Who Designed This Crap? Tech Support, Need I Say More? - Page 2

I disagree with you on the lying part, here's why.

Sure you're lying may get you what you want... a few times. But then you run into the tech who will have you do it again (there's a reason, most likely becuase he knows something he knows you don't). That will make you angry because you didn't get your way. You don't get your way you get frusturated with the tech who did nothing wrong but have you follow logical troubleshooting steps that is required as per your agreement upon purchasing the service contract.

THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS, especially for the techs who have no idea what they're doing. I guess the tech has to be logical himself before he can have someone perform "logical troubleshooting steps".

MPC has actually been sold off twice since it was sold off from Micron 4-6 years ago, and have absolutely nothing in common with them any more, other then their memory is by Micron (good stuff!) MPC's plant is actually in Nampa, about 30 mins west. I did a phone interview with Micron once, to work on their internal IT staff, but it never panned out. Now I'm a one-stop-IT man for a building company in Nampa. It's fun too.

I wasn't aware of the MPC in Nampa, I have family up in Nampa/Boise too

The school district I worked for before my current job used quite a bit of MPC's (honestly I hated working on them). But if it's a good job I might take a gander at what it's like... always looking for job opportunities

Yea, sometimes a tech support guy can tell if you're lying or not.

And I can understand that, I've called my ISP knowing that the problem exists outside my system and such and asked if I could get a service tech to come test my lines, but even then the service tech was hinting or insinuating it was the house lines (due to attenuation and signal degredation when everything had worked just a week ago) when the same thing was happening on the cable modem at every cable jack in the house... it ended up being a main line issue that went to one of their switching stations.

bwahahahahah that's some funny shit bro.

and actually as far as your recommendation to "LIE"...kind of funny but I went down to Dell for classes on their Desktops, Servers and Laptops...got stuck down in Texas during 9/11 but that's a story unto itself.

Anyhow, there were a couple of kids from Boeing who were attending the class also. They said how they call Dell and tell them they have bad hard drives. When the tech would ask what the problem is, the boeing guys would grab a pen, put the phone down by the desk and tap the desk with the phone...then say "DO YOU HEAR THAT? That's the hard drive making that noise!"

Dell would dispatch a new disk.

I have two experiences to share and some advice when you do have to deal with cutomer service.

First story was years ago with a video card that i got from 3dFX. I had a problem with a v3000 if i remember correctly. I sent in the card after the trouble shooting didn't work correctly and they said they would test it and send a new card.

Now in the time that they had the card (about a month) i moved. i forgot to tell them and when they shipped out the replacement card the package got rejected. i called up to ask where the card was and realized my mistake, but since they said the package was sent back they would ship it to my new address.

Now i waited another few weeks and still recieved no new video card. So i call them back up and ask what happened. I turns out that they shipped it to the old address another two times. On the third time someone signed for it, although not in my name. 3dFX tells me that there is nothing they can do now and that i will have to call the shiping company.

I wasn't too happy, but relized that this was partialy my fault. I asked the customer service person to look up my last chat, where i had given the new shipping information. They looked it up and saw that i had indeed given the new info but the last person i had spoken with had put it as a note instead of the shipping address. Even still they said they could not help me.

Now this made me upset since this time it wasnt my fault. So I sent a letter into the shipping department and to the VP of 3dFX. I got two letters back within a few days saying that they were very sorry and would take care of the problem.

The next day i get two boxes overnighted. One contained a special v3500 that had handpicked ram that wasnt offered on the standard card. A card from the "lab" i was told in a letter. The next box was from the VP and had a V5500 their newest video card. I was exstatic. It took a long time but they came through in the end.

Funny thing is that a few weeks later I get a phone call from the people that moved into my old place. They said they had been away, but had recieved three packages for me and hadnt had a chance to call. I go over and pick them up and it turns out to be the 3 new v3000 that had been shipped to the wrong address. Turns out that all three had been delivered, and the system just showed them as being returned.

After seeing this company operate so smoothly, it was no surprise when they went out of business a week or two later.





Second story was with a Dell laptop. The button that senses when the screen is closed and shuts down the LCD was sticking. This problem grew worse and worse over time to the point that the computer was unusable.

I build my own computers and am generally pretty handy so i decided to see if i could fix it. I took off the plastic cover, which took all of 2 seconds, and saw that the switch was actually part of an electronics board that plugged into the LCD, motherboard and other parts. This i didnt want to play around with.

So i called up the tech support. The person I spoke with started going through the procedures. Try restarting, what bios are you using, are you using Windows...... I tried to tell her that it was a physical problem and i could actually see the piece in question getting stuck. This information just bounced right off her. Every time I tell her it is a HARDWARE problem she comes up with something new to try, like Ctrl-Alt-Del. This goes on for an hour.

