Internal Monologue from a Busy Call Day...

We pick up our heroine's story partway through her day....

She's already taken several mindless calls for people who just don't get it, and has taken a leisurely lunch only to return to the madness of back-to-back calls.  Remember, these comments are only being made within her head, none of this was ever said aloud.

Let's listen in...

<call>
"Oh fer cryin' out loud, woman! All ya had to do is turn your cable box on!!"
</call>

>call<
"I said ADDRESS bar!!"
>/call<

<call>
"Do you people EVER write down your damn wireless passwords?!? I mean, you'd think you would JUST in case you needed it again!!"
</call>

>call<
"Yes, ma'am, that's right... We here at ************* absolutely hate Nooks and tablets of all kinds and discriminate to the point that we will not allow them to connect to our wireless internet."

"I TOLD you to write down the freakin' password, you idiot... NOW we have to go through 10 times more trouble just to get you BACK to the damn password so you can connect your precious Nook!!"
>/call<

<call>
"Yes, sir, I completely understand, sir... yes, yes... you're an asshole... Of COURSE the CEO of ************ should be BOTHERED with this because I'm sure he has a TON of time he spends just sitting around doing nothing. After all he does run a major company and all, surely there is nothing for him to do but listen to you whine."
</call>

>call<
"...you discombobulated... your... black box...? AND your router??"
>/call<

<call>
"Duuuuude.... you prolly shouldn't call me when yer hiiiiigh....."
</call>

>call<
"Oh, wait... you're handicapped?!?! Oh!I wasn't aware of that.. let me bend over backwards to kiss your ass because you can't get off the couch or have the girl who called me who was unable to verify the account, unplug the power to your cable box... I'm sorry... next time I'll peer through my magic crystal ball and SEE that you're handicapped ahead of time so I can do everything for you!!"
>/call<

<call>
"My husband called, like, an hour agoooo.... but I'm gonna call now 'cause it's not working again... and, like, I'm stupid about this stuff'n'junk?? But, like, he's too busy watching Netflix to bother calling back... and stuff..."
</call>

...and as the moon rises and the dialtone fades into the sunset... our heroine has only one thing on her mind...

"DAMN, I'm hungry!!"

Thanks for reading, folks!!

*please bear in mind that these were only a handful of carefully selected calls from only half of a 10 hour day at work... these only represent SOME of the idiots that call in on a daily basis!

Back from Hiatus...

Welcome back, readers!

After far too much time away from my highly hysterical and anticipated Tech Support Adventure blog posts, I've returned to provide you all with insight, love, and laughter from the world within my world!  Here's hoping you enjoy reading, laugh out loud at points, and learn a little something about working with tech support agents along the way.

The world of Tech Support is a never changing thing. LOL  I mean, the people are the same no matter what technology you put in their hands.  Whether it be a telephone, a computer, a laptop, or.... WHATEVER - I am beginning to understand that some people are meant to understand these gadgets and some people are meant to be ruled by them!!  The people who understand them, are the people who create them, improve them, test them, and use them on a daily basis with ease.  These people are known as geeks! Nerds... Tech Support... we have many names.  :)

The people who are ruled by them?  Well, these are the people we support.  The technophobes, the old-timers, the people who... well, let's face it -- some of these people should have to take a test before even being allowed to purchase a computer.  You don't pass, you don't get to buy.

"Awww!  Ya didn't, pass.  Sorry!  Better luck next Christmas.  And, no, I don't believe that you're buying it just for your son, Cleetus.  We're afraid you'll try to touch it and that's a risk we're just not willing to take."

(get used to that, kids, I sometimes start talking as a tech or a customer, or both!  :) )

Noooow now... don't go getting upset, because I'm not pointing any fingers at anyone specifically.  Chances are you KNOW who you are because you say things like "I don't know anything about this stupid Smartphone!", "I'll never be able to figure this computer stuff out.", or "Which remote will let me fast forward live TV?"  And if you don't know... Heh, changes are you're one anyway.  And this isn't a bad thing, by any means!!  We all had to start somewhere!  It's just that... some of us... didn't... really move away from the starting line and, well, some of us have finished the race, showered, had dinner, enjoyed after dinner drinks, and are settled into bed for the night.  :D

But!  If it weren't for the people who don't understand an on/off button on a remote, or how to clear their cache and cookies from their web browser (if you looked at that one funny, you are probably one of them), people like me wouldn't have a job.  So bless each and every one of you for being computer illiterate, technologically ignorant, "tech tarded" (don't get mad at me, I had someone call themselves that), and just plain un-understanding about electronics in general.  Because of you, I have a roof over my head, food to eat, and clothes to wear.

