I hate calling tech support - GameCreators Forum

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Phaelax

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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 10:57

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If you're going to run an ISP company, please hire a tech department that at least knows what a router is and understand bridge.

Me: My current modem doesn't support bridging and I would prefer to have my own router control DHCP on my network. Does your new modem offer a bridge mode?
Support: uhhh let me check..... yea it can accept both wired and wireless connections.
Me: Uhh that's not what I asked.

Or my visit to best buy yesterday, I asked for assistance and got the head of the computer department.
Me: I need network storage (I assumed he wouldn't understand if I said NAS)
Him: *takes me over to a few western digitals*
Me: Nah, I need something with RAID support
Him: Uhh, what's raid?
Me: *facepalm*
Him: What about these over here?
Me: I checked, they're all usb drives.
Him: Yeah, but they're basically the same thing as a NAS.
Me: Nooo.... a nas has a mini webserver built into it and plugs into my router through ethernet, not a usb port.
Him: Oh. I guess we don't have anything like that.

Needed to vent, been a frustrating day.
But in case anyone was curious, I went to microcenter, pointed to a picture of a buffalo nas and said I need this. The guy went in the back, grabbed one, and handed it to me. So simple! $350 for a 4TB LinkStation Pro Duo. It's smaller than my old 1TB buffalo, faster processor, and interestingly has a built-in mysql server. The interface is much nicer too.

"You're not going crazy. You're going sane in a crazy world!" ~Tick

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Aaron Miller

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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 11:12

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Reminds me of http://theoatmeal.com/comics/customer_service.

I tend to avoid tech support if at all possible. Likewise, you can't rely on salesmen to know anything about what they're selling. However! It can be fun to play stupid, then correct them when they're wrong, then walk off. /satire

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Kezzla

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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 12:27

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me: do you sell thermal paste?
unenthusiastic guy at tech store: whats that?
me: the stuff you put on a cpu to aid heat conduction to the heatsync
him:

what?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
me: I am interested in getting a new motherboard what do you guys have in stock?

techstore: ok, ignores stock on shelves.(starts googling) waits... waits... " sorry there's something wrong with our internet and its really slow."

other guy emerges from out back. "whats the problem?"

"this guy is looking for a motherboard"

"ok, what do you want?" starts googling waiting... waiting...
both guys staring at monitor for a full minute.

me: "...ok, ive been looking at the asus maximus vgen at the site online. can you get one in for me? do you have anything similar?"

them: "what do you want it for?"

me "extreme power."

googling. wait wait wait.

"ok, we have the site here, so thats a rog board... " -starts rattling off all the information I had just read on the website I told him i read about it on.

me: "yeah I really just want to know what price can you give me for one?" - losing patience.

google google waiting waiting waiting.

third guy comes out, "what does he want?", "motherboard", "internet's slow", "going out back to find list",

another two full minutes without eye contact or communication as they click and read about the motherboard, probably checking ebay for a price...

customer walks in. customer ignored while they click and mutter to each other about how the networks not working.

me: nevermind I have to go. bought and paid for on ebay in under 2 minutes. I tried to buy local.

had the same experience exactly at the same store when I was looking for a new CPU. exactly.

They can rattle off jargon pretty well and I am sure it intimidates a lot of customers into silence, but ask em a basic real question and they are stumped and googling on their broken network until I excuse myself and leave.

I come to a store for professional advice because I have just finished googling and researching and now want some verification of my information.

It leaves me shaking my head and annoyed at having wasted 20 minutes of my life watching them fail at google.

small town only shop.

I feel your pain Phaelax

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Seppuku Arts

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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 15:40 Edited at: 11th Sep 2012 15:48

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In a shop the people you're usually talking to are minions. For somebody with expertise in the field then you're looking at a higher wage bracket. Though in theory they should know the products they're selling, even if it's just the name of it and its specifications. I understand when you sell lots of products you want know them inside out, but there's a lot to learn about. When I've been a minion, what did I do went I know bugger all what the customer is talking about? Found a member of staff who did. At Cash Converters I knew bugger all about Jewellery, the person I worked with? She knew a lot. But she wasn't very computer savvy (she thought Dell was the best brand you could buy).

