Tech support secrets revealed

This pretty much sums up my job.



I swear they made it just for me.

Like? View more geek humor at xkcd, which calls itself 'A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.' I don't see how it could possibly get any better than that.
 

To be frank

OK, it really wasn't all that chaotic at work, but compared to the baseline level of activity around here, it was a madhouse so I can claim artistic license.

The couple that owns the business moved out-of state yesterday, taking the corporate portion of the company (their offices) and other assorted office furniture with them. Some of that furniture was in my office so it had to be excavated, and that generated a mound of ancient electronic equipment that had to be dealt with.

Then, the ISP change we've been trying to schedule for two months ago ended up being scheduled yesterday. BTW, thanks, Comcast. Impeccable timing, as usual.

But now the furor has passed, the offices are calm, and all is well, except for the half hour I just spent on the phone with an old guy who doesn't know how to navigate a directory tree in Windows or save an attachment from his email to his hard drive.

I wish I was making that up.

Worst part is, after all that, we were unsuccessful. He ended up cutting me off by mistake, then called back to tell me he was going to lunch and would call this afternoon. I can only wish my most fervent wishes that I am at lunch when he calls back.
 

Positively medieval

I swear, there are days....

Look for the English subtitles near the bottom of the video.


Just goes to show ya, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
 

Battle of the Auto-bots

My co-worker, a dutiful company employee and overall Good Girl, turned on her email auto-responder before we left for the conference.

Here's how much of a Good Girl she is: We had different flights heading home, and were both delayed by thunderstorms. I made it home by midnight and rewarded myself by taking the next day off. She got stuck at her layover point and didn't get in till the next morning.

She went in to work. I am scum.

So I finally dragged my lazy ass in to work the next day and was immediately apprised that she had not been able to access her email since she got back. The boss had checked out the server and even called the mail server software support but still couldn't fix it.

Now, my boss is a long-since-retired grizzled M'soft veteran. He can't fix the problem and I, Ms. Winging-it-faker-faker-2-by-4, am supposed to? No pressure there, eh?

I pushed up my sleeves and gingerly approached the server. Everything looked fine, except the folder containing her inbox would not load. In fact, the server dropped straight to its knees, gagging, trying to display that folder.

Hmm...

Now this particular server, our main portal to the interwebs, is something like 8 years old. Every day I come in and find it's not tits up in the mud is a good day. Yeah, it's old and slow (I know you are but what am I?) but the only time I've seen it balk like that is when I forget to empty the email log folder it ends up with a go-billion files in it.

Sure enough, I checked the little file count in the lower left corner of the Explorer window and it said there were 120,000+ files in her inbox.

WTF?!?!

What seemed like an eternity later, Windows finally swallowed its vomit long enough to show me that it was not lying; there were indeed one hundred twenty thousand some-odd emails in her inbox folder. It didn't take long to figure out why. As I so blatantly broadcast above, her poor auto-responder had been engaged in mortal combat with another auto-responder, to the tune of something like 1000 emails an hour. For five days.

Being Ms. Winging-it-faker-faker-2-by-4 (and old and lazy to boot), I no longer have any recollection of how to write a script to parse the emails and sort the wheat from the chaff in any sort of automated manner. So I spent the better part of Friday and a chunk of Monday dragging the emails, 10K at a time, into Outlook Express and filtering them pretty much by hand.

Final score?

Auto-bots: 120,000+

Liz: 0

I love my job.
 

Not an option

A customer called for help re-installing our software on his Vista machine. He confided that he had to reformat his hard drive after running Windows Updates -- something went horribly awry and the machine wouldn't boot.

Apparently he spent quite a bit of time on the phone with M'soft Tech Support troubleshooting the issue before being told he needed to reformat and reinstall Vista. Ouch.

Then the M'soft tech told him to

Never Select the Optional Updates
Yes, M'soft puts the Optional updates there, right in front of you, but that implies in no way, shape, or form that you should actually download and install them.

Remember that now.
 

Users, Unite!

Caller ID display from a recent tech support call:

SOUTHERN METH U

It's encouraging that they called for help; unfortunately, the type of help they need is beyond what I can provide.
 