But ya still tick us off.

Late Night Ramblings of a Tech Support Agent on the Edge...

4 days in a row and not a single decent quote of the week to speak of...

Ah well, there's still been good calls though!

Tonight I had a young woman who called in, unable to connect to her internet only to tell me that she had the router and modem plugged in, but there weren't any lights lit on the modem. Well, it's no small wonder that you can't connect to the internet! Without power, there's no internet. So, I ask if it's plugged into an outlet connected to a wall switch. Reasonable question, right? Right. It's not. Okay! Have you tried to plug it into any other outlets to see if it's maybe the outlet? Why should you?? Your router is plugged into the same outlet and it has power. Okay, well.... we'll move on then, because it's apparent that this customer doesn't want to try any other outlets. Got it. Troubleshoot everything else that might be keeping her from having internet... everything checks out. Dispatch a technician! Okay then.... if the tech gets out there and the issue winds up being that outlet that's the problem, it's going to be a charge of X-dollars to send the truck out. What? You want to try another outlet right now while I'm on the phone? Suuuuuure! *mumble grumble under my breath* Not like I didn't ask you if you would do that 10 minutes ago.... Hmmm? You tried another outlet and there's still no power to the modem? Okay, then it looks like the tech will have to swap out the modem for you when he's out there.

It's funny what people will do when faced with the knowledge that if they're wrong you're going to charge them money. Heh.

I did get to talk to a sweet old lady who shared part of her life with me tonight. She'd just gotten home after being away for 2 months which she spent with her son who had lung cancer while he went through chemotherapy. The good news is that they caught it early and it's treatable and he's going to be fine, but she did take a bit of a blow through those months watching her son go through the effects of chemo. Poor lady has had cancer herself too! She'd been a realtor for 27 years as well and we shared the joys and pains of customer service over the years. She'd asked whether I got a lot of people who yelled at me and that's what got us into the conversation. If I'd had time to talk all night, I bet ya she would have. But we had to get her TV fixed. Wound up being the coaxial cable was not only unplugged, but the pin inside it was bent and wouldn't go into the connector on the back of her receiver. So she was going to get one of her kids to go get her a new cable and call back if that didn't work.

Ya take the good with the bad some nights and some nights the good calls outweigh the bad ones and some nights... well... by the time you're done with the night ya just wonder what the hell has happened to the human race that we've become SO dependent on technology.

Oh! The other call I had tonight that had me cracking up laughing was the 50 year old woman who was working on setting up her internet. Now, if you remember, one of my pet-peeves is people who call Tech Support on speakerphone. This woman may be the one and only exception. The phone picks up and I hear the loudest woman known to man, I think. She's got me on speakerphone and is yelling so she can be heard, which she didn't need to do when she was right by the phone, but then she explained that her phone was in the kitchen and her computer, that she was trying to get connected, was clear out in her entryway the next room over. Even clear over at her computer she caused me to turn the volume on my phone down! I think I could have heard this woman from her house to my computer even without the phone! She did most of the talking, too, because she would add noises and whoops and hollars as things happened on her computer screen. She had me laughing! Poor thing, I couldn't even help her get connected because she was running on an ancient computer with Windows 98!! But she said her computer guy had come over and "juiced up" her computer so she could connect! Except that, when we went to set up a connection to the internet.... it wanted to set up a DIAL-UP connection! Ugh... so I tried to get her through to one of our other computer tech support agencies and THEY don't even deal with anything older than Windows 2000! It's crazy! So I let her know that and she wrote it all down so she could see what she could do. She took it all with grace and style, but good GRIEF!! I could barely HEAR once I got off the phone with her!! LOL

Ahhh, well... again, ya take the good with the bad.

Until next time, dear readers!

Lis

Tech Support Agents are People too!

Remember that the next time you call in to Tech Support with the attitude that we're always wrong and nothing we say is the truth.

