Customer Service

November 15, 2004

I was checking out Andy's blog about "bad customer service" in the USA and as I was reading it I kept thinking to myself, "Yup, been there" or a Clintonian "I feel your pain..."

In fact, reading this also reminded me how my father-in-law purchased a brand new Dell after consulting me for my opinion on what he should buy.

Later on, my wife told me that he purchased a Dell with the optional technical support contract. She said to me, "I don't know why he bought that. You even told me the frustration of dealing with technical support reps that just read from a script. Such as, ‘Is the power cord connected?” Besides my dad can just call you to fix it and if you can’t fix it then most likely it’s a hardware issue and it has to be returned. What a waste of money!

My wife knows the frustration I’ve experienced dealing with technical support reps that read from a script. By the time you get past the “Is the power connected”, “Is the keyboard plugged in”, and all the other mundane checks, it seems like an eternity has past; worse - you feel like the technician is being condescending - “Yes, the power corn is on! I know there is no such thing as an “any key” on the keyboard and I’m not using the CD-ROM as a cup holder either!”.

In the past when I have tried to “fast forward” to the meat by saying to the technician, “Sir, I’m very technically savvy, let me just explain the problem, tell you what I think the problem is and let’s work from there,” many technicians get flustered and respond with “Sir, I need to go through the script.”

So I just play along, go through the script and usually just pretend to do what they tell me to do until I think the steps they are telling me to do merit expounding the energy to perform mouse-clicks and keystrokes.

I feel like many help desks have are filled with drones or automatons that can’t think on their feet. Of course, this is not always the case, I have experienced some very smart tech support persons, but unfortunately, they are few and far in-between.

Go check out Andy’s customer service experience:
VoIP Watch: My Views On Customer Service In the USA



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Comments to Customer Service


  1. Maria Palma :
    February 1, 2006 1:03 AM

    Yes, sometimes technically savvy people (like me) make boo-boos - like not plugging in the cable. Ooops! It happened to me once and I felt like a dingleberry...

    ~Maria Palma
    http://www.customersarealways.com
    http://www.prosperityisyours.blogspot.com


  1. VoIP Blog :
    May 6, 2006 3:04 AM

    Yeh Maria is right.You don't know when you are making a silly mistake. Its just matter of concentration that sometimes we forget what is most essential and most common. I am a master in softwares and at times forget to switch on the power before just stripping down the PC.
    These help desk executives have to imagine the state of mind of the customer and its better to follow the script and make sure that power cord is plugged properly than to getting you RAM 'plucked' out of your motherboard.
    http://voip-phone-service-equipment.blogspot.com


  1. VoIP Forum :
    May 6, 2006 3:09 AM

    Accoding to me these tech support executives should be given propre training before taking troubleshooting calls. Well most of them pretends to be highly qualified for the job..but the thing is that their communication skills scores more than their technical domain knowledge while selection for the job.
    http://www.voip-traffic.com/


  1. broadband telephone internet :
    May 20, 2006 9:50 AM

    customer care or tech support having lack of troubleshooting knowledge.This is due to lack of proper training given to them.


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