(no subject)

[the-paco.livejournal.com]

I wish I worked at a callcenter that valued "Fixing the problem" over "Mollycoddling" when it comes to making the customer happy. I truly hate this crap we're supposed to do. I'm supposed to apologize for their inconvenience. I'm supposed to use their name three times. I'm supposed to use 'we' words. When I get the customer online, I'm supposed to take them to our website (which works 80% of the time) to prove route, or else it doesn't count.

Man, I can't be the only one on the planet who hates psychological crap like that. Maybe I'm just strange. I mean, I don't like it when my waiters touch me or kneel down next to me or give me a clevage shot in order to make me feel more like tipping. I'd rather have a meal that didn't take 45 minutes and was actually correct. Silly me, wanting what I actually fucking ordered, and judging the performance of my server by those criteria. Same thing with my computer. The rare times I have to call tech support for MY Dsl, I don't want to be apologized to. I don't want them to talk to me using my name as if they know me, as if we're buddies. I don't want them saying 'we' and 'let's'. I want the problem solved. That means I want to talk to the most knowledgable sonofabitch on the floor, if I can, and since I can't get that, then I want the guy who doesn't play that bullshit. Why? Because if he's still there while not doing that shit they tell him to do, then obviously he's good enough at actually FIXING PROBLEMS that they keep him around.

So each time my company yells at me and says I should do this, I try to do it with about 30% of my being, but if I miss it? Eh. Who cares. When 99% of my callers walk away with a solved problem, they don't really give a shit if I said their name or not.

I really need to work for a company that values RESULTS.

(*or her)

And They Wonder Why We're Surly.

[thatvoiceguy.livejournal.com]

Me: "Hello, how can I help you?"

Customer: "I need an update on my cell phone issue."

Me: "Yes ma'am. It's been referred to the onsite support team, and they're working to get everyone's phones back in service."

Customer: "But this is a priority. We need to have cell phones."

Me: "I understand, ma'am; this issue is affecting a large number of users, and the techs will try to have everyone up and running as soon as they can."

Customer: "Well, can you give me (onsite tech lead)'s number?"

Me: "I'm sorry; I'm not permitted to relay that information, but I can try to contact them for a status update if you like."

Customer: "Well, you've not been very helpful." *click*







I hate people.

The system is down, yo!

[thesawg.livejournal.com]

Currently [Not so large Cable ISP] is experiencing a wide scale disruption of service.  Therefore, for the last two days my life has sucked, as I have answered around 300 calls.  I understand calling, I understand the frustration, and I don't understand why they need to talk to me, though.

As soon as they call up there is a recording about the disruption of service, how there is no ETA, and how it is recommended to occasionally powercycle your cable modem.
This is the first "clue" that there may be an outage currently.
The they hear there is a 12 minute wait to talk to a tech.  And since most of these people have called several times before, they should be used to the fact if we even have a wait at all we usually get to them in an average of two minutes, sometimes around five if we are really busy.  But twelve is unheard of.  This should be another clue that something is up.

It's amazing how many people will sit in queue so I can spend 90 seconds on the phone with them to tell them the same thing the recording did a few times while in queue.  Maybe 2-3 minutes if they forgot the powercycle instructions they heard a few seconds ago, or they think they can pry a ETA out of me.  I do not have a time frame, and if I did I wouldn't give it to them.  If we said an "hour or so" they will be calling up pissing and moaning that we "lied" sixty-one minutes later.  But those are the ones who at least know we have an outage.  There are plenty of others who have no idea why they cannot get on-line, or why the On-line light on their modem is blinking.  Or others who don't understand that the word nationwide includes them too.  And as of right now, not everyone is offline and more are coming back on line, but if their neighbor is on-line that doesn't mean jack shit.

At least according to the boss man, about 25% of the callers hung up after hearing the disruption of service recording at the beginning of the call.  For all the other short bus riders that hung in there, thanks to them I don't have to worry about call times at all this month.

(no subject)

[annamaryse.livejournal.com]

Line: Free Tech
STARTUP: No launch, error message.

Details: Customer was having a breakdown because program had not started up. Thought the CD had not loaded, nothing was coming up onscreen. Lectured me on how many software programs she has installed and never been through anything like this.

Resolution: There was no CD in the CD tray (which is why nothing was coming up) - and it turned out the program had already installed and the icon was already in her start menu.

Problem solved

Passwords

[anivair.livejournal.com]

A recent exchange about password security.

Collections Manager: Why can't she use this as a password, nobody's going to guess that!
Me: Keith . . . that's the first three letters of her first name and the first two letters of her last name. I'm not using her name as her password.
Collection Manager: Nobody's going to guess that! I'd bet you a thousand dollars.

Right. you do that. The fact that you wouldn't guess it doesn't mean about a thousand other people wouldn;t.

And even if they don't and even if she's just a collector and doesn't have much power on the system I am not in the habit of letting people use weak passowrds. Period.

What a bad idea.

Fortunately, his opinion on computer security means exactly nothing.

(no subject)

[leo2003.livejournal.com]

I am trying to burn some of my BIG files over to a DVD but I cant figure it out someone HELP!!!!

Jason

I do have a DVD burner

Also I am now looking for a computer related job here in Orlando, FL

Lovely lovely remote users should be brained by a cod. For the halibut.

[infy.livejournal.com]

( Rather long rant. )

Die damnit! Die!

[geekgrrl-ca.livejournal.com]

Why do I have to be stuck on the AOL queue? We don't really have an AOL queue, but I seem to be getting all the peons with that at the tail end of their address.

Yes your printer needs to be plugged in for you to print. I know it says print wirelessly on the box but they didn't mean with out the power cord.

I don't care if you scanned with Norton Antivirus this morning and updated this week, if your scanner in device manager says code 19 or 28 you have a virus 80% of the time.

I don't care what the sales man said, 128-256megs of ram is not enough for XP, and that is why your computer is stalling and print jobs take 20 minutes per page to complete if they start in the first place. Sales people lie to make the sale, deal with it.

Ram/memory is not hard drive space. I don't care if you have 180 gigabyte drive, 128-256 megs of ram is still not enough for XP, specially when you install our bloatware on your computer.

I don't need to know every thing on your install screen. I've seen/heard it a thousand times. I only want to know when it has an error.

You don't need to ask me what to do when it says "click next to continue".

Don't argue with me over what the trouble shooting steps are, if you don't want to follow my instructions don't call me.

Yes, if you wish to speak to some one else I'll be glad to faciliate that. If you're nice I might even send you to the correct queue. If you're really nice I'll send you to the correct queue in the right country. If I'm in a good mood they'll speak english.

If you don't have admin rights on your company computer I can't help you, really, I'm not just saying that to give you the punt, I've got better lines for that.

If you let your kid take away your admin rights and they're not home I can't help you. Learn more about your computer.

If you can't find your start menu I can't help you, either take the crappy thing back or get a tutor, you're too dumb to take the community college course.