Why Tech Support Gets so Crabby

Amen Brother! I have had a little PC Repair training, did not go for the A+ exam. But my friends and family don't realize that I can't always fix their PCs over the phone. It is very frustrating because they think I just don't want to help them. The don't understand.

you mean you can't see what's on their screen like my family members and custopmers expect me to, either? it amazes me how people can expect a person to know exactly what is wrong when you can't actually see their system. as an example, a friend called wednesday wanting me to fix her machine which wouldn't boot. i live two hours away and she wanted me to fix it over the phone. i told her a few things to check but if none of them worked, to take her rig to a local repair shop. i wasn't going to drive that far. sorry!

Bah, the heck with tech support. I not only can and do all of my automotive srvice repair, I also fix all of my PC problems with out the aid of tech support. I find that most tech support personnel know so little that they are useless until you get second or third level support on the phone.(I guess it helps that I am a Master Auto Tech and I have been a computer geek since 79)

True. I, however, am pretty good. But I can't install a modem over the phone, I can't restore a hard drive over the phone...I mean, c'mon...defaulting and rebuilding a router over the phone is bad enough!

Good article, Gideon ... and so very true.


What's the all time top answer when Joe PC user is asked what error msg keeps showing up?

Joe PC User: I don't know ... I just click ok till it goes away.

PC tech: Oh ... well that's all the info I need!

  

The two biggest problems we encounter when dealing with customers complaining of internet problems:

1) Customer routers- they buy a router (wireless or otherwise) and hook it up to the modem which we provide. They seem be unable to grasp the concept that we are providing a connection that comes through that modem, but what they do after that is entirely their own responsibility. Although it is against official policy, quite often the tech support guys will struggle through trying to help the customer get their router configured properly, but the customer seems to think it is our responsibility to do so (WRONG!!) Quite often they will enable weird/unnecessary routing protocols and I have even run into one case in which a customer had taken his modem and connected it to a network that involved two routers and two hubs. This network was for two PC's in his home. Also quite often the customer will buy their own firewall and manually block the wrong ports. Not our responsibility but they blame us for this as well.

2) Slow Speeds- There are two major misunderstandings about internet speeds for which ISP's are often wrongly blamed. Quite often the customer believes that if they are buying a "guaranteed connection speed" of say 10 mbps that that will mean that all of their data will be downloaded at 10 mbps, regardless of where they are trying to download from. What this means is that you are guaranteed that speed on your ISP's network. Once you leave that network though, it's anybodies game. Say you are trying to download a file from a server in Russia and it is coming in very slowly. This is typically not the ISP's fault and could be due to any number of reasons completely out of their control. The other big complaint about slow speeds is often the customers fault as well. "My connection is slow as molasses, goldarnit!"- quite often people's PC's get infested with malware which opens connections across the internet. Get enough of these programs on your machine and it will not only slow down your internet to a crawl but can also crash your computer. Once again, NOT the ISP's responsibility!

I was an Admin Manager at Corporate Kindercare; so I observed new levels of the common sense stretch each day.
We had a term for the average user known as PEBKAP syndrome.

One of my IT support guys had a cartoon about PEBKAP. Doonesbury, I think.

Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Person
But to be arrogant is to err.

But I must say; I recently upgraded to Windows Ultimate using the Windows Anytime Upgrade disk.
Now excuse me, but that is the dumbest da** thing I have ever encountered.

Not only did the Vendor (where I purchased said Upgrade) send me Microsoft Accounting 2007to install- They in turn couldn't for the life of themselves know why I was having a problem installing the upgrade. (hello) I repeatedly informed them they sent me the worng file, and it took days and one of their local staff managers to call them to get the right file. That took 2 days.

When I finally had the correct file, I figured out on my own that 3 features needed to be disabled- (Neither the vendor OR MSN seemed to think of that)and I further discovered
that my factory installed sound drivers were not compatible.

I think the tiny little icon next to my name speaks for itself.