Finally she pulls up the diagram of parts. I tell her it is NOT the plastic cover and that it is actually the PCB board. This was just to much for her. It took 30 minutes of me describing all the buttons and cables plugging into the board for her to finally understand.

Eventually she says that she has it and will ship it out for me to replace. I say hold on, I am not comfortable replacing that part and I would like a tech to come out(i have in-home repair policy). She tells me that it is a user replacable part. I tell her that I dont think it is and that she must have pulled up the wrong part. She tells me I am wrong and that there will be a charge for a tech to install it. After another 30 minutes of trying to clarify what part it is, I give up knowing that she is sending the wrong part. She does send out a tech however, saying that it will be free this time as a curtousey.

The tech shows up a few days later after the part arrives. He opens the computer and tells me that they sent him the wrong part within 5 minutes. I told him that i already knew that. He shares my pain saying that a lot of the customer service people there are not to bright. Anyways he ordered the part and got it in a week and took care of the problem.



I have learned the best way to deal with customer service is to roll the dice. When you get a rep that is a real idiot, hang up, call back and hope you get someone better. That seems to be the best way. I rather wait on hold for an hour than spend 2 hours beating my head against a wall trying to explain something to someone who has an IQ smaller than their shoe size.

If this upsets any Customer servoce people out there, realize this: You are problably the smart ones that I hope to get. The idiots probably dont know how to use the internet.

I think everyone here can agree on one thing give tech support to someone who knows nothing is completely different from giving support to someone who knows something. I think since we are being forced to sit through long wait times companies should use that time wisely and quiz their customers on thier tech savvy, this would do two things. One give us something to do other than listen to the extrodinarily low volume music. Two it would let the tech support know something about who they are talking to. I think overall this would shorten tech calls.

Rofl.

This is one of the main reasons why I'm always nice to the guy on the other side of tech support. I might know something, but they've gotta make sure that I know what I claim to know, cos there's a ton of people out there going "I know this is stuffed" but turns out it isn't so.

Give them tech support people a break. I believe its alot faster to just restart that comp than to argue that you've already done it a million times.

I've sat through a million "please type p-i-n-g-space-<random numbers>". I've already given up telling them to just tell me "ping <random numbers>". They still spell it out for me. Heck, I have even given up telling them I know those numbers by heart. I've even had a tech which spelled out www.google.com for me.

I'm just glad I'll never be in the tech support business, but the sad thing is I'm gonna be in another problem solving business.... I do expect to see the same problems here, cept that I've got a much longer average "caller" time

maelstrom80,

I had a similar situation with one of my end-users Dell laptops. It was a brand new machine with a defective keyboard.

For some reason, some of the keys stuck. I was able to remove a few of the keys and reseat them to fix the problem...but I wasn't as lucky with all of them.

I called Dell and explained that I would like a new keyboard for this system because the keys are jamming. The lady on the other end of the phone wanted to know what operating system I was running. I told her "Windows XP...but it really doesn't have anything to do with the problem". I tried to explain the keys were jamming, there was a physical problem with the keyboard itself.

This went back and forth for a good 10-15 minutes until she finally understood what I was saying. I honestly cannot fathom how I could have been any clearer in explaining that the brand-new keyboard had keys that were sticking and binding in the down position.

End-result was a new keyboard being shipped out and installed by me the next day...problems solved.

As I stated before, there are not usually any 'troubleshooting screens'. Also, most hardware warranties I have dealt with (Dell) require troubleshooting via phone/chat/email etc, before dispatching parts.

Read your contract!!

This is why I pointed you towards Warranty Parts Direct, specifically for any Dell issues you may be having. Otherwise, you will more often than not be required to t/shoot with a tech before parts are issued. It has nothing to do with whether you know alot or not. It his his/her job to follow a process. Dont like the process? You have an option, pay to get certified as a tech, and order parts without t/shooting with the tech.

You remind me of many techs I would work with who would sigh, groan, and pitch a fit because I wanted to t/shoot. Nine times out of ten, we resolved it without a required dispatch. Why you ask? Because I knew something the customer didnt, and was able to get the issue resolved. More often than not the part isnt faulty, it just wasnt properly maintained by the customer.

There are some techs that will just cave from the beginning. I knew several, it was usually because they either didnt care, or was in a rush to get through calls. It does you a great dis-service to approach troubleshooting this way. More often than not it will require a 2nd dispatch for the correct parts, or wont resolve anything because of outdated firmware/drivers.

