Don't Piss Off Your Tech Support...

[K'Tesh]

Seeing an image on FB brought back a memory...

True story... I used to do tech support for Apple computers (twice actually with different subcontractors (Sykes (pronounced "SUCKS" (at least by me)) in Klamath Falls, Oregon during the 90s, and Xerox out of Tualatin, Oregon from November 2009-March 2010).

Back in the late 90s the Mac had a problem with the color guns of the monitors failing, causing annoyingly bad images. I had a guy who's name really was "Dave" call in once, and he had the problem. We're doing the BullSpit troubleshooting (like resetting the PRAM and degaussing the monitor is going to fix a broken wire) that Apple had us do to slow down the number of monitors we had to advance replace (at Apple's expense, you get sent a refurbished monitor, then use the box to send back your monitor (or computer if it was an all in one unit), and Apple would refurbish that one to send on to someone else), everything is going well when.... Dave drops that he'd opened the back of the monitor... OOPS!!! This instantly voided his warranty (the technicians would have spotted that immediately as there was a drop of paint that would show if the screws had been turned after the paint had dried).

There wasn't a thing I could do after that. He'd have to replace or repair the monitor on his own. I know that calls were recorded, as the entire team once got called in to listen to someone (me) troubleshoot a computer with a person who couldn't read (I got quite the attaboy for that). I advised the customer that calls were recorded, I couldn't unhear what he had said. I genuinely wished that I could have helped him, and had it been up to me, I'd have gone ahead and helped him out, but I wasn't about to risk my job to send out the advance replacement. He asked to be transferred a supervisor. I called mine, explained what happened, and the supervisor declined to take the call. Dave then demanded to be transferred to Tier 2 (senior tech support)... I tried... No dice. Then he then starts swearing and cussing *ME* out... OOPS #2!!!
In my best Douglas Rains voice...

"Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye."

​

I hung up and documented everything.

 

[manixFan]

I remember calling tech support once for an authorization glitch with some software I was using. It was a very small software company and it was after hours, so I figured I'd get some poor soul who would want to get rid of me as quickly as possible. I got a woman tech support person which was quite unusual in those days (back in the '90's), and all I could think of was wow, I bet a lot of guys don't like getting a female tech support person. She tried to help but it seemed to be a server issue beyond her control. I had already been on hold for a long time before I got to her and I was frustrated she could not help, so I asked to speak to a supervisor. She then said "why, so you can try and get me fired even though I tried to help you? I can't fix the sever but you think my supervisor can? You want to get me fired because I can't help?" She then basically started crying and saying she didn't care anymore and that it wasn't worth it. Clearly she had been on some calls with some clients who had treated her very badly. I was flustered for a bit, then said, no, I wanted to tell them that she had tried to help and the problem seemed to be beyond her control and she needed more support. At that moment I thought of my mom for some reason who would have tried so hard to help even though there was nothing she could do. I stayed on the phone with her for about 20 minutes until she seemed ok and told her to hang in there, and stupidly, to have a good night. Ever since then I've always tried to be polite and kind to tech support folks on the phone.

To have a job where people can make you cry must really suck.


Tony

 

[Bill S]

To have a job where people can make you cry must really suck.
Tony

Retail pharmacy...

 

[Joekeyo]

One time I called Richo about a camera that I had. The president of the company answered the phone. He explained to me that that Richo main stay was copiers but the camera division was much smaller and he was the president. I forgot what the problem was, but it must have been quickly resolved or there would be more to the story. Nice to have the president as tech support. The buck stops here.