Case in point: Customer calls in and immediately demands that we send one of our services techs out to repair her services. This is something that we charge for if they demand it without going through our troubleshooting process first. So I begin by telling her that to do so will cost her X-amount of dollars. Before I can finish the statement and tell her that we charge that ONLY if she doesn't go through the process with me first, she immediately starts jumping on my case. Thus begins the steady stream of beligerent, degrading personal attacks to me and my company. But mostly to ME. I was a liar, I was a horrible customer service agent, I was misleading, I was everything but a white girl doing her job. She laughed at me, whistled like she was bored when I was trying to tell her important information about her technician dispatch, which troubleshooting led me to anyway... if she had just called me calmly, discussed her issue with me CALMLY, and accepted the tech gracefully things would have taken less time and came to the same end. But no... instead she spent a great deal of my time interrupting me, giving me misinformation (like her account information so I could pull her account up in the first place), refusing to answer simple questions, and treating me like I were as dumb as dirt. She said she wanted to speak to a manager and when I offered to transfer her to one, she didn't want to hold for one (despite the fact that calling back would leave her on hold not once but twice anyway) and when I explained the prior fact in parenthesis, she told me "I didn't ASK you." When I asked her if her internet was working okay, she told me no, it was running slow... so I asked her if she wanted me to take care of that issue as well. No, she didn't want ME doing anything else for her. I still handled the call with grace, with tact, with professionalism, and with a smile on my face. Then I broke down crying from frustration and sheer anger after the call ended.

I'm pretty tough but in, going on, 17 years of customer service experience I have never, and I mean NEVER, encountered a customer as psychotic and hateful as this woman. And I've handled a LOT of customers.

In other news... if you KNOW you can't handle or understand the internet and the equipment that comes with it?? DON'T ORDER INTERNET SERVICE!! And especially don't call in, let me go through an HOUR'S worth of troubleshooting and walking you through every single step of the process explaining every single step as simply as possible... and then TELL me you are thinking of cancelling because you "just don't know anything about all this stuff" and you "just don't understand why it has to be so complicated". And please, please, PLEASE don't call in to Tech Support and try to have me talk you through things ON... SPEAKERPHONE. This irritates me and makes it harder for me to hear you and understand you and for you to hear and understand me. And when ya TELL me so - my tongue hurts alot from biting it because I want to yell at you and tell you to take me off the damn speakerphone so we can get this finished and I can get you off the freakin' phone!!

What have we learned today, dear readers?

1) Don't call Tech Support on speakerphone

2) If you know you can't understand the internet - don't GET the internet

3) Don't be beligerent and mean to people who are just here to help you

Until next time, dear readers!!

Lis

Is it a bird?? Is it a plane?? Is it my battery back-up?!?!

So, when you hear a "chirping noise" coming from somewhere in your house, do you immediately suspect a piece of technology and call tech support?? Apparently, some people do.

I had a sweet older couple call (older as in 80's) me one day for some tech support. She had been hearing this beeping or chirping noise coming from a black box near her TV. Okay, there's a few things that could be. After question upon question as well as many attempts at trying to get this lovely woman to DESCRIBE the box she suspected the noise was coming from, I had weeded out any of my company's equipment. It wasn't her equipment's battery back-up, it wasn't her computer (they didn't own one), and the box she suspected it to be didn't have any lights on it -- our company doesn't send out anything that doesn't look like a miniature disco for your livingroom. So what the hell could it be??

That's when someone who'd overheard my conversation, stopped near me, listened for a few more minutes and then promptly pointed at a nearby smoke detector.

EUREKA!! Well, it wasn't an epiphany, but that's about the time that my sweet older lady must haved started hearing the noise again and walked closer to the source, because I heard it too!! And I'll be dipped if it wasn't the sound a smoke detector, low on batteries, makes!! I asked her if she had them in her home and when the last time she'd changed the batteries in it was. AHA!! Her turn to have an epiphany. She hadn't thought of that! So here I am troubleshooting her smoke detector. Fun, fun. /sigh

Speaking of the non-tech savvy... I did have a great lady the other day who called to have me help her connect to her wireless internet. Her "geek", yes, she had one of her own, had come over and helped her connect up her modem and router already. She just didn't know how to connect when she had no connection. So we checked the hookup of the modem and it's fine, and come to the realization that she needs to run the setup CD that came with the router that will give her the network name and the password she needs to connect as well as prepare the router for her connection. And that's when it happens.... dead silence on the other end of the call. Did I lose her? Is she looking for the CD? And then I hear:

"Well, where do I put it?"

What?? It's a computer CD! Where do you normally put computer CD's?? As a friend suggested, I SHOULD have told her to "find the cup holder on her computer". But, as a Tech Support agent, I had to bite my tongue and hold back the real answer that sprung to mind and tell her "in the CD drive of your computer, ma'am." As if it wasn't the logical conclusion. Ah well... such is the lot of my job.

Lately, I've fielded more and more calls from people who have no clue how to operate a universal remote. If ya wanna operate your TV, ya press the TV button before you do anything. Same thing if you want to watch cable or a DVD! If you own a U-NI-VER-SAL remote, it's universally good for any device you program it to use. Hence the name. Or is that just crazy of me to assume?? Crazy, right? That's what I thought.