Unfortunately, I find staff can be rather unhelpful, Tesco is one of the worst I find. They never seem to want to show you where anything is or answer any questions.

As for calling support, probably just better trained minions. I almost got a job doing support for LG, but in the end they didn't need more staff. Basically they were looking for staff through an agency and were happy taking on somebody who knew bugger all about the products, they just needed good communication skills and a polite telephone manner and somebody who can deal with people. The knowledge? You get trained and learn the rest on the job. My main duty would have been freezers, fridges and washing machines. I'm not exactly a qualified freezer expert, I just know it keeps my food frozen.

Yet I met the agency criteria.

Though I am surprised that tech support wouldn't be able to help you with a bridge. :S I thought it'd be pretty basic stuff.

I am actually just had to call my bank for support, because they seem to like buggering up. However, it was actually a fairly quick and easy process. Just had to go through lots of hotline dials first "Press 1 to assassinate Lincoln, Press 2 to save the princess..." Thankfully I didn't have to do any of that speak in stuff. And a long period of hold music, but the person was actually helpful and dealt with the problem pronto.

What's even more annoying is when I was working for a recruitment agency, trying to find a HR department or just somebody who can give you a reference for one of your candidates can be a nightmare. Bigger companies just love passing you around. Small local businesses, "Ah yeah, I remember the guy, what do you wanna know?" This is why I advise to anybody writing a CV/Resume, stick a direct number to somebody who has agreed to offer a reference on there. I only chased around a bit because I was nice, I don't think everybody would do that. That comic posted above? My EXACT experience chasing references. :S

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MrValentine

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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 21:48

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Sigh, they do not know what this is?

Thats a real shame... I had real fun with Bridges... huhemm I mean come on, most routers cross link Wireless with LAN anyway don't they even know this?

This should allow me to vent my mild anger at Comet lol Sepp knows who I mean

[No not TheComet lol]

A few years ago I tried applying for a job at the local Comet store and the reason, I was bored and thought why not apply for a place that I helped make over £1000 for... as a customer simply passing through.. I usually help people randomly make choices and advise better than the staff do... I often help people spend £200 more than they were thinking... >.<

So obviously I would consider applying for a job I would fit in so darn well, I can sell practically EVERYTHING they have on show, cookers, fridges, freezers, tv's, consoles, pc's, laptops' hi-fi systems... you name it I can sell it... but post interview, we unfortunately have selected some other dull prick who cannot tell what a Joystick is for...

Sorry... but just for laughs I went in a while later and met up with my contender... stood in the Printers section for a while [one side printers opposite side PC hardware including HDDs] and baited him into a...
him..."Excuse me can I help you?"
me ... "sure"

"Why not..."
him... "Is there anything in particular you are looking at?"
me... "Yeah I was thinking about getting a Printer with Laser capabilities"
him... "be honest I have no clue what these are..."
me... <facepalm>

<stupid feeling silent pause>
<Idea hits me...>
me... "well I am also looking for hard drives..." <I stand evidently in front of HDDs to give him a clue...>
him... "Sorry I do not think we sell any of those..."
me... "Oh aren't these HDDs?"
him... "I guess so if you say they are..."

<FACEPALM... I WALK OUT BEFORE I BURST OUT LAUGHING...>

eugh before I forget what I wanted to say lol here you go.my venting complete...

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Dark Frager

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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 22:34

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Quote: "him... "I guess so if you say they are...""

Because the customer is always right.

Oh come on. We're trying to talk with sigs here and you rudely interrupt.

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Phaelax

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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 22:37

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It doesn't help that the guy on the other line isn't a native english speaker either. I've worked call centers before, I'd like just for once to have someone who speaks english fluently. Called up another company today about a credit account. Again, broken english, I find myself repeating myself as he asks the same questions repeatedly only to find out he was no help at all.

I understand we all come from different countries and I've accepted the fact that most companies outsource to India, but if you know your customer base is primarily english-speaking, hire people who can speak it!

Quote: "she thought Dell was the best brand you could buy"

That was true once upon a time!

