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What's sad.... ok, and somewhat funny.... I've seen people who couldn't find the ground if the looked straight down.... lol
Quote from: JKnightandKARR on Mar 19, 2025, 03:49 AMWhat's sad.... ok, and somewhat funny.... I've seen people who couldn't find the ground if the looked straight down.... lol
I had a caller for VPN tech support called in. This woman was actually a medical doctor - pediatrician. I started out asking her to tell me if the blue WiFi light was lit. When I told her where to look, on the plastic bezel around her keyboard, under the screen, she told me that there was NOTHING under her screen. We went back and forth for an hour-and-a-half - "what about the desk that your laptop is on, isn't that under your screen?" "I DON'T KNOW!" "what about the floor, under your desk, isn't that under your screen?" "I DON'T KNOW!" (screaming.)
Finally, just as I was about to hang up on her, she screamed "THERE'S NOTHING THERE EXCEPT THE BLUE WIFI LIGHT." ::) Some times I hated doing tech support. >:(
Quote from: granz on Mar 19, 2025, 06:42 AMSome times I hated doing tech support. >:(
An often thankless job.
Quote from: Chris Savage on Mar 19, 2025, 09:13 AMQuote from: granz on Mar 19, 2025, 06:42 AMSome times I hated doing tech support. >:(
An often thankless job.
....... Maybe I need to rethink an I.T. job.... lol
Quote from: JKnightandKARR on Mar 19, 2025, 07:34 PM....... Maybe I need to rethink an I.T. job.... lol
Tech Support is no longer an IT job. They give the tech a script, and the tech is not allowed to deviate from that script - even if they run into a roadblock. I was third-level support, but took over from the Technical Assistance Center (first-level support) in the evenings. I didn't care about the scripts, because I wrote many of them. So, I just did my job getting people connected.
Quote from: granz on Mar 19, 2025, 08:55 PMQuote from: JKnightandKARR on Mar 19, 2025, 07:34 PM....... Maybe I need to rethink an I.T. job.... lol
Tech Support is no longer an IT job. They give the tech a script, and the tech is not allowed to deviate from that script - even if they run into a roadblock. I was third-level support, but took over from the Technical Assistance Center (first-level support) in the evenings. I didn't care about the scripts, because I wrote many of them. So, I just did my job getting people connected.
How long did you train for people to barely understand you?? Lol cause that seems to be the normal.
Quote from: JKnightandKARR on Mar 20, 2025, 11:24 AMHow long did you train for people to barely understand you?? Lol cause that seems to be the normal.
There's a reason why I wrote the article, Getting the Most from Tech Support (https://savagecircuits.com/getting-the-most-from-tech-support/). ;)
Quote from: Chris Savage on Mar 20, 2025, 11:39 AMThere's a reason why I wrote the article, Getting the Most from Tech Support (https://savagecircuits.com/getting-the-most-from-tech-support/). ;)
I took a quick scan through your article - some good ideas.
That said, there are a LOT of Techs who do not care what you have done. Several times I have called for help, and had already rebooted, reset the router, reinstalled Windows, or several other things, and the Tech cannot skip that item, requiring me to redo the basic things again. Most of the time that I call for help with my router, I tell them that I already reset the router, and give reply times for pings, and they still want me to do it all again. Some of them did not even know what "ping" meant. :o ::) Most of these calls end up with me being transferred to second-level, or they say that they cannot help me and end the call. >:(
Quote from: granz on Mar 20, 2025, 03:19 PMI took a quick scan through your article - some good ideas.
I'm not one to toot my own horn, but when I first started at Parallax I was in tech support. Day 1! The average tech call before and while I was there was 30 minutes (some calls up to 60 minutes) despite a policy to keep calls to 20 minutes or less. Some people just wanted to chat or talk about their project or whatever.
MY OWN personal average was 5-7 minutes. I didn't have a script, per se. My focus was to determine exactly what product they were using, how it was connected and to quickly determine what may be the issue. While I did have a handful of longer calls from people who were, "difficult", most people were happy to just get things up and running without additional banter.
Obviously, it helps to know the most common problems people have with their specific hardware, including not only the typical hardware issues, but the common mistakes (user error). I never tried to make anyone feel inadequate for lacking in skill and I did my best to make the experience as pleasant as possible. For the time I was in Tech Support, I really enjoyed solving problems.
I did get my share of angry people who were determined to skip things because they had written them off. There were many times when someone was using a battery and was 100% sure that was NOT the problem because the battery was "new". Sometimes they justified it by saying the LED was on, so the power MUST be good. Often, it was not. It doesn't take much voltage / current to light an LED. But below a certain voltage, the MCU would simply not respond.
Another thing that drove some of the "older" folks crazy was the power switch, which was marked, "0-1-2". Since it didn't say, "OFF-ON", some people assumed the board was dead because they assumed it should be on without a power switch. That is, they thought the switch had some other purpose.
Quote from: Chris Savage on Mar 20, 2025, 11:39 AMQuote from: JKnightandKARR on Mar 20, 2025, 11:24 AMHow long did you train for people to barely understand you?? Lol cause that seems to be the normal.
There's a reason why I wrote the article, Getting the Most from Tech Support (https://savagecircuits.com/getting-the-most-from-tech-support/). ;)
Helpful, though sometimes people who do tech support are occasionally worthless, aka Netgear.... Kept trying to convince me the issue with my 2G/5G bands going out was my cable, not the router... Shock.... changed and so far hasn't gone out... Nor would Netgear honor their 1yr free replacement... Which sucks...
Quote from: JKnightandKARR on Mar 21, 2025, 12:58 AMHelpful, though sometimes people who do tech support are occasionally worthless, aka Netgear.... Kept trying to convince me the issue with my 2G/5G bands going out was my cable, not the router... Shock.... changed and so far hasn't gone out... Nor would Netgear honor their 1yr free replacement... Which sucks...
Yeah, many of the big companies tech support has gone downhill over the last 25 years. In 2001, calling HP / Compaq was a real challenge. I didn't need help solving a problem, I just needed the correct part, so I would always have to start off the call asking for tier 2 support as I am a computer repair technician.
Don't get me started on Western Digital tech support. You get more from the community forums than you do directly! And to make matters worse, they split their SSD and Hard Drive support. Every one of my computers has an SSD as the primary and a Hard Drive as the secondary. So this concept is just ridiculous on the face.
Quote from: Chris Savage on Mar 21, 2025, 08:00 AMQuote from: JKnightandKARR on Mar 21, 2025, 12:58 AMHelpful, though sometimes people who do tech support are occasionally worthless, aka Netgear.... Kept trying to convince me the issue with my 2G/5G bands going out was my cable, not the router... Shock.... changed and so far hasn't gone out... Nor would Netgear honor their 1yr free replacement... Which sucks...
Yeah, many of the big companies tech support has gone downhill over the last 25 years. In 2001, calling HP / Compaq was a real challenge. I didn't need help solving a problem, I just needed the correct part, so I would always have to start off the call asking for tier 2 support as I am a computer repair technician.
Don't get me started on Western Digital tech support. You get more from the community forums than you do directly! And to make matters worse, they split their SSD and Hard Drive support. Every one of my computers has an SSD as the primary and a Hard Drive as the secondary. So this concept is just ridiculous on the face.
Agreed, and quality in general has also gone down.. My Acer Nitro 5, the series has an issue with the lid switch, so after a while my system started going to sleep randomly without warning... Soo ANNOYING!!