Not sure who's worse this time.

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

A call center in Florida, amongst others, is in competition for the business of handling their lusers customer care needs in way of technical support. In a move to bid for our client's favor, they made it known to the client and passed on to all of the other competitors that they would not be outdone in terms of customer satisfaction. We all laughed at this, being that they have consistently screwed up system after system with improper support and the "when in doubt, sell them something" philosophy (which usually does nothing to fix the problem). Were I Gawd, I Would Smack These People With Dimensional Lumber.

But I'm not, so we have stories like this to pass on.

Tonight I dealt with a lady who had been pretty well burned by Florida. At least eight contacts under the same ticket and numerous callback requests, less callback attempts than requests, every last one handled by that call center. She wanted to get a CD burner for her system. Cool, we sell those. She got it and for some reason it wouldn't work. So how do we fix that? Of course, you need more RAM :). Sold her a 256MB RIMM module. She gets it, puts it in, no post. Gee, whodathunk that rimjobs have to be installed in pairs :). Gullible as all hell, she buys another one cause she is pretty well told that she has to have the memory to run her CD burner properly. Got it, installed it, works. CD burner is still hosed. So how do we fix that?

Of course, we sell her an upgrade to Windows XP Home Edition. One small catch - she was running Win2k Pro. Upgrade's not gonna work. Sure enough, it didn't. She calls back to us in New York for our first contact with the lady. To top this off, she's had a spyware problem that software alone didn't fix (we sell a bundle with Spy Sweeper, typically good software but it's not perfect). Mind you, all of this started back in February, with the purchase of XP in the beginning of March. She's well out of return period for all of these items, and the XP return would be a real bitch to push through but might have gone because of how she got jacked with by Florida. Nope, not gonna happen this time. Referred to Executive Appeals to plead her case. Spyware - well, we don't support that. Go talk to Webroot.

Oh, and the CD burner? Yeah, it was purchased as an add-on. Warranty support doesn't support that, and never should have in the first place. Go talk to the manufacturer or the software vendor (Nero, in this case).

So who is the bigger jackass? The company, for having put her through this, or the customer, for having continued to shell out her cash after being screwed time and time again?

Comments

[igz00.livejournal.com]

Without ignorance or idiots we would all be unemployed.

[dr-atheist.livejournal.com]

But in this case she was neither, she got screwed by incompetant techs. She asked for help, listened to the help, followed the help, and got screwed.

Stabbin Time

[blkmge138.livejournal.com]

I agree Squeee. The customer was just listenin' to the stoopid techs. We have the same problem where I work only it is a call center out of India that gives us problems. And Raven I have no Dimensional lumber but a couple of sharp stabbin' knives should help ;)

Re: Stabbin Time

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

Ultimately it disillusions me about American tech sto see them doing the kind of stuff we always associated with low-cost foreign labor. Makes sense why they'd want to pay less for crap support overseas when all they can get is crap support stateside for more money.

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

Keep in mind she kept going for all of this, buying item after item at no small expense (our markup is pretty heavy and rambus isn't that cheap to begin with), only stopping because I didn't tell her to buy something else also. The ticket read like a big statement of "here's a ripe sucker, have fun". We woulda reversed most of this if she was in any sort of return period even for the WinXP. She said she had a life to live and couldn't be bothered to fix her computer problems in a timely fashion to us.

Not much sympathy for her on that count, but it really didn't need to come to this either.

[igz00.livejournal.com]

ignorance on her part for letting them sell her all this shit

and the other techs were idiots

[dr-atheist.livejournal.com]

and you've never been sold something you didn't need, say by a mechanic?
We aren't all experts in the things we own.
And yes, I do work in IT, but this time I completely sympathise with the end user, the techs who dealt with her should be ashamed.

[dr-atheist.livejournal.com]

If my mechanie tells me I need new brake pads, I get new brake pads, because I trust his judgement above mine. You should (ethically) have reversed it anyway, you (not personally I know) sold her that unneeded crap under false pretences, she could have the company up in court for that, but as ever, as most people don't know enough about their PC's this wont happen, and the people who do know enough never call tech support.

[igz00.livejournal.com]

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=8&q=ignorance

ig·no·rance n. -
The condition of being uneducated, unaware, or uninformed.

[xdownfornowx.livejournal.com]

yes, the fla support are fucking idiots. I hated seeing that in the notes. The SF and Canadian teams where only slightly better. Be proud, my brutha, as the upstate team is the only one that actually can get anything done... well half of them anyways. As for the cd drive, I thought anything purchased through y'all was supposed to be supported too. I always did. Not that it matters much now. Just remeber though, you only make about half of what the SF douche bags get. And, for your reference, after I left that hell hole I started making a dollar more an hour folding t-shirts at Pac Sun. ::cold shiver:: Well at least there is one perk there. The ATT girls are nice eye candy, not that they ever talked to us dorks.

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

I realize this is more philosophical than anything, but we have come to general consensus as a society that "ignorance is no excuse". Now this isn't absolute - if for instance you trust a doctor's opinion and their opinion is bunk, people sue. This lady may very well have the right to pursue legal action (consult your friendly neighborhood lawyer), but it doesn't change what my employer allows me to do about the situation.

Ethically speaking, this type of tech support shouldn't be allowed to appen at any cost. But then again, businesses survive on profits, not ethics. It's a case of two wrongs, both sides screwed up, quite arguably the company moreso as we've discussed.

[igz00.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying what was done to the lady was right or ethical in any way. Just stating that without people in the world who are ignorant of technical things (much like this lady) we would all be unemployed.

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

(apologies for inside references here)
SF/SD doesn't exist anymore. Paying them twice as much didn't make sense to the beancounters anymore and thus we have their work in Roch now.
Canada is sucking ass. Hard. Several of us have been up there to try to screw their asses on straight, and I may be taking a trip up there in May/June after the semester for this purpose also. Client I think is about to/already has pulled work and given it to other clients cause of this.
Nope, remember those 66 part numbers? We don't touch them with anything but their CC for feebased support (or refer to manufacturer), far as I know it's always been that way.
Yeah, ya don't make good money there, but it's a desk job and for my twenty hours a week around school, it's probably the best paying job readily available.
And FWIW, the eyecandy on the sales desks kinda piss me off, especially because they also think they are Gawd's gift to the place, when it's blatantly obvious they got hired as office furniture and every metric sucks, but they get plenty of attention. That and well, with ISO gone, ATT (now Cingular) is the goat of the facility that will hire darn near anyone.

Worst part is they are not recognizing the increase in cost of living with any significant pay hike and I know of at least one call center people have gone to enmasse. They've tapped all the competant technicians in the area that will work at their price range on their availability (whenever the hell we want you, quite literally, weekends, halfway into the night, etc). This means anyone we bring on from outside either going to turn over very quickly or know next to nothing. Next thing you know we're just like FL.

[kallell.livejournal.com]

brings back nightmares of the phone company