'technical' support me ar*e

DonkeyStyle \o/ · 23-01-2006 2:34pm

Yeah, some of the things people expect you to help them with really takes the piss sometimes... which is why it's good to have your hands tied sometimes.
Although I think the real point of this thread is the lack of common sense... for example a large purple line going through the screen from POST all the way to the desktop isn't likely to be a software problem, yet still procedure in some places dictates a reformat/reinstall must be performed before the machine can be sent off for a service... fair enough, they have to cut down on the cost idiots bringing PCs in for service or sending replacement parts unnessesarily... it's an unfortunate side-effect of running a large scale operation I'm sure... but it's also a side effect of hiring customer service staff to provide your tech support... but hey, I'm sure it works out cheaper in the end.

dbnavan · 23-01-2006 2:45pm

as already stated
"Nearly all bluescreens are due to faulty hardware or drivers."

Anyone of a decent technical knowledge knows this, problem is these places dont hire people who know about PC's skill number 1 is reading from a screen, I know someone who is 'Technical Support' who needed me to help her type a CV cause she didnt know how to use word!

uberpixie · 23-01-2006 2:56pm

dbnavan wrote:

as already stated
"Nearly all bluescreens are due to faulty hardware or drivers."

Anyone of a decent technical knowledge knows this, problem is these places dont hire people who know about PC's skill number 1 is reading from a screen, I know someone who is 'Technical Support' who needed me to help her type a CV cause she didnt know how to use word!

The problem is these places only want customer care type agents.

The object of the company is to get rid of the customer in under 10 mins.

Chances are ther tech support is handled by a third party company who are bound by contract to take a certain number of calls a year within a sepecific average call time.

They only hire people with limited ability so they can pay em less and chances are they get sod all training to do their job properly in the first place.

Call centres are all about cutting corners to save money and getting rid of the customerin the fastest time possible.

(with the customer happy thinking their problem is going to be fixed).

They are not about helping the customer.

Anyone of any sort of technical ability are out of call centres like a shot for a real job that pays real money.

If you want to blame someone blame the company and the company policy.

Such is life.

_Kaiser_ · 23-01-2006 3:11pm

Home User tech support is something most of the larger players look on as a "necessary expense" - I should know, I used to work for 2 of the multinationals. It's generally under-resourced and always understaffed with often unreasonable demands and targets placed on the agents.

The objectives change on a monthly basis as managers decide what the flavor of the month is.. maybe this month it's the "first time fix rate", or the "number of parts dispatched per call", or the ever popular "customer satisfaction" rate... note that the tech has no input or discretition over these objectives, or how often they change. They are simply measured and rated based on how well they adhere to them

However, above all this is stats. Average call duration, hold times, numbers of calls taken, abandonment rate. It's only AFTER these figures are satisfied that the other items I listed above are considered.

I worked in both home and Enterprise support, at various levels and yea, there were times that I knew a reload wouldn't fix the issue, however in order to get approval for x part to be sent, that hoop still has to be jumped through... in addition, you certainly can't agree with a customer that it's a pointless exercise in some cases as a random number of calls are monitored every day.

I'm a firm believer that most people should spend some time working in a callcentre before they give out about the service - or lack thereof - they've received. Also bear in mind that the person who answers the phone doesn't own the company in most cases, so screaming at and abusing them will get you nowhere except ensuring your complaint gets pushed to the bottom of the queue.

Finally, I would advise that people read their warranty information or SLA's. In most cases you'll find them airtight and that EVERYTHING is on a "best effort" basis and may or may not solve the issue on the first attempt.

gline · 23-01-2006 3:34pm

1st off consumer and corporate support are an entirely different thing.

because the volume of consumer cals in a call centre is usaully 4 times or more as many and pay less, they get a lower level of support, that is the bottom line. You cant usually blame the tech support guy on the other end of the phone. I worked doing consumer support for a year and a half and you are bound by rules, you get penalized for not hitting targets etc. You start off really caring and wanting to help customers, but over time due to management and angry customers. You are not given anytime to research and because the customer on the other end is generally a dumbass you cant step him through anything.