Not gonna happen. Not as long as companies have bottom lines, and continually find that most of the parts returned by customers are not faulty. If I have built up a repore with a customer, I would be more inclined to take his word without troubleshooting. However this would also get me in trouble if they (Mgmt) audited the call. It is my job to troubleshoot. It is your responsibility to t/shoot on every call, and likely required by the contract you have.

Like it or not, it is the nature of the business.

I have one on the flip side though.

I had a system that the user was having a problem with. I received this system today to trouble shoot.

There were
6 different web browsers - 2 of which were BETA software.
Opera 9 BETA
Explorer 7 BETA 2
Netscape
AOL Browser
FireFox (I almost want to say this was a BETA too)
and I.E. 6

3 different fax programs
WinFax and 2 others I have never heard of - All running in the system tray at startup.

Windows Defender
Yahoo Anti-Spyware or anti-virus one of the two
Symantec Anti-V
Some other Anti-V that did a sub dive alarm at system start up
Ad Aware
at LEAST 4 more anti V, spyware, malware blockers removers etc.

NO LESS THAN 4 toolsbars on any browser you open, Yahoo, AOL, Google and some other one.

MULTIPLE windows washer, cover your tracks cleaning programs

All sorts of Google Desktop, Google updater, Google this and that all trying to run at startup.

There literally had to be 25 programs in the system tray most of them fighting each other to do the same job at start up.

The PROGRAMS menu was 3 colums wide on a 1680 x 1050 monitor!

In the end you know what was wrong with the actual machine... nothing.

Kids... finally, when you send your machine in for warranty work, for Pete sakes put the freaking GAY PORN on an external drive or something!

Yea, this is a Core Duo T2500 2.0 Ghz CPU, 7900 GTX w/ 256 Mb, 2 Gigs DDR2-533 low latency memory and there was so much crap the machine it could run PCMark'05 and return horrible numbers, it actually crashed 3DMark'05 and that isn't THAT incredibly tough of a program on the GPU normally.

The first thing when you get a system shut down when running benchmarks as any cagey veteran overclocker knows is that you probably have a power supply problem. In a desktop you more than likely have the imfamous cheap-o weenie hutt junior 420 watt (rated) P.S. from Ho Chi Mihn and the GPU is just saying, "I can't do it w/o power captain." That wasn't it in this case.

There was some driver hiding out in one of these programs conflicting with another anti-something like two bitches. Needless to say, I got out the axe and started hacking away and got the thing back on its feet.

I can almost guaranty that the reason that we have so many programs like this: toolbars, anti-virus/spyware/malware, window washer programs etc on this system is the desire for freee porn.

These sites are notorious for installing all sorts of junk you don't need/want and that degrades the performance of your system. The moral of the story... Please keep America strong and pay for porn. We need the investment into this one thing we are still leaders in.

All right. I think I can finalize my on going problem with Sony Ericsson.

I sent the phone again in at about 12:00 PM. And guess what? I got a brand new phone at 8:00PM later that day.

WITH ALL THE PROBLEMS FIXED!!!

Sorry for the large font, but they have finally have listened! I've battled these problems for over 5 months, and I have gotten a FREE phone upgrade, an upgrade worth over $300. BRAVO, SONY, BRAVO! I am having a few reception problems, but that is Cingular's fault, not Sony Ericsson.

The first phone took 2 1/2 months to come in, the next around 2 month, the next within 2 weeks, and this last one WITHIN 8 HOURS. Damn, that is fast. I'm done.

~Ibrahim~

Well, that is more of a Service Provider thing than a phone manufacturer. I was having some build quality issues, to put it lightly, on my Sony Ericsson phone(s).

I've been checking out your site, BTW. Amazing laptops, I now finally have a gaming laptop manufacturer that I could really recommend, over expensive Alienware. I just might get one, looking at those prices, but I still need to clear the cob webs off my account, lol.

~Ibrahim~

They are looking mighty fine; "real" benchmarks? I can't wait!

I think you guys are close to becoming the Overdrive PC of laptops, minus the overclocking; which is a good thing, trust me: I want to have kids.

~Ibrahim~

Another incident we had at this computer store.

Customer comes in and buys a processor for his older motherboard. We ask him about compatability and we quickly get a response of:
"I've been building computers since before you were in diapers! Don't tell me what I don't already know!"

Ok... 8O

3 Days later, guess who comes in for warranty. Turns out it was the wrong socket and that he bent the pins on the processor trying to get it in.
Nice...


Another worthy story:
Customer only buys a few parts from us. Processor, Video Card and Ram. He buys the motherboard from a different company and goes home and builds this computer himself.

