(no subject)

[chaobell]

Phone: *ring*

Me: Good afternoon, $company, this is Sarah, how can I help you?

Them: Do you sell hard drives?

Me: Sure. How big a drive are you looking for?

Them: Uh... ... ... ...XP.

Me: ....er. No, sir, that's your operating system. Your hard drive is--

Them: Oh! Okay! I know! .......Packard Bell!

Me: ...nooooo, that's the computer.

Long story short, we determined that there was no way in Hell this computer could be sufficiently upgraded to run WinXP. Customer thanked me, hung up.

Ten minutes later...

Phone: *ring*

Me: Good afternoon, $company, this is Sarah, how can I help you?

Them: Do you sell hard drives?

Me: ...didn't I just talk to you? Packard Bell?

Them: ..........uh. Heh heh. Yeah.

Me: *headdesk*

Comments

[das-prompt.livejournal.com]

Don't you know? You can always get a better answer if you just call back into the queue.

[zig-mover.livejournal.com]

And your call also gets answered faster if you keep hanging up and calling back every time you're put in the queue!

[zercool.livejournal.com]

From the "Idiots Guide to Getting Tech Support":

Rule 23: if you don't like the answer you received, call back! A different tech may give you an answer that suits you!

[darkblade1.livejournal.com]

I hate that, but sometimes I encourage them to call back. Someone will just tell you the same s*it.

[doctoreon.livejournal.com]

I love it when they ask to speak to my manager. I always say: "Sure, if you want to, but he's going to say the same thing, too - he's the one who taught me everything I know about computers."

[guinevere33.livejournal.com]

It is, however, occasionally necessary, like the time AOL (::warding sign::) totally fucked up my modem drivers. After I sat for half an hour in a queue with HORRIBLE music, I got this idiot Dell tech who told me I needed to defrag my harddrive. (FYI, it turned out I needed to reinstall Windows from scratch - twice. Am still bitter.)

[litch.livejournal.com]

I don't know about you but every support site I've worked in has always had people who were at least occasionally clueless (I really hate it when it's me) so I have no problem with a customer asking for a second opinion. I wish they had the guts to just say that upfront "ok, I hear what you're saying but I'd like to go over this with another analyst, please transfer me to someone else"

Even when I am the alpha geek and know the product better than the developers there are times when the caller and I just don't click and someone else saying the exact same words can be heard when I can't.

You've got to let go of the ego

[zercool.livejournal.com]

If it was a random person now and then, I wouldn't mind it. When it's the same person, with EVERY tech we have, REGARDLESS of the issue, then it is a client issue, not an ego issue.

[samwize.livejournal.com]

God I loath that.

"My hard drive's acting funny!"

"How?"

"The power button needs to be held down a long time."

"THAT'S NOT YOUR "HARD DRIVE", IT'S YOUR COMPUTER! GRAAAH!"

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

"What size of XP?"

Heh.

[polarbee.livejournal.com]

Had a woman call up once and ask how much our hard drives cost. Gave her the price range (70ish to 250ish). She said she'd be right in to get one. And was very very pissed upon arriving and finding that our computers cost 700 and up.

[tmercenary.livejournal.com]

If what the users call it:
That big box that sits either on your desk is not the computer, that is the hard drive, processor, cpu, or in some cases the monitor.

the thing that sits on top of your desk that you look at, that's the computer.

[--murderer--.livejournal.com]

This is precisely why people get ripped off, they simply DO NOT know shit about computers. I mean, it's the most commonly used tool in the world pretty much, how could you not even know the simplest inner workings of them? What pisses me off is that a large majority of everyday people make no effort to gain any worthwhile knowledge of even their home systems. When I began my business years ago, it was kind of hard NOT to rip people off because it was so easy. I can't even remember how many times in the past the opportunities had arose when someone asked me the price of a peripheral or a system component and I gave them a horrendously bulked up price and they accepted it anyway due to lack of knowledge. I of course, didn't charge the bulked up price, I simply said I was mistaken. Bah, I don't think I'll ever see a shortage in the need for IT but I know I will definitely see the outsourcing of those jobs, unfortunately. Issues, issues, issues, I'll shut up here.

[valiskeogh.livejournal.com]

HEY THERE!
i'm looking through old posts in tech_support, looking for stories
that i'd like included on http://www.helpdeskhell.com . i've found your's terribly
amusing, can i include it on the "clueless luser pages" of the site?

please respond if yes, no response necessary if no.

thanks for your help!

valis