In corporate enviorment (which i have been working for 6 months) it is a different story as customers pay more and have more knowledge they get a better service. It is a fact of life.

As to the OPS's experience, it may have been the companies policy to do a format first to prove it is a hardware issue, bot the techies fault, its hard to know if it is companies policy or a stupid support agent.

dbnavan · 24-01-2006 9:59am

1 point just occured to me, people say that Home Users are treated like get them on and off the phone as quickly as possible, this is not true, I remember once spend an hour and a half on the phone to eircom to fix a modem problem, also if time was an issue, he wouldnt have offered to stay on the phone the whole time(45 mins approx) while I reinstalled windows before which I told him 'your wasting ur time'

uberpixie · 24-01-2006 10:13am

dbnavan wrote:

1 point just occured to me, people say that Home Users are treated like get them on and off the phone as quickly as possible, this is not true, I remember once spend an hour and a half on the phone to eircom to fix a modem problem, also if time was an issue, he wouldnt have offered to stay on the phone the whole time(45 mins approx) while I reinstalled windows before which I told him 'your wasting ur time'

When I worked for residential tech support the average call time was 10 mins. And we had to stick to it.

We had managers on our asses all the time to keep the average call time down.

If any call was approaching 10-15 mins they came over to find out what was wrong.

Whats true for eircom is not true for everywhere else.

It all depends on how strict the company are on call times.

The only time i got away with hour long calls was when i was on probation.

From my own experiance call centres dealing with residential customers are an exercise in buck passing to other departments and getting rid of the customer in the shortest time possible.

Helping them is coincidence.

gline · 24-01-2006 10:35am

uberpixie wrote:

From my own experiance call centres dealing with residential customers are an exercise in buck passing to other departments and getting rid of the customer in the shortest time possible.

Helping them is coincidence.

this seemed to be true with the company i WAS working for

dbnavan · 24-01-2006 10:46am

Well what is quiet apperent to me is companys care sh*g all about their customers and even with the multinationals there is still a market for a local technician who cares about his clients and before anyone says they dont exsist, I am one and make well from it, people dont mind paying for the personal touch, if it means not losing there data.

Often the first question I get when diagnosing a problem, is am I going to lose anything?

The person posted about in the original post had On-Site Warrenty which meant they could have come out to back-up his files on an external drive for him, if not what is point in paying Extra for on-site, Backup devices take minutes to use. What exactly does onsite mean for 200/300 euro, clean dust from ur mouse?

event · 24-01-2006 10:49am

if you thought it was wrong to format the HD, why'd you do it?

dbnavan · 24-01-2006 10:54am

event wrote:

if you thought it was wrong to format the HD, why'd you do it?

Cause the hardware was covered by warrenty but they only way the company would honour that is if they went through their troubleshooting checklist which format the hard drive is option 1 under 'blue screen' seemingly.

Saruman · 24-01-2006 11:04am

I used to work for Gateway.. the policy is rule out software.. the reason is because most problems with PC's are in fact software.

That said i always tried to tell them how to repair without having to format. Think of it this way.... Which is easier.. tell them how to format? Or to guide them step by step through registry keys etc... and they CANT send technicians out for stuff like that.. its in the warranty.. On site support is for hardware replacement only... not to diagnose and certainly not to fix windows problems.
Of course this is only the way Gateway did things their 1 year onsite was standard, not extra... thing is there is so little profit in PC's.. If you have to send just 1 engineer, once.. thats the profit lost from that PC!!!

Of course telling someone to format just because they have a blue screen is a cop out and that person is lazy.

CiaranC · 24-01-2006 11:13am

Well what is quiet apperent to me is companys care sh*g all about their customers and even with the multinationals there is still a market for a local technician who cares about his clients and before anyone says they dont exsist, I am one and make well from it, people dont mind paying for the personal touch, if it means not losing there data.