 

[jqavins]

I remember calling tech support once for an authorization glitch with some software I was using. It was a very small software company and it was after hours, so I figured I'd get some poor soul who would want to get rid of me as quickly as possible. I got a woman tech support person which was quite unusual in those days (back in the '90's), and all I could think of was wow, I bet a lot of guys don't like getting a female tech support person. She tried to help but it seemed to be a server issue beyond her control. I had already been on hold for a long time before I got to her and I was frustrated she could not help, so I asked to speak to a supervisor. She then said "why, so you can try and get me fired even though I tried to help you? I can't fix the sever but you think my supervisor can? You want to get me fired because I can't help?" She then basically started crying and saying she didn't care anymore and that it wasn't worth it. Clearly she had been on some calls with some clients who had treated her very badly. I was flustered for a bit, then said, no, I wanted to tell them that she had tried to help and the problem seemed to be beyond her control and she needed more support. At that moment I thought of my mom for some reason who would have tried so hard to help even though there was nothing she could do. I stayed on the phone with her for about 20 minutes until she seemed ok and told her to hang in there, and stupidly, to have a good night. Ever since then I've always tried to be polite and kind to tech support folks on the phone.

To have a job where people can make you cry must really suck.

Not tech support, but a customer service story. I was eating alone at a restaurant, and when the meal was over I asked to speak to the manager. My server just about crapped his pants. I told him that nothing was wrong, but that didn't seem to help. The manager came over with the half defensive and half apologetic posture and tone that must be part of manager training. And then I told her that I wanted to compliment one of her staff. Of course everything changed. It's sad that we are in a place where "may I speak to the manager" sounds like an order of execution.

(It had been a small thing. When I sat down there was no silverware/napkin bundle, which I didn't think anything of, it would probably arrive with the salad or appetizer or something. But then it didn't arrive with the salad. I flagged down whoever was passing by, a bus boy I think, and told him I needed silverware. Now, we all know what he should do; he should get me a setup. No big thing. Except, it's so common for someone in his position to give a brusque "Sorry, it's not my table" or at best "I'll tell your server." But no, he did exactly what he should do. And I explained it that way to the manager, that it's a small thing that so many people get wrong. It's a sad thing that he deserved an attaboy for doing something so small and basic, but he did, and I gave it to him. Maybe the fact that such small and basic things are so often done wrong is why "may I speak to the manager" sounds like an order of execution, that is, that there so often is something wrong. If so, that only means that both sides of the coin are sad.)

 

[H_Rocket]

Not really a "piss off" story, but amusing none the less..

I had been working on a sticky Microsoft problem for days. My premiere TAM and the whole team fell on their face and in one last try before I told management that "It was designed broke" and we would need to engage consulting, I did a hail Mary. I called into a worldwide support line for the system and after about two hours (and several transfers) got through to a guy in England. When I told him my tale of woe, he took pity on me and said "someone, somewhere knows how to fix this and I am going to stay on the line with you until we find that person". So, together, we started getting bounced from resource to resource. Finally after about two more hours a lady in Singapore stated that she had heard of this problem and knew exactly who to contact. We asked to be forwarded, however she could not make that work so we asked how we could contact this person. She gave us the details and all of a sudden my tour guide got real silent. After a moment he slowly said: "I have been on the phone with this customer for hours and you are telling me all I need to do is call myself and ask?"

When we both stopped laughing hysterically...

 

[cerving]

Tech Support is a thankless job. You know it's going to be a bad day when you get a call from somebody that says "Well, I don't really know anything about computers", and they don't even know how to reboot.

 

[heada]

Back in a previous work life I was doing desktop tech support. We'd first try a fix via remote control. This one exec tried to keep working while I was remotely controlling his PC. After 3 times telling him to just sit back and wait, I lost it and told him to sit on his hands. A few seconds of silence and he said 'okay' and actually did it. His secretary was rolling and bought me lunch the next day.

 

[Zeus-cat]

For several years I was in charge of tech support, tech pubs and reliability for a small aerospace firm. I had six people working for me. One day I took a call from a maintenance supervisor for a small airline in the Caribbean. He was complaining that he found a mistake in one of our repair manuals. I looked it up and found that we had corrected the mistake and published a new version of the manual. Now he knew he needed the most current version of the manual to do a legal repair, but I just told him he had an outdated version. I also told him a new manual would cost him $500 and I would be happy to transfer him to customer service so he could buy a new manual.

