May 1, 2004

•    Notes From the

  
  

  Garden Journal

  
  

   

  
  

  SHOT OF THE DAY...

  
  

  

  
  

  Some people come to Starbuck's for lattés. Others for a mocha and an Internet hot-spot. Then some come to apparently get away from their wives and kids. This guy was deep-REM-ing it.

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

  THE TRUTH ABOUT CATS AND TECHNICAL SUPPORT

  
  

   

  
  

  There exists out there a notion about consumer technical support among many. I must regret it isn't true. Recently my father had to call his ISP because of a problem he was having connecting to his DSL. This time they actually spoke one of the languages he speaks fluently (which include English), but it was still clearly a case of the blind leading the blind rift with long pauses as the girl waited for the next page of her script to come up.  Worse than McDonald’s, because he didn’t even get anything to eat in the end.

  
  

   

  
  

  Clearly, it is a misnomer among many in the public the fact that computer and internet technical support reps know anything about computers or networking. In my own experience, that is starting out and working for companies like Dell and Everyone's Internet, you quickly find out that quite the contrary is true. Their policies were essentially that while they did hire people who were technical and experienced in computers and internet technologies, they generally preferred people with customer service backgrounds (or no background at all) instead. The reasons for this are manifold. A big reason is cost. People with technical experience and training typically expect and get much higher pay in the form of salaries, good benefits and the like. In order for these companies to keep costs down, they lean towards the inexperienced. Since most users never call technical support (for Dell it was around 3% of all computers sold), the companies also see this as something not often-enough accessed to make a genuine priority, so low costs is the first call. Thirdly, there is something to be said for “skulls full of mush”. Techs who are truly technical may spend more time on the phone assisting the caller because he or she sees another issue which may be at the root of the user’s problem and as such may not always cling to policy out of technical insecurity. This, as the mantra goes, will raise user expectations the next time they call in to a tech, who will most likely be unable to fulfill them. A good example of this is AOL tech support that, when I worked at Dell, liked to pass their users on to me with not even a moment of troubleshooting, even though the user’s computer worked fine before the AOL software had been installed. In fact, AOL did the same thing when I worked for Everyone’s Internet if users were using both ISPs (even though Everyone’s Internet never installs any extra software on its users' computers).

  
  

   

  
  

  So next time you call in to tech support, know that more than likely the person at the other end either knows less than - or the same as you do. The only difference would usually be the script they have in front of them. If the company offers this script (a troubleshooting tree) on their website, I would recommend going there first. At least you won't be on hold for an hour and then have to suffer the likely prospect of your intelligence being insulted by those who do the hiring at those companies.

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

  Epilogue…

  
  

   

  
  

  In all fairness, there are a few good apples. Some of them drove Mercedes and had great jobs before the .COM bubble burst. Others are starting out, as I was way back when. But they usually don’t last long doing this form of technical support, because it usually is anything BUT technical. I remember speaking with a support rep at Microsoft on one occasion where it was in fact very much technical several years ago. I needed some help with one of my NT machines and had tried white papers and poured through volumes of other material before we decided to go to Redmond. The support fellow also was actually an MCSE- knowledgeable, friendly…and miserable. Somehow we got onto the topic of his career path and he (hopefully not too candidly) told me of the plight of tech support as the necessary evil between the computer science degree or the certifications and the “bling.” I was just thinking how lucky I was to have gotten him on the other end and not the usual faire.  

  
  

   

  
  

  -Blogbat

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  Notes from the Garden Journal

  • 7:13 pm
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