If you're going to sell computer components, at least know what they are. I understand that you might not know about freezers but can sell them anyway, but computers are a different story.
What would you think if you walked into an auto parts store and asked for spark plugs and the guy just said "yea i don't know what you mean"? People who work on cars know about cars. People who work on computers should know about computers, I don't think I'm asking a lot here.

I spent two weeks before talking with my cable company over issues I had with the internet dropping packets. Trace route showed unusually high pings at certain junctions, and I provided as much technical detail I could to the support guys. One lady got an attitude with me because when she asked me to reboot my computer I asked her what difference could that possibly make. Eventually after 2 weeks I got a "real" tech from a higher department who understand me and said he'd monitor the connection to watch the traffic flow and see if he could spot what was up. A day or so later the issues were resolved. I'm guessing they replaced a hub somewhere in the field.

Then there was the 3 hour phone call my gf made to MS support cause windows update wouldn't work. When I walked into the room and saw she was still on the phone that long I took over and spoke with the tech. I explained my network setup since he insisted my internet wasn't working and that's why update wouldn't work. During my explanation, and I kid you not, he actually asked me what a router is. The 3 hour phone conversation my gf had made more sense now. I just stopped and told the guy to get me his manger. 5min later the issue was resolved. Freaking morons!

"You're not going crazy. You're going sane in a crazy world!" ~Tick

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CoffeeGrunt

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Posted: 11th Sep 2012 23:15

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When I worked with a company called Hughes Electrical, we got pulled u on this pretty often. It was just a matter of course that I had to know the entire stock of TVs we were allotted in our branch.

This being make, model, spec and size available, as well as weekly stock checks to see how many of each we had...and that was just TVs! There was Blu-ray players, hi-fi separates, radios, surround systems, and that's not even delving into brown goods.

For example, if you're looking for a simple, but good quality bedroom TV for gaming, I'd have recommended the TXL32E3, or the E30 if you're really looking for more finesse with motion.

Still, our company was one that put service above price. I've went into Comet and Currys with friends browsing for TVs, and I have to say one thing to other people here:

How often do you stand in such a place for around twenty minutes, until you're deliberately making semi-orgasmic noises at a particular TV set that basically screams, "someone sell me this already?"

I often find them chatting in a corner. We often had secret shoppers and customer reviews. They had to be acknowledged within seconds of entering the door, and be offered help as soon as was comfortable.

I therefore found it funny that Comet verged on going bust, Currys is following suit, but Hughes still remains a profitable company. Sometimes it's just who's standing on the floor selling, I guess.

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MrValentine

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Posted: 12th Sep 2012 00:50

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Quote: "Sometimes it's just who's standing on the floor selling, I guess. "

Not a guess... principle lol

Frankly, sorry to say but anybody buying a TV from a high street retailer is proudly getting ripped off... I did in the past and now am the wiser... I buy wholesale or direct from wholesale suppliers muuuuch cheaper

[And I can guess what people are going to say to that, lol, so just do not bother, it is obvious...]

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CoffeeGrunt

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Posted: 12th Sep 2012 00:54

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Well, I used to work in such a place. We generally held our prices in line with online retailers, or as near as made no difference.

Just wanting to say this because the thread seemed to be heading into the, "people who work in electrical retail know nothing about what they're selling. Just there to rip you off."

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MrValentine

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Posted: 12th Sep 2012 00:58

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CG, not the staff... more the Companies... of course there is a handful... [noting ONLY A HANDFUL] of exployees who know anything... someone I know used to Work at Comet and he got fed up of all the newbies coming in... who just have no interest in the job... its the old timers who have a clue... the freshmens are clueless and are more concerned with the bunga bunga party on the weekend...

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Nickydude

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Posted: 12th Sep 2012 02:01

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I once worked for Wanadoo broadband support for a short time, if someone phoned with a problem you just read down a list of things they should try, if none of them worked you had to tell them "sorry, there's nothing more we can do..." and hang up. :/

I reject your reality and substitute my own...

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Aaron Miller

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Posted: 12th Sep 2012 02:05

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@Nickydude
Wow, that's horrible...