BTW: I am using Linux (preference = Kubuntu) as we speak, it is so easy to install and was up and running in to time.

Go figure.

~kmw aka k8

I'm not tech support...not even a techie by any stretch of the imagination, but my mother used to ring me from interstate and expect me to resolve her PC issues over the phone. Oh, and not only could I NOT see what she was talking about, I was still none the wiser even when she told me what it (supposedly) was....as she never names anything correctly.

Ma: "My Yahoo isn't working properly!"....and the next 20 minutes or so are wasted trying to establish why she can't sign in...you know, checking the usual suspects, login name and password, etc. Worse still, it never occurs to her to correct things when it's obvious we are on completely different wavelengths due to her naming error.

You see, her FF home-page is Yahoo,and it's actually FF that won't open...and there I was trying to get her signed into her My Yahoo page on IE for half an hour. GRRRRR!!!!

Don't ask how it went trying to get FF fixed...it'd take an eternity and a day to type - considering it took 3+ hours, and I get confused if I type using more than one finger.

Another time: "I can't get my Mozilla to work!"....and it's an almighty long process of elimination to discover whether or not it's FF or Thunderbird, being she uses the most confusing terminology that'd test even the patience of God. At first I was given to believe it was FF, being that she "couldn't open a page"...but it actually turned out 15 minutes later to be T-bird....and the un-openable page turned out to be her ISP service to d/l her emails.

Seems that when my niece installed T/bird, she forgot/neglected to configure it to accept/send emails....and after nearly an hour of trying in vain to explain the simple procedure to get it done, my already strained patience was totally exasperated and I found an excuse to hang up....so I could call my sister. It seemed much quicker for to call her so she could drive an hour to fix it for ma, rather than another futile phone attempt.

Is it any easier now we are under the same roof? Nope! I still have issues with incorrect terminology; selective hearing...in that she only records every third word and cannot duplicate instructions, and then there's her reproduction mode where she somehow undoes what I've done to resolve the issue, apparently in an attempt to recreate it so she doesn't have to bother me with is next time...yes, you guessed it, that WAS the the first 'next' time.

Somehow wondering if she'd be better off with a knitting machine....then again, she's just as likely to come to me with something about not being able to get channel 10 news on it.

Haha. I got a guy to do that for me over the phone (give me hints on what to do if it was the PC that was the problem).

It was MEEEEE! I tied up the phone line!

Worked for AOL and Rogers ( Canadian cable ISP ) and here are some of the things I've had to put up with

1. Clients asking for exorbant amounts of credit for things like outages and such. No I will not credit you back $10k for your missed real-time stock transaction because of a dropped dialup connection because you're too moronic to realize that you are paying $24 for unlimited dialup access and are too cheap for a guaranteed up-time connection. The most I'll give you is 1/30 of that for a dropped line ( if that )

2. PC performance/connection issues. No, I will not accept responsibility if you install some piece of shit spyware app and it breaks your Windows socket connection , delivers you popups, and slows your P4 screamer down to 486 speeds. I'll help you, but it's your damn fault. Same goes with virii. I don't give a shit what AV app you got. When I search your task manager and find a virus and tell you, YOU HAVE A VIRUS, don't tell me otherwise.

3. The afore mentioned routers or gateway. OK , you're a geek and shit, you got your fly linux gateway , but I will NOT TAKE THE BLAME WHEN IT f**ks up, Kapish?, Comprende?

P.S oh, and calling me names resets my care factor for you to a big fat zero. You're damned lucky I don't have you delpart your piece of shit machine.

God I am so glad I work internal helpdesk support now. My clients signed the same employment agreement I did.

Haha. I don't call names.

Being really nice and girly gets you places!

Visit here. Plenty of funny tech support stories.

Jafo looks after his own machines....but has a tamed slave called Yrag on call if and when things get dirty ....

In return he insults me in new and interesting ways each time....