Were still going with this are we?

If you think you can have a personal service for every single call implemented accross multiple continents, countries, languages, legal systems & markets applied by tens of thousands of staff to hundreds of thousands of users, then you understand nothing about enterprise level support.

If you earn a living from clients who pay you to save their data in this situation, and appreciate the personal touch, then thats great. But that is not a service which the likes of Dell or HP consumer support provide, its a totally different market. And it sure as hell doesnt come for a one off payment of 300 euro over the life of the machine.

gline · 24-01-2006 11:20am

Saruman wrote:

thing is there is so little profit in PC's.. If you have to send just 1 engineer, once.. thats the profit lost from that PC!!!

.

i have to agree with this, massive companies care less about technical support because they care more about sales, some companies only offer "support" because they have to and that is why it is below standard, mostly in the consumer market. However corporate support should be of a higher quality because they pay a lot more and it is more critical, the company i now work for actually have a yearly charge for their technical support after you 1st year (this is corporate support), but the problems are dealt with until they are solved which can take a long time for some cases and format is never an option.

dbnavan · 24-01-2006 11:22am

CiaranC wrote:

Were still going with this are we?

If you think you can have a personal service for every single call implemented accross multiple continents, countries, languages, legal systems & markets applied by tens of thousands of staff to hundreds of thousands of users, then you understand nothing about enterprise level support.

If you earn a living from clients who pay you to save their data in this situation, and appreciate the personal touch, then thats great. But that is not a service which the likes of Dell or HP consumer support provide, its a totally different market. And it sure as hell doesnt come for a one off payment of 300 euro over the life of the machine.

The company actually is a 100% irish company, and 300 euro is 3 year cover so none of this is relevent.

CiaranC · 24-01-2006 11:29am

How is it not relevant?

300 euro would barely cover a single call with my company to have an engineer drive to site, spend hours retrieving data off this PC in its condition, warranty the faulty hardware and return to site to replace and possibly rebuild the machine. And you expect the user to be able to place an unlimited number of these calls for 3 years!

dbnavan · 24-01-2006 11:37am

CiaranC wrote:

How is it not relevant?

300 euro would barely cover a single call with my company to have an engineer drive to site, spend hours retrieving data off this PC in its condition, warranty the faulty hardware and return to site to replace and possibly rebuild the machine. And you expect the user to be able to place an unlimited number of these calls for 3 years!

Dont take a attitude with me, I havent with you, backup devices take minutes, partition the drive

If you cant afford to give 3 year on-site warranty dont offer it! What exactly does it cover? If your so
expierence why would u not suggest system restore before format?

CiaranC · 24-01-2006 11:53am

backup devices take minutes, partition the drive

Wanna tell me how I partition a drive and attach a DAT drive to a machine which wont start up without a household fan blowing into the case in someones kitchen, thus breaking health and safety regulations and endangering the health and job of my engineer and the profitablility of the company. Not something that a small freelance has to consider of course.

If you cant afford to give 3 year on-site warranty dont offer it!

Onsite usually consists of hw/sw replacement to return a machine to the state it was sold in. The company I work for provides a more specialised service, including data backup/recovery, but charge several thousands or several tens of thousands of euro a year.

dbnavan · 24-01-2006 12:12pm

CiaranC wrote:

Wanna tell me how I partition a drive and attach a DAT drive to a machine which wont start up without a household fan blowing into the case in someones kitchen, thus breaking health and safety regulations and endangering the health and job of my engineer and the profitablility of the company. Not something that a small freelance has to consider of course.

Onsite usually consists of hw/sw replacement to return a machine to the state it was sold in. The company I work for provides a more specialised service, including data backup/recovery, but charge several thousands or several tens of thousands of euro a year.

