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Geek Culture / My run-in with ISP Tech support live chat :)...

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CattleRustler
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 20:15
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At one point this morning I wasn't able to send outbound email... This has happened before but would usually clear up in a minute or two - Today it was taking a while (45 mins) so I decided (against better judgement) to notify their ace tech people, to let them know there was a problem with their SMTP server(s) etc...

here is a transcript of the conversation



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Toby Quan
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 20:59
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Oh, how very frustrating...

It's tough when you know a TON more about the technology than the "Technical Assistance" people making minimum wage and asking really basic questions.
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Lord Ozzum
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 21:07
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wow, that seems pretty annoying.
unfortunately, you can't really do anything about it.
that sucks.

You're just jealous cuz the voices don't talk to you!!!
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CattleRustler
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 21:13
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I L'dMAO afterwards (after got up off floor)


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Mentor
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 22:48
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strange these people never have an online complaints dept, maybe the bandwidth costs would be too much

Mentor.

PC1: P4 hyperthreading 3ghz, 1gig mem, 2x160gig hd`s, ATI radeon 9800 pro gfx, 6 way surround sound, PC2: AMD 1.2ghz, 512mb ram, FX5200 ultra gfx, stereo 16 bit soundblaster, ups.
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IanM
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Posted: 9th Apr 2004 23:42
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Bear in mind that a lot of first-line support desks are scripted, as most problems reported are standard and easily solved. This does mean that the people on those desks need little or no knowledge of computing.

It's only once the scripts have been gone through and the problem is still not solved that the call gets forwarded to someone at a more technical level.

Why? Well its cheaper to have low-paid grunts answering phones and fielding the calls with one or two techies supporting them, than it is to have a desk filled with techies spending all their time answering phones.

How do I know? Well, the company I work for works in this way. I would guess that maybe 95% of calls are solved on the front desk. The rest get fixed once by techies, and a procedure gets passed back to the front desk for future calls of the same type.

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Elleomea
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Posted: 10th Apr 2004 00:05 Edited at: 10th Apr 2004 00:06
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Quote: " Bear in mind that a lot of first-line support desks are scripted, as most problems reported are standard and easily solved."


I would say that wouldn't it be more cost effective and less frustrating for semi-technical to geeky users if the ISP just supplied a FAQ on their webpage. But then expecting your average user to bother reading something is probably a bit much .
And keep in mind that some users seem to always jump to the conclusion that it's something at the ISP's end, rather than something they've screwed up so technical support desks might be a little less inclined to listen to you if you say something along these lines.

How much ham could a hamster stir, if a hamster could stir ham?
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BatVink
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Posted: 10th Apr 2004 00:44 Edited at: 10th Apr 2004 00:48
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This thread brings to mind the numpties at PC World and the like. You be amazed how much fun you can have with a PC World saleperson by pretending you know nothing.

Quote: ""I want a PC, nothing special, I just use my computer for Word Processing""


Quote: ""Well you'll need a GeForce 5900 FX 256 Meg graphics card, 160 Gig hard drive, 1 Gig of Ram...""


I kid you not. I went in with my Missus' Auntie, she wanted to buy from a shop where she could go back if there was a problem (only reason for going there). They start at the top end of the range, irrespective of what you tell them, assuming you won't understand the lingo.

The fun starts when you start asking questions they don't understand...

Quote: "Does it have a IEEE 1394 port?

Erm...it's a USB computer, and the mouse is optical.

What's the FSB speed?

Well...we can give you a good deal on an extended warranty.

Is it dual channel memory?

It has some great software look "


BatVink (formerly StevieVee)
http://facepaint.me.uk/catalog/default.php
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CattleRustler
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Posted: 10th Apr 2004 00:53
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well in this instance the isp was screwed up. The smtp server was down and came back up no thanks to the support guy I spoke to. My settings remained the same throughout, and still do, and all is fine. Like I said their server goes down once in a blue moon for a few minutes but usually comes right back - this time it was taking too long so I thought I'd mention it to them. I am pretty sure while this dope was running me in circles he advised someone else "Hey, quick, go make sure all of our smtp servers are up."

Like the time my good friend got hit with Chernobyl virus a few years back. He was on a Dell that was still under warranty so he brought it to my house and he called tech support from there so I could supervise/listen in. So they walked him thru a bunch of crap to make sure the hdd was dead - of course it was, so the next step was to format the drive and make it bootable. The tech guy was telling my friend to have a win98 boot disk (which we did) and from a command prompt (after having booted from floppy which we did) they kept saying type in "format c:", and the disk will be reformatted and bootable. I stopped them and asked the tech guy "Don't you mean format c: /s ?" He kept insisting no. I kept telling him that the command he was advising will format the hdd but won't make it bootable. He kept disagreeing so I told my friend go ahead do what they say but you won't be able to boot and we are going to have to do this all over again with "/s" watch. So we sit there while the drive formats...done. The tech tells him to reboot. The pc reboots and lo and behold "No system disk found...please insert a bootable volume" or whatever it says when IO.SYS and COMMAND.COM are not on the drive. Anyway, we told the tech guy he should update his canned script and quickly dispatched him to the nether. My friend, who at that point knew that tech support is usually worthless let his warranties expire and never called tech support again, and further, never boght a preloaded system again - I built his next system for him and he never had a days problem. He then started building his own systems and now is somewhat of a guru himself where he doesn't need to bring it to me for anything unless he just wants to get out of the office and shoot the breeze over a few beers and a system upgrade.

sorry for the book.


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UnderLord
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Posted: 10th Apr 2004 21:59
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LOL silly guys =P yes i went in to a office depot a day ago or so asked if they had any IDE cables the guy said "A serial port cable you need?" jeez what a moron then i said "No the cable that plugs into your motherboard for CD-roms/harddrives ect" then he said "oh no we don't have any of those, Sorrie for the confuson but sometimes i get confused" me "Understandable *moving eyes side to side*"

The search continues.

Current project - A space game
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