Here is where it gets interesting. It became obvious over the next few minutes that he didn’t want to pay for a new manual. He starts complaining that we sent him a defective manual and he deserved a new one for free. I said sorry that his version had a mistake, but we fixed the mistake and he needed to buy a new one to be legal with the FAA or whatever authority he reported to. He starts to get nasty, but I keep my cool.

What I didn’t know until later was that the customer service people one row over are listening to my half of the conversation and having a blast. I’m sure they had similar conversations with customers and are amazed that I am keeping my cool.

So now the customer is getting desperate because I am not budging. He threatens to call the FAA and report us for publishing manuals with errors. I said the current manual has no errors, we fixed them. He can have a copy for $500. He keeps pushing the FAA thing so I tell him our FAA contact is ___ ____. Do you need his phone number? It takes 15 minutes of all this before he finally gives up.

Later, the people in customer service thanked me for the entertainment.

 

[Cape Byron]

I wonder if Facebook is subscribed to this thread?

 

[jqavins]

I had been working on a sticky Microsoft problem for days. My premiere TAM and the whole team fell on their face and in one last try before I told management that "It was designed broke" and we would need to engage consulting, I did a hail Mary. I called into a worldwide support line for the system and after about two hours (and several transfers) got through to a guy in England. When I told him my tale of woe, he took pity on me and said "someone, somewhere knows how to fix this and I am going to stay on the line with you until we find that person". So, together, we started getting bounced from resource to resource. Finally after about two more hours a lady in Singapore stated that she had heard of this problem and knew exactly who to contact. We asked to be forwarded, however she could not make that work so we asked how we could contact this person. She gave us the details and all of a sudden my tour guide got real silent. After a moment he slowly said: "I have been on the phone with this customer for hours and you are telling me all I need to do is call myself and ask?"

When we both stopped laughing hysterically...

Cheers to him for staying on and working so hard for you. Jeers to the whole support ecosystem that it came around that way.

 

[manixFan]

From the opposite side: I owned a small software training business for over 25 years. One of the perks we offered was free 'tech support' after the class, for basically an unlimited time. We could do this because very few students ever took advantage of it but it was a good marketing point. However, more than once I had the following situation happen to me: I'd get a phone call from a past student who said they were having an issue and wanted to know if I could help. If I had time, I'd say yes and ask them to describe the issue. They'd give me a brief overview and I'd start thinking through possible solutions, and generally say something like: "Go up to the Edit menu and ....." and they'd stop me and say, "oh, I'm not in front of that computer right now, I was just wondering if you could help." I guess they were just checking to see if our tech support offer was real and is so, they'd call back later. What's even crazier is about half the time they never called back.


Tony

 

[K'Tesh]

One of my favorite calls (for a good reason) was when a certain publisher for a certain series of Computer Planet related magazines called.

I get his name, lets call him "ABill XYZiff" and he tells me it, with the "as in XYZiff ABCDavis Publishing". I hadn't heard of it. He then started dropping names of magazines I was familiar with from the magazine racks at the grocery store. He tells me he can't get online with the software based compression modems that PowerMacs used at the time. Ok, lets start troubleshooting... What's attached to the computer? Keyboard, mouse, Monitor, HP printer, and Iomega Zip Drive... First step, eliminate all 3rd party variables.... Shut down the computer, and disconnect everything except for the power, keyboard, mouse, and monitor. Can you connect now?

Yes!

Ok, lets add the HP printer back in... He shuts down, attaches the printer, and tries again to get online... It works. Ok, now let's add the Iomega Drive back in... He shuts down, attaches the drive, tries to get online... No dice...

Well, sir, your Apple products are working properly, so you'll need to contact Iomega to see if they can help you with an updated driver for the zip drive.

I had this guy back online in less than 5 minutes... That's when he dropped that his boys in the office had done not one, not two, but three clean installs on their own before calling me. He wanted to give me an attaboy. So, I transferred him to Tier2 and listened in on him telling them what a good job I had done.

To be honest, the moment I heard him say Iomega Zip Drive, I knew that would be the problem. I had him add back in the printer just to show off. I hated the Zip drives.