Know what you buy

[attackgypsy.livejournal.com]

I work for a medium sized cable internet company in the Help Desk.

We supply the modem. That's it. We don't supply the router, we don't fix routers. We can reset them. Then we'll bypass it.

I get router resets all day long. And about 4 times a day I get this.

Me: Can you unplug the power from the router
Caller: Sure.

*CLICK*

YOU BOUGHT THE ROUTER!! I can understand if we gave it to you, but we didn't. You could at least know the name of what you bought is. I don't expect you to know how it works, just the name.

Sorry, had 3 of these already, and its only been the 1st hour. Only 8 more hours until my Xmas break. Using last of vacation time to get 5 days in a row off.

Comments

[darkmattr.livejournal.com]

I feel your pain. I have to actually get people to bring up the router control page and read it off to me before they will admit they are on a router.

[freakbarman.livejournal.com]

I just want to ask a question and please don't get offended. First off a little background on me. I am a sys admin. I have a BS in comp sci and have multiple certs. When I had cable internet and was having trouble with it I would do all the troubleshooting ahead of time to fix it. If it came down to the company's equipment or signal I then would call. Every tech I ever talked to would have me do the troubleshooting again even if I told them I had already done this and gave them my findings. I have never worked in a call center so I don't know how they operate, but is this something you have to do?

[eplossl.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, yes. The problem isn't people like yourself, it's the people who call in and claim that they have already done it when they haven't, and then after 30 minutes of troubleshooting, we find that they have, in fact, not done the basic troubleshooting. Those are the people who screw it up for everyone who has a clue.

The rule of thumb is that if something is a fact and can be proven, the customer always lies (unless you can show that they are telling the truth), but if it is a feeling or opinion, the customer is always telling the truth (unless you can prove that they are lying).

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

Me: Can you unplug the power from the router
Caller: Sure.

*CLICK*

As in, they're calling on a VoIP phone and powering off the router dropped the call? I get those too, usually after I've tried desperately to get the customer to give me a callback number and had them swear to me that they were calling on a standard POTS phone line, then powered down the modem and/or router, and sure enough, *click* and the call drops.

Sadly, this is nowhere near the most irritating thing about talking to end users. Much higher up the list is people who, when given extremely specific instructions targeting exact wording of specific UI elements, read back the instructions as something completely different, usually while doing them with disastrous results ..

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

Support techs love talking to people who actually have a decent understanding of how the components work, which components are supported by which vendors, and only need help with one or two specific things to get them where they're going. We love those calls, can't get enough of them. The trouble is that abut 95% of the people who claim (or in fact honestly believe) that they've done all the troubleshooting steps already are either trying to jump ahead of troubleshooting steps they think aren't necessary (especially ones that turn out to be absolutely crucial to solving the problem!) or are just impatient and spouting tech-buzzword gibberish in the hope of hitting on something meaningful purely at random.

People like me with a few years of experience can usually sort out the truth from the BS and leverage the actual work the customer has done before the call, but a lot of front line techs tend to be unable to tell which is which, and quickly learn to treat any prior troubleshooting with suspicion. (I've been on the other end of this myself, on the rare occasions when I've needed to call on products that I support for reasons that are purely bureaucratic, and even explaining patiently to the front line tech that they would ordinarily be escalating the call to me didn't get past this .. went and looked the case up later and found a verbatim quote of what I'd told the agent over the phone, in quotes, which is case-note-ese for "I don't believe this but I'm passing on what the customer said". ::eyeroll::)

[attackgypsy.livejournal.com]

Close, but not quite. VoIP over the modem, not the router. They'll sell this to anybody. And we service the largest metropolitan area in the US.

I don't mind helping people fix their problem. Even if they know nothing about computers. I can work with that. That's what I get paid to do. But they at least should know the name of what they purchased.

[kenbrody.livejournal.com]

Read some of the other threads on this board, and you'll see what oftentimes constitutes "troubleshooting" from the end-user's point of view.

Unfortunately, there's no "secret handshake" that one can use to say "I really know what I'm doing, and I've already done the troubleshooting". The tech has to assume that the information you give may not be accurate and has to perform the troubleshooting again.

That said, the last time I had to call tech support for my Internet access (which have been few and far between), I apparently said enough "magic words" that convinced him I had already diagnosed it as a DHCP problem, and he checked and confirmed that there was, in fact, an issue at the local DHCP server, thereby bypassing most of the typical "check your TCP/IP settings, reboot, etc., etc., etc" hoops. (Afterwards, I thanked him for being able to go "off script" to get to the root of the problem, and he thanked me for not being the typical drool-monkey client that tends to call.)

[kenbrody.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, the ones who know nothing about computers are the easiest to help -- as long as they realize how little they know. You say "do this", and they actually "do this".

It's the ones who know just enough to think they know everything that are the real problem. You say "do this" and they say "that won't help", or they "do something completely different, but which they have decided is better than your 'suggestion'" and complain that it didn't fix the problem.

[momentarygenius.livejournal.com]

I usually get good results by saying "OK. let me tell you what I've already tried..." then once ive gotten a few steps in they know im not retarded and start trusting me.

[mariasama16.livejournal.com]

It also depends on whether or not the call center you call uses scripts or not (and how much they have to stick to the script, even if they know that they can easily skip it).

[mariasama16.livejournal.com]

Eh, most users I've dealt with have no idea what a router is, or think their modem is their router (of course, the 2Wire and various other combo units don't help, though that doesn't sound like the case for you). My easiest way to determine it is to ask whether they have one box between their computer and the wall or 2 and that makes them think a little bit more to realize what I'm trying to get them to do ;-) I do feel your pain though.

[bekscilla.livejournal.com]

I love the ones who don't know anything, so are willing to do exactly what you say cause they're scared to deviate :D

[attackgypsy.livejournal.com]

Oh Gods yes!

They say we don't have a script. That we have the freedom to "go with the flow of the call".

I had one, I knew she would have trouble with just bypassing the router. she had alot of trouble just unplugging the power. So I didn't have her do it. we were told this was the proper thing to do.

And I just got a double whammy hit for it. For improper troubleshooting AND controlling the call. (The catchall for "We don't like you, so we're going to fuck with you.")

And these are the same guys who hit us for improper troubleshooting because we didn't "right click on the Norton 360 icon to turn the firewall off." My response to that was "How long has it been since this guy actually took a call?"