been days with Enya. Etc. :)

[quinn222.livejournal.com]

good job! I get a lot of seniors too and they never think they can do it and are always so pleased when they get online or learn to use their email. Makes for a good call.

[manuka.livejournal.com]

The funny thing is, my 89-year-old grandmother has been using computers longer than I have. She's had a computer since way back in the day - she still has those two Kaypro CP-M machines. She currently uses a laptop, a cell phone, and a digital camera, and the internet, although she confesses to checking her e-mail only a few times a year :)

[manuka.livejournal.com]

More importantly, you probably gave her some confidence in dealing with technical issues. Future techs will probably benefit greatly from this. Too many end users panic at the slightest little problem (much like Paris Hilton), and are convinced they can't fix it without bringing someone onsite.

[amberite.livejournal.com]

I know where you're coming from, and yes, it can be super-rewarding. I love a redeemable idiot as much as I hate an unredeemable idiot -- hearing the lightbulb go on is lovely.

[liber-cogito.livejournal.com]

I've had one of those. Guy with a THICK SC accent calls in. Just bought a PC from the local pawn shop for $50. Is complaining that *software* will not open. Take a look at our spyware program that tells us the basic stats of the user's pc. It says he's running Win XP on a 100Mhz (non intel) proccessor, with 64MBs of RAM. I mute, giggle, and don't believe it. Get user to System, and it reports the same stats. *eyeboggle* Explain to user in 6 different ways that there is no way that copy of XP is legit, and that he doesn't meet the min reqs to run his OS, let alone software as well.

He doesn't get it.

Finally, I resort to stereotypes.

"Sir, do you like cars, at all?"
"Why golly yes! I follow Nascar religiously!"
"Great. What your computer is trying to do, is like towing a Semi with a Kia Sephia."
"OH MY GOD, THAT'S AWFUL!!"
"Yeah."
"So...you're saying I need a better engine?"
"No Sir, you need a new car."
"Okay! Thank you so much!"

[attackgypsy.livejournal.com]

I have two to share.

First was an older woman, who was crying on the phone. it seems her drive crashed and her (Name of manufacturer) formatted the drive without any data backups, even though they promised they would.

She did have an internet connection. Ok, my job is over. That's all I have to do. But my heart wouldn't let me. You see, she had lost pictures of her grandson. Why was this so important. Because 3 weeks earlier, her grandson was killed by an IED in Iraq. I walked her thru getting into her Yahoo account, and she was able to email some of her relatives who had their own copies of the pictures. She was extremely grateful, and I got a nice pat on the back from our Call Center Director, who was doing a remote monitor. Yeah, it felt really good to do that.

The other was just a simple router reset. We were laughing and talking during the call, and the whole call took about 5 minutes. Was kinda nice.

Then he wanted a supervisor.

Now I was puzzled. What could I have possibly done wrong. So I got one. And we're allowed to listen in while they're taking the call.

The guy started singing the praises of me, everyone else in the center, and the entire company. He went on and on for about 15 minutes about how were so great, and whenever there's an issue, we dive right in and fix it quickly.

Why was this so outstanding?

It was on my birthday.

[skylion.livejournal.com]

It was extremely cool and nice that you did that for that woman. Yeah, it's unsupported, but there are many meanings of support, and you took the best meaning and made her day, if not a good portion of her life.

My background isn't tech really. I have no real formal training in tech, just simple tricks and nonsense, really. My focus is CS, and it's nice to hit the back of the net in these respects.

[naggy.livejournal.com]

Those are the calls that help you deal with the morons.

I'm so glad that as a general rule, my current client base is far more positive and professional than a general support base. We get lots of compliments, few bitchings.