It's a mutual benefit society ....

The biggest problem I have run into is, u-n-d-e-r-s-t-a-n-d-i-n-g what the person on the other end of the line is saying. I have a Dell Dimension 4600(and proud of it), but when there is a problem with it I can't solve the only thing left to do is call tech support. That can turn into a 3 hour affair by it self. Somehow I get connected to someone across the ocean from me that talks like they took a crash course in the English language a couple days before. If a company wants me to recommend them to someone else, it would be nice to be able to understand them.

Except at the mechanics....there it just gets you charged more.

don't forget about the ID 10 t errors.

 

ID10t

Dick: The machine was working fine and then it just puked....

yrag: What were you doing at the time it puked?

Dick: Nothing.

yrag: Have you installed anything new?

Dick: Nope.

yrag: Any error messages?

Dick: Nope.

yrag: Besides the puke, do you smell anything?

Dick: Just me.

yrag: Wonderful. So, you didn't install anything, you show no errors and you were sitting there
frozen in time when this thing went belly up....do I have that right?

Dick: Yep.

yrag: Well, that narrows it down. Give me a minute.......

Dick: Could you hurry.....I need this machine working.

yrag: I'm trying DICK, but I'm drawing a blank. By chance, is there anyone else there that has a clue as to what time zone they're in?

Dick: Just me.

yrag: Great......

Dick: This can't be that hard to figure out.

yrag: You're right. Try this: unplug the machine for six months. I'll play the odds that after that much time you'll break that fuckin' phone you're on and we won't have to re-visit this problem. You have yourself a great day.







We're up to the chains and whips level, so by all means Honey.....break something.  

but my mother used to ring me from interstate and expect me to resolve her PC issues over the phone.

That is when GoToMyPC is worth the $20/month!  Not my mom (after spending a career working on big iron, she refuses to own one), but my Aunt Who lives 1000 miles from me.

I have met some Techs that are worth more than gold. But most are clueless.  I called Verizon to get the user's password (he was there with me) to set up their wireless, and got 2 hours of anything BUT!  Finally got the password when he decided that the problem was the linksys (duh!), but it cost an hour and 55 minutes of "MR. Mighty PC Tech" knowing less than me, and being condescending about it.

Until I owned a PC for the first time (almost 6 years ago), I didn't realise just how many computer experts there really are out there. In fact, it never amazes to cease me just how many, sight unseen, will offer opinions on what the problem is, so who needs levels one through five phone tech, anyhow!

All I gotta do is go down the street and ask: "OK, so I got Vista, what do I gotta do about....?". There's no language barrier/difficulty with accents, orright, maybe a little (after all, Oz is a multi-cultural society these days)...OK, a lot, but I'll have a thousand and one fixes (all for nix) in no time....no need for expensive phone IT.

Yep, the way things are going, with "MR. Mighty PC Tech" knowing less than me, and being condescending about it", the unprecedented growth in computer/PC experts out there in the wild, and it's sad but true, but the IT professional is fast becoming a dying breed and may soon become extinct.

It surely is a sad indictment of this throw away society we live in..."Who'd throw away a perfectly good IT boy in the garbage like that?" .....or finding them congregated around a bonfire in an old oil drum under a bridge to keep warm.... cos their cosy little IT cubicles have been rented out to illegal immigrant families.

Nope, I wouldn't be in IT for quids.... and it's gonna become even more of a cut throat (computer) world if Apple and/or Linux ever increase their market shares, even minimally. Yep, I can see it now, the dog eat dog scramble for an extra IT position or two this creates...a predatory battle for that one, solitary OS-X cubicle in your hemisphere...until the rogue street expert prevails and effectively shuts them down.

Bah...the more I think about it, the less I feel inclined to let anyone use MY PC!