Hyphen Guy returns

Mr. Can't-find-his-hyphen-with-both-hands called recently.

By the time we got off the phone (after an hour!) we were both so confused that I have no idea whether I helped him or not.

Somewhere along the way he mentioned that he first visited The Big City in 1929. That explains a lot, bless his aged little heart.

BTW, did I tell you he's running Vista? There oughta be a law...
 

Security risk

A customer asked if he would have difficulty taking our software CD through airport security.

Uh... not unless you use it to reflect light into the TSA agents' eyes then, while they are writhing on the floor in agony, run through the metal detector with your shoes on carrying a larger-than-3-oz bottle of liquid.

I worry about our customers sometimes. I really do.
 

One for the record books

I guess I've gotten pretty accustomed to the bizarro behavior of some of the customers who call for tech support -- I haven't had anything blogworthy from the tech support arena in a while. Until now.

Last week I had to help a gentleman find the hypen key on his keyboard.

I shit you not.

What amazes me about this is that I am fielding support calls for a piece of software used primarily by sciency-type people. OK, not all of them are computer-savvy, especially the older guys, but c'mon! The friggin' hyphen key? Sweet-jesus-on-a-stick, deliver me.

At first I though he might have some sort of oddball non-standard keyboard. Nope, after a brief discussion we tracked the sucker to its proper place next to the zero.

He was thoroughly grateful for my assistance and he thought I must be quite the technical marvel, to know all of this horribly confusing stuff. My protestant ancestors, of course, made me act all humble and modest and shit, but in my heart I knew he was right.
:)
 

Things to consider before calling tech support

I didn't write this, but I sure as hell wish I did. It came from Best of Craigslist*.

----------

Posted to Best of Craigslist, 2007-04-27, 11:38PM EDT

Hi! I'm your Technical Support Rep. I have a considerable 
amount of control over one or more important aspects of 
your daily life: television, telephone, and internet. 
Sometimes one, sometimes all three. Before we interact, 
I'd like to share some thoughts with you:
I am here, simply put, to fix your shit. 
My job is not complete until said shit is fixed. 
Please just help me fix this shit.
With that out of the way, know that I hate you 
exactly as much as you hate me. No more, no less. 
If you are at least relatively pleasant, I'm happy 
to help you - even to make small talk as I attend 
to the issue at hand. Conversely, if you are a 
total and complete jackass, I will make this the 
worst 10 minutes of your week.
Neither I, nor any of my coworkers, are out to 
fuck you. We are not idiots. We are college 
graduates in technical disciplines, the vast 
majority of whom are here to work their way up the 
IT ladder to more fulfilling positions. Sometimes 
we have off days, sure, but we know EXACTLY what 
we are doing. Note that this does not apply to 
anyone outside of our department. They are, in all 
reality, idiots who are out to fuck you.
So you've already unplugged the "internet box" 
and plugged it back in? Brace yourself, you're 
going to do it again. Most of the time I do this 
for a reason...unless you're a dick. Then I do it 
to see how mad it makes you.
Don't lie to me - I can tell you have a router. 
It isn't illegal.
To those who think they are "computer illiterate": 
The vast majority of the time, you are lovely 
customers: Patient, willing to learn, and most 
importantly, willing to listen. Thank you!
To those who think they are CompSci PHD's: 
The vast majority of the time, you are retarded: 
If you already cycled your equipment and it didn't 
work, why did it work when I made you do it again? 
If you are so well educated, stay the hell out of 
the queue so that people who need help can get it.
Supervisors don't have a magic wand that they 
can wave to make everything better. They are 
governed by the same protocol and use the same 
utilities as I do. In fact, supervisors are more 
likely to tell you to fuck off - believe it or not, 
they have other pressing issues to attend to. If 
a node goes down, they WILL put those 200 
subscribers before you in Priorityland.
Threatening to cancel does not intimidate 
us. We have an entire department that is paid to 
care about that, which means that I don't have 
to. Harsh? Sure, but I have more than enough work 
to do fixing shit, yelling at field techs, 
following up on cases, and explaining the concept 
of email to your grandmother that it won't cause 
me to lose any sleep.
It worked fine yesterday? Oh, then I must 
be wrong. Let me reconsider the 40 minutes I 
spent troubleshooting your Win98 box. Check 
it out: Shit breaks (see point 1); If shit did 
not break, I would be mowing your lawn instead 
of sitting in this office.
Speakerphone? Turn it the fuck off.
Don't call back and have another rep 
troubleshoot the same problem. He will read the 
notes I left about how you spilled coke into your 
cable box. Even if he didn't, he would come to 
the same conclusion, and more people with 
undiagnosed problems would be stuck listening to 
that god-awful hold music.
I am not blowing smoke when I say that I 
understand how frustrating it is to wait on 
hold, get transferred, and deal with bad agents. 
I too have called Dell's tech support line. The 
difference is that I actually DO care about your 
problem, so please just calm down before I kill 
your family.
My company has over 20 million subscribers. 
I handle a region of about 2 million. To this 
day, none of them have ever called in to say 
"I just wanted you to know that my shit is 
working correctly." Maybe someday?
So what can I help you with today?

