Sometimes I wonder why we even bother...

[sessifet25.livejournal.com]

A ticket from one of our resellers:

The customer is having intermittent connection problems with their internet service. Can you investigate please? This has been since the Cardif exchange problems a couple of weeks ago.

That was the full extent of the ticket. Oh, and they provided the customer's CLI. Not a lot to go on. So I fired back the following:

Please clarify as to what fault the customer is experiencing and what you have done to try to resolve it. With the information provided, we cannot perform adequate testing. Note: This is not me trying to avoid work. This is me trying to figure out what this reseller is talking about when they talk about 'intermitttent connection'. Some mean intermittent sync, some mean intermittent PPP, some dropping authentication and yet others use this for intermittent slow throughput issues. And all of these faults need if not different testing, then at least a different approach. We are trying to get them all to be consistent, but it is slow going. At least we've got half of them convinced to stop raising everything as bloody, sodding 'broadband miscellaneous'.

Coworker of mine picked the ticket up today and called me over. The reseller had reopened it with this:

The customer initially logged a fault with us a couple of weeks ago when there was an issue with the Cardiff exchange they are on. Since then they have intermittently been having problems with their internet connection in that it doesn`t always appear to be working. The fault only started after the exchange work had been completed and running a line test on Supportal shows Line Stability Rating as Intermittent Stability, which believe is causing the issue, possibly at the exchange?

Well, that just clears things right up. Thanks. Oh wait. It doesn't.

The 'line test' they refer to is nothing more than the line statistics. If the connection is intermittent for whatever reason the line stability rating will indeed show 'intermittent stability'. I just don't get why you would decide to resell ADSL2+ if you've no idea how to support it. And this is not rocket science! We're not talking about knowing the ins and outs of our network. We're talking basic stuff here. They get a nice welcome pack and training on how to use the support systems when they come over to us. They get told what the different fault types mean and what standards there are for raising a ticket into our queue. They get told how to do basic troubleshooting. I personally suspect we're just wasting our time and should just give them an A4 sheet of paper with our contact number on it and how to raise a fault. Because that's pretty much all they do anyway and we're just making a lot of trees nervous.

I especially love 'they have intermittently been having problems with their internet connection in that it doesn`t always appear to be working'. I just want to take that sentence home and cuddle it and give it much love. Coworker and I had a word with the manager who suggested we run line tests anyway and educate them a bit. My suggestion of this education involving us hunting down this particular agent and headumacate them with half a brick was not carried forward.

I never get to have any fun...

As to why we even bother? I don't know. Consensus seems to be 'hey, self-torture makes you smart!'.

(In other news, I nearly sent a ticket back earlier today with the words 'the customer appears to have an underlying intermittent stabbity fault'. I occasionally worry about my subconscious.