Sad, but True
Sad, but True: 90% of technical support phone representatives are deeply, deeply stupid.
Ways to tell you are speaking to a deeply stupid tech support rep:
- He or she uses big, technical words without explaining what they mean. This is a sure sign that they are trying to intimidate you into not noticing that they are deeply stupid.
- He or she childishly anthropomorphizes your technical devices or the troubleshooting steps he or she is about to perform. For instance, he or she asks you to shut down your computer and explains that they are giving your computer a rest because it is tired. This is a sure sign that the representative has no clue how your devices work or what the function of their troubleshooting is.
- He or she immediately starts making you do seemingly random tasks on your computer without asking you any clarifying questions about your issue. Unless you are extremely technical and knowledgable yourself (or your issue is really really really straight-forward), chances are your description of your issue has at least some level of ambiguity and it is the tech's job to figure out what's going on. If your tech doesn't ask clarifying questions, chances are he hasn't listened to you at all and is about to troubleshoot the issue he wishes you had, rather than the one you actually have.
- He or she is at all condescending or in any way makes you feel bad or stupid. It is not your job to be smart about computers, that's your tech's job. If they treat you this way, it is because they suspect that you are meek, mild-mannered, and submissive, and they can intimidate you into not noticing that they are deeply stupid.
Basically, most tech support reps are poorly trained, deeply stupid, and know how to deal with, at maximum, 3 or 4 straightforward problems. If you happen to have a problem or question that isn't one of those, the best you can hope for is a well-meaning stupid person who will spend 2 hours flailing around on the phone with you but will eventually fix your problem out of sheer determination rahter than skill. Or, you might be really lucky and get someone clever who thinks on their feet and knows their stuff. But mostly, you'll get some idiot blowhard who thinks two weeks of training makes them a genius, evidence be damned.
Why, how did you guess? Yes, I do, in fact, work in Quality Control at a tech support call center? How did you know???
:-)
Comments
lol @ "sheer determination rather than skill"
I hope the deep stupidity isn't contagious ;)
At the company I work for, the techsupport used to be horrible. Our PCs were quite old and so loaded down with newer software that it would take at least 15-20 minutes to boot.
A typical call would go like this:
1) We would wait on hold for 30+ minutes
2) We would then spend the next few minutes describing the issue.
3) Regardless of the issue, the very first thing they would tell us to do was to reboot. This would buy them time.
4) After the PC rebooted, we would then have to repeat what the issue was (a sign they were not paying attention to begin with).
5) Then we would end being put on hold again. This time would vary, but it was never less than 5 minutes.
6) Then the Tech guy would return with the following:
a) he would open a ticket to send someone out
b) he would get someone else on the line and then after a few minutes go to option (a)
c) he would try to fix it himself- then go to either option (b) or option (a)- if he went to (b) it would end up at (a)
d) we would get disconnected and the entire process would start over again.
I eventually suceeded in social engineering the guy who would come out to the office in leaving me with Admin rights. I was able to take care of things myself and not have to deal with calling in.
Te company eventually outsourced the technical support calls. As much as I'm against outsourcing, this solved the poor service and the guys that are doing it now not only get the job done, they are nice about it-- and if you happened to get disconnected, they call back!