The next day he phones saying he is unable to get his computer to post with just the ram, cpu and video card installed. We informed him that we could only test the products that he bought from us or else we would charge extra for testing of the motherboard (We gave free hardware tests on products purchased from our store). So, about an hour later this guy comes in, holding a heatsink with the processor just being held on by the thermal compound on the bottom of the heatsink. 8O

Thankfully, nothing was broken and no pins were bent. Turned out he had a faulty motherboard and had to go to the other company he bought it from.

I can usually determine whats wrong with my gear and if its out of my range to repair, so I use tech support for product replacement. I usually expect a full month from the time I ship out a product (at my expense) before a reburbished one replaces it. Dell vastly exceeded my expectations when I had the display on my Inspiron 9300 replaced.

I bought the computer on ebay late last year sold as a refurbished for about half of Dell's retail price for the computer (no foolin) When I recieved the system, I found several black dots on the screen that were not pixel related but instead foreign material under the display cover. You would think for a computer bought on ebay that I'm SOL, but I called up Dell tech support anyways.

There was only one unpleasant part of the procedure, which was the one hour wait to speak to a representative, but I understand that this is more than standard (I've spend multiple hours listening to Abit's classical music on speaker phone after they predict a 20 minute wait.) I told the fellow I bought the computer from an organization not related to Dell and he simply asked me to give him my name, my address, and the serial on the computer. Just like that, the warrany was transfered (which is identical to the warranty on a new product!) I could have stolen the computer! The man agreed the display needed replacement and said a box, PAID FOR BY DELL, would arrive at my front door in two days.

The box did arrive on time, and I packaged the computer then called a number they included to have the box picked up by a shipping company. They arrived to pick up the box on a monday, and I recieved my computer with a replaced display on friday, 4 days later. Thats four days divided by the shipment to dell's repair center, repair of the laptop, and the return trip. ScreenTek, the website reccomended by the mobilityguru article "How to Replace a Broken Laptop or Notebook Display" puts the wholesale cost of the display at $506 (Its a 17" 1440x900). Thats a few ben Franklins short of what I paid for the computer, and Id be a bit uncomfortable installing it myself. Way to go Dell

ikjadoon: I am negotiating with a Flash RAM Drive manufacturer to get 2.5" SATA form factor to offer across the boards for O.S. & Programs to speed up the systems as you know the hard drive is usually the bottle neck in todays systems.

The 2 GB memory modules (total of 4GB) are the next thing I have the sites set on.

Gamers tend to be one of two things.
1. Well off enough to buy whatever they want.
2. Driven enough to get whatever they want, and have the coolest, fastest computer in tent city.

The only way to beat DELL and Alienfairy is to use a little Sun Tzu. Take the usual disadvantage of my smaller size and use it to my advantage by bringing newer technology to market faster and actually listening to what the gaming industry wants, then delivering it.

For a bad tech support experience.

When i first moved into my own apartment was about the time AT&t was rolling out Digital cable and Cable intenet all over. So i got my apt and signed up. The Guy came out and set it all up no problem. Well i immediatly began having issues with slow speeds and disconnections. I did some ping tests and showed i was experiencing about a 30% packet loss. So i called tech support and got the same usual stuff but i went through it fine and they sent a technician out. He came out replaced some splitters and told me my 3 way splitter was on backwards causing the problem (the cable modem was getting the weaker signal)


So he leaves little later same problem (gaming was unplayable which is why i had this) Go through the routine 2 more times call tech support jump through hoops (by the 3rd call i know the routine and can tell them the results of each stupid test) and they send someone out. This 3rd guy looks around turns on ym tv and switches to the high numbered channels and see the picture is bad (which i told every tech support person) pulls a device off his belt conenct it to the cable and shows me my signal strengths. My building was old so the cable in it didnt handle the high signals for digital channels and internet very well. So he yanks it all out and replaces my cable form the box to my apt took him 45 min cause he had to go over the roof. After that perfect service the rest of the year.

At the end of the year my rommate and i move to another apt in the same complex. At&t is now Comcast but everything is the same just new logo. This new apt same problem. Digital Channels are weak and packet loss on the cable modem. So i call tech support. Well comcast at this point was a coin flip you have a 50/50 shot of getting an American or someone in India that doesnt understand english very well but says his name is "Mitch" Comcast does this i never knew why its not like their accent and the fact that they say they are in India is hidden by a all-american name.

So i get the same shit stupid troubleshooting spend an hour "Registering my cable modem" since it wasnt so i had to join their proxy and fill out all these online forms. really annoying when your connection drops every 5 minutes.
They send a tech out and i tell them jsut test the signal strenght i had this exact same problem 4 doors down. They won't do it cause they don't wanna be bothered replacing the cable. They just tell me its a pc problem or a problem with my home network and leave. They wont look at the TV since they are Internet tech support but they are the same people who come out for TV tech support.

