Vague

[linguafranca.livejournal.com]

(X-posted)

Me: *answers phone with cheerful greeting*
Customer: I can't get online!
Me: *gets username, confirms that account is active*
Me: What happens when you try to dial in?
Customer: Nothin'!
Me: Nothing happens? You bring up your dialer and hit "connect," and nothing happens? Does it say anything?
Customer: No, it just says "Error"!
Me: What error message does it give you?
Customer: I dunno. Somethin' 'bout "Cannot connect."
Me: Okay, I need that error message. Let's hang up, give it another try, and if it still gives you an error message, write it down and give us a call back.


Repeat all day, every day. Sometimes, if I'm feeling charitable, I'll have them recreate the dialer before they hang up.

Comments

[zercool.livejournal.com]

Heheheheh ... my first dabble in the world of tech support (that first step is always soooo easy ... and it's downhill from there!) was support for a dialup ISP. 17 years old, $6/hr ... they freaking stole me. At least I make more than that now - and don't touch ISPs anymore, either.

[hillarygayle.livejournal.com]

OH yeah. One of my favorite things with our software is the way "It won't print my bills" turns into "It printed this error message" upon further questioning. e_e

[infusco.livejournal.com]

yeah, those clients are the bane of my existence :P

[tjernobyl.livejournal.com]

"If nothing happens, then obviously nothing is going wrong. Thank you and have a good day."

[gevauden.livejournal.com]

My favorite error message is "It doesn't work".

Apparently this happens to my customers quite a bit. I guess it must be that new Windows XL 2002 ME that they're all using. I suppose it has its own non-descriptive error messages built in to avoid confusing people.