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Jeku

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Posted: 12th Sep 2012 05:56 Edited at: 12th Sep 2012 05:57

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I worked telephone tech support for HP here in Canada about 10 years ago, and they made us pretend to be American. If you think the tech support guy is bad, just imagine how bad the *customers* were half the time... like the obnoxious Texan who ranted at me because "I don't speak American", and "only Americans know what they're doing". I wasn't allowed to admit I'm from Canada, so sometimes when they asked, I'd say I live near the border, hence the accent. That usually made them stop asking, and it was actually true as I lived 10 minutes from the border.... just the *other* side of it

Senior Developer - CBS Interactive Music Group

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Nickydude

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Posted: 12th Sep 2012 14:10

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Quote: "@Nickydude
Wow, that's horrible... "

That's why I left.

I reject your reality and substitute my own...

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Phaelax

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Posted: 15th Sep 2012 08:15

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Quote: " here in Canada about 10 years ago, and they made us pretend to be American"

Is that even legal?

I worked a few months doing support for verizon dsl back when fios was still in its testing phase..... never again! Those are the worst customers in the world!

"You're not going crazy. You're going sane in a crazy world!" ~Tick

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PAGAN_old

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Posted: 18th Sep 2012 13:56

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As a wise man once said: "If you memorized the phone number of your internet provider, you probably have a terrible internet provider.

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them

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MrValentine

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Posted: 18th Sep 2012 14:45

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Well said PAGAN... When I was with AOL man I spent more time talking with their staff than my GF... Something I made very clear at the start of every call...

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PAGAN_old

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Posted: 18th Sep 2012 15:14

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lol well, i happen to luck out. My first internet provider since i moved to moscow one of the large internet companies in the area had good 30mbps speed and it was only about $25/month i was happy aside from a few times their internet crashed but they fixed it quickly. I did memorize their phone# because every time, my month ran out, they would block my internet, and once i made the payment, i had to call them every time and pester them otherwise they will forget to unblock it. took half a day to unblock my internet acess. Recentley i switched to a small fiberoptic company. $30/month gave me 100mbps speed and a bunch of other awesome free and questionable goodies that only a small russian internet provider would be brave enough to offer openly being too small to attract attention lol. Anyway, the first 3 months are free. i got used to this and when the day came they blocked my internet, i went and quickly payed the next month expecting to make phonecalls to them to turn on my internet and waiting anouther few hours before they do like my last internet provider. i come back and find that my internet is already unblocked as soon as i made the payment. To this day, i still dont know theur phone number

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them

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Fluffy Rabbit

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Posted: 18th Sep 2012 15:32

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I remember pestering my ISP to do a line test. A week later, a guy came out and looked at it, turned out my real estate company put in terrible phone lines running to my room. Another few days and he came out again, and charged me $100 to run a couple dozen feet of cable. Connection working fine. I get a network card for my old desktop and decide I want to have two computers online at once. Try out an old router. Doesn't work. Try to talk to tech support, and they say it's too old to be supported (and it's only like 7 years old). Ask the modem vendor how I might hook a router up to it, but they don't know a damn thing. Finally, I settle for just plugging in an old printer hub, and lose about 1/4 of my speed.

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PAGAN_old

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Posted: 18th Sep 2012 15:35

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Another thing i love about my current ISP NO MODEM! just a dedicated line straight to a computer or a router.

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them

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Dazzag

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Posted: 18th Sep 2012 16:36

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Funniest thing I ever had was phoning the ISP company about speeding me up. I had one of the original cable modems from the company and had been signed up before most people were working out how to get their 56k modems plugged in. The "engineer" bloke told me I didn't have an account (signed up before an account was needed) and he was amazed (read didn't believe me) that I had any internet link at all instead of like 5 years solid service. He actually made me wait on the phone for like 2 minutes saying "Any second now you should be disconnected.... wait... wait...". Honestly, there was no telling him that I hadn't been disconnected in like half a decade. Laugh was on me though with the expensive phone call and that they then realised I shouldn't have still been paying the intro rate. Doh.