----------

I think I've just found my new phone greeting!

Redacted Software; this is Liz. How may I fix your shit today?

What more can I say?

(See the original post here)

* I totally heart Best of Craigslist, but be forewarned; it's not for the faint of... heart.
 

General Failure

My boss stuck his head into my office last week to tell me that one of the geeky email lists he's on is inhabited by people with really creative sigs. His favorite:

"Who the hell is General Failure and why is he reading my drive?"

I laughed.

Maybe you had to be there.


You know, even now, seeing that message on the screen makes my bowels loosen just a little.
 

Aaaahhh!

WTF is this?!?


I clipped this from a piece of Russian spam that ended up in the support mailbox the other day.

I think I need a drink.

(shudder!)
 

Priceless!

We got this real live, no-shitter support email the other day:

Hi:

I need to kmow if I can write a paragaph on a blank sheep, but some part of this sheep is blank because I have finished a chapter and I have started a nex chapter in a new sheep and then to pass the next sheep with [the software],

I don't know how to express in english,

regards

Personally, I prefer starting documents on blank sheep. I find the non-blank sheep difficult to read sometimes. But maybe that's just me.

Sometimes I love this job.

p.s. It's still sitting, unanswered, in the communal Inbox. How would one even attempt to answer something like that? I'm so hoping George takes it on.
 

Rant

Five things I hate about automated voice answering systems.

1. When the options presented have no apparent correlation to my question. I'll make a halfhearted attempt to play their little game before I start punching 0. If that doesn't work, I'll push random digits until I reach a human.

2. When it asks me to punch in my really long account number, which I screw up at least once, only to have the human I finally reach ask for it again.

3. When I call late in the day and hack my way through the trees only to learn, at the end, that the office is closed for the day.

4. When I'm confronted with a voice recognition system. Need I say more? I would love to hear a recording of my tone of voice when I'm forced to talk to one of those things. I guarantee that it would make my children (and my Ex) break out in a cold sweat.

5. When it requires more than three responses to reach a human. That's when it officially becomes Too Hard, or even More Trouble Than It's Worth.

I have a sneaking suspicion that in many cases, no matter what we enter, we end up at some randomly assigned desk. Sometimes I think they install those systems simply to stall us -- to wear out the weak of heart who lack the fortitude to soldier on through the maze.

[I'm also convinced that all flavored coffees are actually only one flavor, two max, and that it's all just a marketing scheme. In a blind test, could one really tell from sniffing alone whether beans are "French Vanilla" or "Hazelnut Mocha?" I think not. But I digress....]

I heard that there's a website somewhere that has the secret tricks to bypassing the automated answering systems for many companies. I really need to find it and bookmark it.

Grr.
 

Holiday Greetings from Poland

Here's the tail end of an email exchange I had yesterday with a university professor in Poland:

Dear Liz,

Thank you very much for the e-mails.

I installed the software with no problems and now I'm happy since all works OK. Your software is outstanding!

In the beauty of the season, In the joy of Christmas Day, May you find a special meaning that brings!

J.

You know, sometimes this tech support gig ain't so bad.
:)
 

Tech support no-shitter

Probably about eight years ago, I had to call Comcast to help troubleshoot my brandy-new broadband internet connection.

