8. "This Is The First Time I'm Calling About This"
"So these hundreds of notes from the last couple of weeks are about something different then?" Its particularly frustrating when customers are repeat callers. In all honesty, customers who call again and again to be told the same thing (usually that they cant be helped immediately) dont help anybody. All they end up doing is angering themselves and the people who answer their calls. Some customers seem to be aware that if the techie knows theyve called many times in the past 2 hours that theyll not get any further, so they lie. They say its their first call on the subject in the hope that theyll get someone who looks at the issue a different way and can actually help them. Unfortunately for the customer, techies have notes. Lots of notes. More notes than they would expect, in actual fact. Theres no hiding the amount of times you have called in. The worst part is, if a techie tells you that there is nothing they can do over the phone, theyre not lying. Its not some grand conspiracy to get you off the phone, literally if tech support cannot help you on the call, they will tell you and ask you to be patient while they get the issue sorted.
7. I Certainly Wasnt Looking At Those Sites
"Of course you werent, your Holiness" Porn is the great divider when it comes to tech support. On the one hand, you shouldnt judge a customer for how they use their gadget/connection, but on the other, porn sites can cause so many technical and personal problems it becomes a nightmare. Porn sites not only cause issues in terms of viruses, but depending on the site and its legitimacy can cause billing issues (especially from some phones), privacy problems and even result in fraud taking place (though if you visit the kind of websites that will generate that kind of issue, you kind of have it coming). The first main issue is getting the user to admit to it. Techies dont care what particular site youve accessed, but if there is a problem with the computer/phone that can be attributed to something brought down from a website, they need to know about as much as the web address. Thats all. Not the content, not what you enjoy, not how long youve subscribed to it, just the address. Things get more difficult when you have multiple users of a computer. In some cases, the statement I certainly wasnt looking at those sites can be entirely true from the caller and they simply want to know why their browser remembers addresses that no one should ever want to remember. This is where techies have to do some detective work and establish who was using it at a given time and when it was last working as it should. Then there is usually the terrifying and treacherous journey into the computer's browser history (normally over remote access) to prove to the caller what the computer has accessed. Sometimes it can be hilarious for the techie, listening to someone squirm on the other end of the phone as you've just proved that they screwed up their computer with whatever particular kink they enjoy. Techies don't judge, but they enjoy being amused.
6. Ive Already Restarted It And It Didnt Work, Can I Have A New One?
"No. Just no." If youve ever seen The IT Crowd, youll have no doubt had a good laugh at Roys reflexive phone answer Hello, IT. Have you tried turning it on and off again? Its funny in the show and even techies find it amusing, but what people dont realise is that 90% of tech support interactions start and finish this way. Computers lock up, phones freeze and broadband routers go down, but most of them can be rescued with a good old reboot. Then theres the 10% where further diagnostics and some intense thought need to happen. Its always on these calls that the customer believes that a quick reboot hasnt fixed it, so its automatically faulty under warranty. These are the worst customers to deal with, simply because they already have it in their head that they want a new unit, so theyre entirely unprepared to conduct any diagnostics whatsoever. What should take 10 minutes and could lead to a warranty repair or replacement will more often than not escalate into a huge argument with no repair, hurt feelings and several complaints letters.
5. The Last Guy I Spoke To Promised Me A Refund
"Oh, the last guy? The idiot before me who hung up because he drooled on the phone? That guy?" Never is there a more rage inducing sentence uttered by a customer. In this case, not only is the customer wrong but another agent has sold you out and set an expectation youre not supposed to meet. Its like youve been stabbed in the back by one of your own. Treachery of the highest order. The customer in these cases probably doesnt deserve a refund of any sort, but in order to curry favour and improve their customer satisfaction scores, an earlier advisor would have promised them a little bit off their next bill or a chunk of their previous bill back. Either way, they shouldnt be getting it and its been promised against any logical process and policy ever put in place. But the techie knows that if he doesnt comply with this, complaints will be made, satisfaction scores will go down, bonuses will be at risk. Being backed into a corner is never a nice thing, especially when youre being forced to concede for a tenner.
I am a man of many interests. I am a passionate gamer, running my own YouTube channel (The Gadget Addicts) showing off the best of modern gaming in the form of Let's Play videos.
I am an ardent musician, having been a guitarist for the past 13 years. I am also a massive geek, I adore science fiction and fantasy films and TV shows and am trying to work up the courage to start writing a novel. If I can ever think of a good story to tell...
I live with my wife in the North East of England and own a belligerent little black cat.