I get more waste of time calls like that, than I get legitimate calls about actual problems. Now, there are certain things that are out of my scope of support and when I tell you that, it's not MY problem that you can't stand the fact that I can't wave my Magic Tech Wand (I'm working on trademarking that) and connect it up. Don't yell at me! I'm giving you options, one which costs and one which doesn't, and not just leaving you swinging in the breeze. OR you have a third option: read the damn manual! Most manuals give you the instructions on how to hook your printer up to any network including how to do so with many different operating systems. And they're usually step-by-step! WITH PICTURES!! Even a monkey could hook the printer up, you just have to be smarter than the monkey.

And YOU called ME, right? You called me for a reason. Because I have a job to do to repair whatever it is you called in about that's broken. LET ME DO MY JOB! Don't get a step ahead of me, don't be a step behind me, and definitely do NOT go ahead on your own and do something that could make your services irrepairable! (Is that a word? It is now!) If you push a button that I didn't tell you to push and mess things up even worse than they already are? Guess what?? You're getting a tech which you'll have to wait at LEAST 24 hours for when I could have had your service up and running in a few moments. You called me to do a job, let me do it? I'm not getting paid to sit and listen to you postulate about - What if's? - now am I? What if I push this red button?? Ummmm.... there's a reason it's RED. Red means stop. Red, means danger. Red BUTTONS usually mean - DON'T FREAKIN' PUSH ME!! But, no, you ask and before I can give you the answer, you've already pushed it and POOF. Why did all the lights go off? Uh, cuz ya pushed the red button, didn't you? /hangs head and shakes it

Stop and thinkabout this, dear readers, before you call your friendly (yet frustrated) neighborhood Tech Support agent.

Until next time!

Lis

If it's too loud... TURN YER DAMN VOLUME DOWN!!

Well, dear readers, here we are with another blog entry. And what do we start with? The quote of the week!!

And this week's quote of the week? This one's a doozie!

"My internet don't be workin' neither!"

Now to deal with the issue of the day -- volume control.

Just because you can't hear me... doesn't mean I can't hear you. And vice versa, sometimes. Now, when you can't hear me, TELL me and I can adjust my mic to make sure you can hear me. Don't just start shouting at me! It's like shouting at foreigners or speaking slowly to the blind! It's counter-productive! And if I'M too loud, tell me and I can speak more softly, OR... now here's a thought, stay with me on this... TURN YER DAMN PHONE VOLUME DOWN!!

Now, turn about IS fair play... I've been on hold several times and the volume on my customer is fine, but then the hold music volume is BLARING!! And not only is it blaringly loud and threatening to deafen me, it sounds like bad 70's porn music! And I don't DARE turn it down for fear of missing when the person I'm trying to reach actually picks up the phone and doesn't care about their job, so they mumble their way through things. Now there have been a few times when the person on the other end of the phone (*cough*Sharon*cough*) is enthusiastic and always cheerful and adds to the throbbing of your eardrums by driving them straight into bleeding with their happy greeting! NOT that I'm complaining! I would take a THOUSAND of those cheerful people over one of the mumblers...but DAMN, people! Enthusiastic is one thing - deafening is another.

Now, to seguay into holding... Hold is of the devil most times... and at others can be a blessing. You call one time and get no hold music, you call another time and get a tune you know and/or like. Guess which hold lasts the shortest?! Of course! The one time you enjoy being on hold, it lasts the least amount of time and you get someone right away. The bad 70's porn music lasts forever and ever and ever....

And if they demand to speak to a supervisor?? They're going to be ticked at you, ticked at the company, ticked at the world, and most of all - transfer the anger to the Supervisor. Which can be, at times, a source of joy to the lowly grunts in tech support. We all just randomly smile for a moment and it's because somewhere a supervisor has withered under the anger of another customer put on hold for 45 plus minutes. It's like a fairy.... when someone doesn't believe a fairy dies. But at least you can clap and bring them back! Supervisors? Their souls wither more and more and the only thing that can revive even a small piece of their soul is a call giving an agent kudos for a job well-done! Even then it's a tiny piece. It's like stabbing a horcrux! A little piece of that soul dies....