I usually do most of my own stuff, but I had an IT guy that I went to when I couldn't fix it myself. He owned his own computer company and sold/built all of our computers at our office (I've been there for 15+ years) and we've been using him since before I started working there. Sadly, he passed away from a heart attack about 3 months ago and we've not found anyone to replace him. If it was something that the office manager or I couldn't handle (and she has a degree in computers ~ and I designed and programmed the databases we use at our company, even though I don't have a "formal" degree yet! I'm working on it eventually

That's not the only crap one has to put up with,not so long ago i was in the motor industry as a automotive mechanic one of the classics is because you fixed their ignition system you must be at fault coz they seized their motor as it had no oil a week or so later..lol.. ok that's a bit xtreme but you get the idea,true story did a tune up on a customers car as the engine had a miss,vehicle itself was old & quite run down,however not really taking any notice of wires below steering wheel being out of their wiring loom as tho someone had been hacking into it for whatever reason,i fixed the cars fault (all done under the bonnet nothing to do inside the vehicle) next thing customer comes barging in wanting to know why wires under dash were all hanging down,the service manager asks me what the story is my reply pretty straight forward ask the customer who they know that's been mucking around with the inside wiring loom at home..lol..

Not an IT guy but I can piss and moan with the best of em.....

Working in construction , I have had similiar experiences with ALL OF YOU. Get off your high horse and realize that your not smarter than everyone else. Your just better at what you do than others. For crying out loud you work in SUPPORT. So SUPPORT!

I have had to replace a frikkin lightbulb for a guy that supossedly invented a part in all fax machines. He earns $ 300,000.00 a month in royalties for the rest of his life but can't change a lightbulb.

I'll bet most of you that if your car suddenly stopped working, the first thing you would do is call a tow truck. You would probably tell the driver you thought it was the battery when you probably ran out of gas.

Your dealing with just PC related issues. You call for support when your heating system goes down. I don't think your an idiot for calling. Your an idiot for trying to fix it yourself and it costs you more money.

My point is we are all stupid in some regards. For some reason IT guys feel like they earned the right to be rude on top of stupid.

oh and good luck any of you when it comes to pleasing a woman.   

Go Night Train, you tell 'em mate, you tell 'em....and you're so durned right about the geniuses with university degrees and jobs we can't even pronounce. Yep, some of 'em are good at what they do, but still can't find their arses with both hands and an instrucion booklet.... so the ones who ain't any good at what they do are pretty well stuffed.

So now you know why they're rude and obnoxious over the phone, they're all icky and uncomfortable on the other end of the line.

Night Train,

I support INTERNET CONNECTIVITY! I do NOT perform PC Repair over the phone! Maybe you should stop DEMANDING CAVIAR when you're paying for frankfurters!

You, and people like you, are the biggest part of the problem. If we don't do the impossible (yes, I HAVE been asked to reformat a hard drive and reinstall Windows XP OVER THE PHONE...FOR NOTHING...remember, folks, the tech support is for INTERNET CONNECTION!), you jump and holler that we're not doing our jobs.

You work in construction. If someone pays you to build a 250 square foot add on, do you feel it's reasonable to ask you to build a 3000 square foot house for the same price you quoted for the add on? Because that is EXACTLY what you are demanding of us!

I'm not calling people idiots for calling, Night Train. I am simply saying that the end user needs to understand that tech support doesn't cover every little thing on their computer.

Now, to be fair, when the issue involves tech support of another company (say the issue is with their hardware and the computer is still under warranty), I am more than happy to find support numbers for the proper tech support to take care of the end user's needs. And I've logged many hours in chat with software vendors to get the end user the right answer. But as my job involves tech support for an Internet Service Provider, there are MANY requests that go beyond my ability to fulfill.

I love what I do; I wouldn't be doing it otherwise. And I try to get the end user an answer, even when it falls outside of our jurisdiction. But I cannot be expected to know every piece of software and hardware ever made to troubleshoot over the phone at the drop of a hat. My company does provide PC Repair services, but those services are extra. At a certain point, it's robbing the company of revenue.