Stupidest thing (by me) was when I phoned up the ISP about my web not working and was told to turn it off and on again. I mean I have said this in my job from time to time, normally to make them go away, and for a laugh at the reference to IT crowd (RIP). So I was all like "Yeah, yeah, think I'm stupid enough not to do that? I wasn't born yesterday sonny. I'd better retire that CS degree huh?". Eventually did turn it off and on again. Yep it worked again. Dammit.

Most annoyed though was when my ISP was completely stuffed and it was a proper engineer that needed to sort out the hardware. I'm mostly nice on phones but I totally blew a gasket when the new "Evening service for workers" turned out to be after 4.30pm. Erm, not many people finish at 4.30pm, and what about commute time? Apparently they couldn't even tell the driver to be later. Tough. Grrrr. Only time I've ever been told "Sir you are raising your voice to me. I ask you to be quieter or I will stop the call". After an hour on the damn phone getting passed left and right I stopped my rant, accepted the "Evening service" and booked the afternoon off. Gits.

Of course doesn't beat the other side of the coin when a smaller client was slating our entire department over the phone for the loss of emails from their system. Was because their email server was moved to the printer room and they had forgot to plug the network cable back in. This was after they moved the monitor/keyboard/mouse off it (for security) and before that had formatted it and given to a new person for their work PC (even though had other new PCs).

Sigh....

Cheers

Current fave quote : Cause you like musicians and I like people with boobs.

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Phaelax

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Posted: 19th Sep 2012 15:17

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Quote: "Another thing i love about my current ISP NO MODEM! just a dedicated line straight to a computer or a router."

say what?! You got fiber directly into your house or something?

So just before 6:30am today, my internet goes out. Just a few minutes before my auction ended on an epic diablo item I could've had. Called up, yet another non-english speaker says it was shut off for non-payment. So I asked him what was the credit card for that I gave him monday? I'm not going into it all, but it was a lot of BS as usual. Clear is officially the worst ISP I've ever used. $45 for 1.5Mb of cell tower latency. 4G my butt! Then again, the 4G on my cell clocked in at just above dial-up speeds, nowhere near the supposed 4G limit.

I've been staying at my dad's former place since I got back from the army. It's still in his name so I can't order a different ISP. No point signing a contract even if I could because I'll be moving in the next month or so.

Quote: "Ask the modem vendor how I might hook a router up to it, but they don't know a damn thing"

Reminded me of a story. My friend had a router she wanted to use with her AT&T internet. It wouldn't work. She tried another router, it wouldn't work either. She called them up, the phone techs had no clue how to help her on the phone so they sent out a tech to her house to hook up the router (at her expense). The tech couldn't even get it to work. She had two more "IT" friends attempt it with no luck. Feeling the need to show my superiority I went to set it up for her, despite her telling me not to bother because all these other techs couldn't figure it out. It was simple, she had a DSL modem and so the router needed to be set up with PPPoE. For whatever reason nobody else could figure that out. Only took 5 minutes to diagnose the problem, another 40min to get her to figure out her account info so we could retrieve the login info from ATT.

"You're not going crazy. You're going sane in a crazy world!" ~Tick

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Dark Frager

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Posted: 19th Sep 2012 18:47

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Honestly, I think you would be better off trying to fix it yourself than calling tech support, I also have a story:

So my Alienware M15x was heating up BADLY (going up to 90 degrees celcius) on the CPU. I call tech support and blah blah check your fan speeds blah blah blah install this software etc etc... until they sent a technician to my house. He changed the fan in the computer and obviously it stopped heating up for like 2 days because obviously it's a new fan, but it turns out that there was dust on the fans for like all the time I've had it so it was overheating. Yet they did not even ask about dust on the fans

And the moral of this story is:

Do it yourself.

Oh come on. We're trying to talk with sigs here and you rudely interrupt.

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PAGAN_old

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Posted: 19th Sep 2012 20:20

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Quote: "say what?! You got fiber directly into your house or something?"

well the fibers only goes to the appartment attic where it goes into a big industrial switch! and the rest of the way its just a regular RJ42, down to my apartment.

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them

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Phaelax

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Posted: 23rd Sep 2012 04:58

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Ohhh, silly me is that all.... I hate you.

"You're not going crazy. You're going sane in a crazy world!" ~Tick

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Geek Culture / I hate calling tech support