I wound my way through the automated answering system hell and I finally got a tech on the line. He started reading The Script. Had I cycled power on the modem? Affirmative. Then he asked if had I unplugged the power cord from the wall or from the back of the modem. I thought it was kind of an odd question, but I answered the latter.

All stop. There was a just-slightly-too-long silence on the other end of the phone. Uh oh... my brain frantically replayed the conversation so far. What did I say?

Then, with all the authority that a tech can wield when you and he both know that he can and will refuse to help you if you do not follow his script, he told me, in all seriousness, that I had to do it again. And this time I had to unplug the power cord from the wall, because that was different than unplugging it from the modem.

I shit you not.

I was dumbstruck. I was so stunned that I couldn't even form a sentence. He was so insistent about it that I started to doubt my sense of reality. Could it possibly be true? Nah. No way. Maybe? Can't be. Can it?

In the end, I told him yes, I did it again, just the way he told me to. But I didn't.

You know, after all this time, it's still one of my all-time favorite tech support stories. He was just so absolutely sure that it mattered, he had all the power, and he damned well was going to ensure that I did it according to his script. And he probably hung up the phone feeling like he and his script had saved the day.

Priceless.
 

Gittin'er done (aka Support Secrets)

I had to call Comcast yesterday to clarify a couple of things about my new services. I saw a few things in my notes (read: illegible scribbles on little wads of stuck-together sticky notes) from when I ordered the services that didn't match what the tech told me upon installation. So I girded my loins for battle and called.

Over the years of giving and receiving customer support I've learned some techniques which I feel increase the odds of 1.) getting helped and B.) actually getting the correct help. As most of us know, those can be two completely different things indeed.

As with any endeavor, preparation is crucial. Know what you're asking for and have any information handy that you or they might need. Old statements, order forms, account numbers, bank statements, whatever. Find it before you dial.

Once you are ready to engage, start off nicely. Approach the situation with the best of intentions. Most support folks will respond well if you are polite.

OK, here's the big secret; the Magic Phrase that can at least partially unlock the door to customer service satisfaction:

"I've noticed this problem, I'm not sure what to do about it, and I'm hoping that you [of all the nameless, faceless cogs in your big, clueless organization] can help me".

In most cases, this harmless trick plays to their ego just a wee bit and offers them a chance to show off how clever they are and maybe even be a hero by solving your problem.

Don't be in a hurry. It's going to take as long as it takes to get put through to the right person and have them do whatever they need to do. Be sure you have attended to bathroom needs, pets, and small children. Stock up on beverages and snacks. This is no time for an attack of low blood sugar or puddles of bodily fluids* at your feet.

Oh yeah, and don't forget to take notes**!

If you're dealing with a somewhat responsible organization, these tips will get you most of the way there most of the time.

Anyway, when I talked to the first Comcast rep who recognized that my question was outside of his purview and sent me on to the second rep, who then sent me on to the third rep, I didn't get annoyed. I stayed polite, had my facts (at least those I could read) in order, and after about 15 minutes I was told that my issues were resolved.

Which segues neatly to Follow-through. Watch for that next bill or statement (or two) and verify that it reflects what you were told. No matter how nicely the conversation went or how competent the rep on the other end of the phone sounded, there is a 50/50 chance that whatever they did didn't "work". Or some final critical step was left undone. So you'll have to call again.

Painful personal example: I spent a year wrestling with Qwest. Long story short, there was a billing issue that, I kid you not, took me a whole year to get resolved. Every month or two I would call back and the new rep would tell me that the previous rep, who was obviously not nearly as competent or clever as the current rep, had left some small yet critical detail undone which caused the whole process to unravel. And this process was repeated ad nauseum for a full year. Painful? Extremely. Tedious? Zzzz.... Crazy-making? Oh, yeah. But eventually it was resolved.

But occasionally, even if you've stayed nice and positive and rational, you may need to Swing the Hammer. As you might suspect, there are some tricks to that as well.

When it becomes clear that you are getting jerked around or you have called about the SAME ISSUE A MILLION TIMES, it's appropriate to let that brittle edge of irritation and dissatisfaction creep into your tone.