Then on like my 5th call the worst happens i meet the tier 1 technician who thinks he knows it all. all i want is another visit so i can finally get someone to replace my cable. But he wants to show off and makes me do all this troubleshooting that he doesnt understand. So its a waste of an hour. Finally he gives in and sends a work order. This time a college friend of mine shows up with the tech since hes in training. So first thing i tell them is about the signal strength so he tests it. Sure enough same issue and he makes my friend "the trainee" replace the cable.

To this day i never call comcast tech support except during outages to get credits on my bill.

I work in tech support and to me its a pure joy when someone calls and knows whats wrong and can talk with you about the problem like a tech. Don't call an spout certifications but if you call and say im showing a 30% packet loss im always interested to see how you got that and help resolve the issue rather than making you reboot things uselessly.

Let me start by saying that I am an Engineer for one of the largest OEMs who will remain nameless. By virtue of working for this OEM, I get discounts on their products which I pass along to friends and family to push my companies products. I ordered a laptop for a friend of mine, nice notebook with all the standard features and such. I received said notebook and started configuring the software and adding all the Windows updates, good ol Windows. That's another forum altogether. While doing this I noticed that the battery was not charging. Time to call tech support. I thought to myself this will be a great way to see what our customers experience. So I called, went through some motions, they have a silent key that tests the battery on boot which i was unaware of, and it was agreed that I would be sent the battery. Ok, problem is that you should make sure products work before you send them to the customer. Second, I had to give my credit card number before they would ship the battery. Just a formality I thought. OK, so I get the new battery, everyone is happy. My aformentioned friend is enjoying his new notebook and everything is right in the world. WRONG, I get my credit card statement and it shows a charge from the OEM for $175. What the hell? Because I am a stickler and pay attention to details, I kept the FedEx receipt with tracking info when I sent the defective battery back. Guess what, signed for by XXX, showing delivered. I normally dont lose my temper, it takes a bit, but this is my company so I pulled out the employee card. We have an internal website for these issues to be escalated, so I escalated an issue for myself. I received a call from account exec. Many apologies the charge was removed and I was offered a second battery for free. I told them that the battery wasnt the point. I just dont want this happening to Joe Schmoe computer user that decides to buy elsewhere. I feel for everyone who has these experiences.

Need to wait around until all the tech companies dump their current bloated inventories of last years technology, so you can get something that will last for the immediate future

Flash hard drives are reported to boot Windows twice as fast, the other benefite to speed are obviously no moving parts to wear out, power usage is slashed to almost none, heat same thing.

Not only should the files boot and load faster, but with the Windows swap file on the flash drive we should see an overall improvement also.

If I can pull these manufacturers together, the machine I am trying to build to have tested (first I would have to hear back from mobility guru as I posted earlier they haven't replied other than in the forum)
Executioner 17" WUXGA
7900 GTX 5125 MB
T7400 Core 2 Duo 64 bit
4 Gig's DDR2-667
Flash RAM & secondary 100 Gig 7,200 rpm hard drive
108 Mbps a/b/g/G+ wireless.

OK, K/N TGP apparently has some pretty stiff policies about who can send email. So, easiest way to get to me is to go to the Tech Support column or the new Your Stories column and click on my name at the top of the page. That'll assure I get your response and we can start communicating about that hot notebook.

Barry

Well I disagree the problem is with the poster.

He was given bogus info and the run around by somebody who did not know what they were doing.

He may have indeed done this because it was the tech supports job to get the caller off the phone. Yes, the last place I worked, the best phone techs got the worst reviews because they actually solved the customers problem with them on the phone. The ones just passed in along so it could sit in a higher paid techs queue for two hours before getting a chance to look at the simple issue got the best reviews.

I know were you are coming from, but it is a Dilbert Mgt issue.

Any tech should know that at that point this 3com was the defacto industry std so he gave the customer bs. Then he said an activated acct was not active when it was. Either he was not competant or the tech was forced into poor service by his companies mgmt. Either way this should not happen.

Of course he should always be courteous, even to morons.
Last time I called HP support to see why my I was getting x10 better USB performance from my Dekstop than my LAPTOP even though I verified both were USB2. The tech said while the laptop had USB2, the deskopt had USB3. I chuckled to myself and just politely excused myself from the call.

Don't think post went through...Anyways:

F! Damn, four digits? Shite. Life isn't fair!

I'm looking for some companies, without luck...

Yeah, outsourcing is greedy and selfish.

~Ibrahim~