Hold, leads to the customer who gives up. They give up because they're angry, they give up because they're tired, they give up because... well, you happened to get their call while they're driving somewhere. It's Tech Support. Ya call Tech Support to help you with your tech. If you're not WITH the tech, then we can't support it. Calling me from your car and telling me that your "internet don't be workin'..." is POINTLESS. You can't answer any questions for me AT THAT MOMENT. If I need to know what color a certain light is, whether something shows on your screen or not, or whether a wire is plugged into one place or another.. .I need to know what it is at... that... moment. Not what it was like when you left the house that morning or 2 hours ago or even the last time you called in. So calling tech support while driving your kid to soccer practice is just dumb. Also, calling me 10 minutes before you have GOT to leave to go get your kids or attend an important meeting at work to tell me that ALL of your services are down is probably not the best idea when a problem like that takes a minimum of 15 to 20 minutes to take care of. If ya don't have the time - don't pay the dime! (Yeah, I know it costs more than that now, but I needed a word that rhymes, dammit!) Don't be THAT guy that calls me, tells me (in a deep southern twang to boot) that his TV that HE didn't order, but his wife felt they needed, isn't working and that I need to fix it... and then tell me, when it's taking longer than a wave of my magical Tech Support Wand, that you don't have TIME to deal with it because you have to go fix a TAR (that's Southern twang for tire) right now. Don't be that guy!

Okay, dear readers... enough spewage for this entry...

Until next time!

Lis

Stop, Heeeeeey, What's That Soooound...

That, dear readers, would be the soothing sounds of your friendly (yet frustrated) neighborhood Tech Support Agent. LISTEN... TO... THEM!!

We ask you questions and give you information that is, contrary to popular belief, very important to you and beneficial to getting the issue you called in about resolved. Which is why you called in, in the first place, right??

Now, while we do have certain things we have to say to every customer who calls, the rest of it is pertinent information to you and your individual situation. So when we ask a question, please, please, please, please listen to us?

Example:

The customer who calls has one TV that is showing nothing but snow on it.

Me: Okay, Ms. Customer, now... is this the only TV that is experiencing this problem?

Ms. Customer: No, the one in the bedroom's fine!

Ummmm... right.

Breakdowns in communication (i.e. you not listening to us) also lead to customers asking questions about things we've already stated as clearly as humanly possible. So if the baby is crying and the dog is barking, the family is expecting dinner on the table or your favorite show or sports team is on the TV -- STOP and think before you call? We devote our time to you! Sure, it's what we get paid for, but when we have to repeat ourselves or ask if you're still on the other end of the phone-line because you've had to mute us to yell at Bubba or keep the dog who's barking at absolutely nothing from deafening us?? It doesn't help us, which means it's far more difficult for us to help you. Big tip?? Most tech support lines that include such important things as telephone services nationwide should be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Call when the kids are in bed, the dog is in the backyard, dinner is finished, and you have the time and attention span to pay attention to US as much as we pay attention to YOU.

Oh... and that call from your cousin or your best bud coming in on the other line?? It can wait!! Seriously!! This is why you have voice-mail... They won't pass out or lose a limb or the ability to see or hear because they've had to leave you a message while you deal with tech support. Asking to put me on hold for "a sec" to answer the other line or ask me to hold on while you answer the "cliche dog bark" on your phone because your sister/uncle/BFF/etc. is calling... only to TELL them you have to call them back because you're talking to tech support?!? This wastes my time as well as yours. When they get voice-mail, it's IMPLIED that you will call them back when you're able to. Hence, the typical message on voice-mail (or an answering machine) states something along the lines of "...unable to answer the phone blah, blah, blah.... leave a message and i'll call you back..."

So next time you're on the phone with an issue that was important enough for you to call me while you make dinner, banging and crashing dishes around and the kids yell and scream in the background... Don't act like I'm asking you to perform miracles when I ask you to walk across the room to look at something that is going to HELP me fix this oh-so-important issue (God forbid the kids can't watch Barney or Dora or you miss American Idol) you've called me for and then expect me not to be inwardly peeved when you ask me to "hang on a sec" so you can answer a call from your mother/son/spouse/significant other only to tell them you can't chit-chat right now because you're talking to tech support.

Cuz I WILL be peeved. You won't know it, but I'll be making faces at you and making rude gestures at my screen if you tick me off too much with stupidity and ignorance. And you other tech support geeks?!? Don't EVEN act like you've never done this, because you have. Maybe not the rude gestures, but you've made that face. You've rolled your eyes or stuck your tongue out at the screen or even done that silent facepalm as you shook your head. I know you have!! It's human nature - you can't stop it.

So the moral of this story is:

You expect us to listen to you, the least you can do is listen to us.

Thanks for tuning in, dear readers... sorry it's been so long between posts, I've been sick. :(

But I'm back!!

Until next time!!

Lis