CAUTION: Whatever you do, don't launch into a rant against the rep or the company. Avoid like the plague the words "always" and "never", as in "You people always..." and "Qwest never..." Because once you tip the conversation over the fence into Crazy-land, you have given them permission to slap the Loony label on your forehead and tune you out.

Trust me, getting slapped with the Loony label will never aid you in your quest to achieve customer service satisfaction.

Probably the best part of my Comcast call was when I had to put the rep on hold to take an incoming support call. I knew I was taking a chance and that I might have to start all over, but I had to answer that call. And even though it just took a minute I was surprised she was still there when I returned. I apologized and explained that I, too, was in tech support and made some lame comment about feeling her pain. We had a brief moment of kinship and she got my issue wrapped up*** shortly thereafter.

I tell you, putting a customer service rep on hold was almost as much fun as making the doctor wait for an appointment. Although that's still just a dream...
:)

*Yours or anyone/thing else's.

**I'm not kidding. Read the Qwest story. Again! Document, document, document, people!

***I hope... I'll find out in about 4 weeks.
 

Straight from the Boss's Mouth

This is another genuine no-shitter: an excerpt from an article written by my boss for a journal of conference proceedings.

"In the past, [our] users had a hard time if they wanted to change or add a style. The advice of our tech support staff has been:

• You don't want to do that.
  
• You shouldn't do that.
  
• You can use [redacted] to do that.
  
• You can rewrite the [redacted] file.

We no longer give the first two responses...."

Crap! I really liked the first two responses.

But I do treasure the knowledge that my boss has a sense of humor.
 

It's Tuesday! Time for a Tech Support Nugget.

I just remembered another George story. This is a no-shitter excerpt from one of George's weekly status reports* a few months back.

Mr. K__, who asks lots of questions (about 30 messages in the last 30 days), reported an error.

A search of the code finds the comment,

"// display a message that the user is a dickhead."

Figured out a more polite way to solve his problem.

OK, maybe so it's no so much strictly a George story as a cautionary tale of how completely bored and frustrated programmers can get. Yeah, I've left my fair share of snide comments in code over the years. But nothing as glorious as this!

Way to go, Long-since-lost-to-history Code Monkey Guy!



And way to go, George! I can only aspire to such chutzpah.

*Disseminated to the whole company, btw. All 25 of us!
 

Mmmm... Spam!

Here at Tech Support Central we get tons of spam every day. Some are outright obscene (I try not to gawk), but the majority are simply stupid or are displayed in a non-Western character set. Happily, both those categories are easy to ignore.

But the German spam... ah, the German spam. The ones we get all seem to indicate... uh... sources of male enhancement products. (What's going on over there, anyway, Germany? Is there something you need to tell me?)

Here are what I can only assume are the super-effective* ones, based on how frequently they appear in our already-bulging spam folder:

From what I remember, ihren means their; Ihr means your. Fer chrissake, don't rag on me if I'm wrong. I'm recalling high school German from over 30 years ago!

Energy fur ihren Schwanz!
I doubt this is proper Deutsch, but it gets the point across, so to speak.

Doping fur Ihr bestes Stuck!
Probably only slightly more correct, but still, we get it.

Man lebt nur einmal....
Man (or One?) lives only once....
Now that's a nice way to frame it.

Potenzprobleme? Ab jetzt nicht mehr.
Power problems? From now on, no more.
Power of positive thinking, that's the ticket!

Ficken wie ein Weltmeister!
(Do it) like a world champion!
A nice, encouraging sentiment. Direct. Sets a clear goal.

Jetzt bestellen und ein blaues Wunder erleben
Now order and a blue miracle experience
Pure poetry! I think it's my favorite.

Why, oh why the fixation on German spam? I took just enough German in high school so that I must involuntarily attempt to pronounce every German word I encounter. Even though I no longer have any comprehension whatsoever, my brain just latches on to it.

Props to my German teacher, Mr. Schultz, for attempting to drill it into our thick little Hoosier skulls. Thanks. Really.

*The ads, not the products.

Additional rough translations courtesy of http://babelfish.yahoo.com