I never said it was in a kitchen, it was in an office! never said it wouldnt start, I also stated that i spent the afternoon backing up between crashes,

I also see what u mean, household fans and computers cause explosions! :rolleyes:

dbnavan · 24-01-2006 12:16pm

CiaranC wrote:

Wanna tell me how I partition a drive and attach a DAT drive to a machine which wont start up without a household fan blowing into the case in someones kitchen, thus breaking health and safety regulations and endangering the health and job of my engineer and the profitablility of the company. Not something that a small freelance has to consider of course.

Onsite usually consists of hw/sw replacement to return a machine to the state it was sold in. The company I work for provides a more specialised service, including data backup/recovery, but charge several thousands or several tens of thousands of euro a year.

Last time I checked Blue Screens dont occur in command prompt bootup

gline · 24-01-2006 12:18pm

what exactly was overheating?? cpu? if so, would reseating hsf with some decent thermal paste not have been a solution?

if i saw some guy open a case and put a desktop fan blowing into it and backing up my stuff to format, i would think he was a cowboy and would not let him near my pc. I'd take the hdds out of it and get him to take the pc away and fix it if i had paid for support.

Heinrich · 24-01-2006 12:25pm

dbnavan wrote:

I never said it was in a kitchen, it was in an office! never said it wouldnt start, I also stated that i spent the afternoon backing up between crashes,

I also see what u mean, household fans and computers cause explosions! :rolleyes:

Why do you bother arguing with the specialists? Maybe you should learn how to format the drive and reinstall and when that fails and the data is gonzo you then go into the rigmarole of changing mainboards, processors etc.

We had a comedian of a help desker who when confronted with minor issues always had to take the machine away as it was "tres grave!" Then three days later the machine came back with accusations of "what were you doing with it?" Then the fun with network access - intranet etc would begin...

This crowd charged 150 sfr to move a machine from one desk to an adjacent one. Don't get me started.

If ever I get a problem which I can't solve I will take out the HDD and bin the machine, it would be cheaper that way.

Having said that, I have never had any snags with my macs

dbnavan · 24-01-2006 12:43pm

Heinrich wrote:

Why do you bother arguing with the specialists? Maybe you should learn how to format the drive and reinstall and when that fails and the data is gonzo you then go into the rigmarole of changing mainboards, processors etc.

Learn?? I am A+ certified and studying Cisco, and have been working with PC's for last 14 years, Cowboy for using a fan, LMAO, strange yes, unarthodoxed yes, not in any book yes, BUT highlighted the problem yes!

gline · 24-01-2006 12:47pm

dbnavan wrote:

Learn?? I am A+ certified and studying Cisco, and have been working with PC's for last 14 years, Cowboy for using a fan, LMAO, strange yes, unarthodoxed yes, not in any book yes, BUT highlighted the problem yes!

but didnt fix the problem

Heinrich · 24-01-2006 12:48pm

dbnavan wrote:

Learn?? I am A+ certified and studying Cisco, and have been working with PC's for last 14 years, Cowboy for using a fan, LMAO, strange yes, unarthodoxed yes, not in any book yes, BUT highlighted the problem yes!

I was being sarcastic! I agree with your stance having seen (when I worked in a big international in Geneva) the IT cowboys at their finest!!!

The fan is not a bad idea. I have seen this working on small bench saw to prevent overheating whilst cutting 100mm planks. It also works on sodium lamps so beloved of the Bob Marley Horticultural people.:D

dbnavan · 24-01-2006 12:53pm

gline wrote:

but didnt fix the problem

Ran for far longer without crashing

gline · 24-01-2006 12:54pm

dbnavan wrote:

Ran for far longer without crashing

ah come on, you know that isnt a fix. Did you then try to isolate what part was overheating and try and solve that?

dbnavan · 24-01-2006 1:03pm

gline wrote:

ah come on, you know that isnt a fix. Did you then try to isolate what part was overheating and try and solve that?

I didnt have spare parts to try it, one reason behind blue screens is overheated cpu

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/436992.html

Theory #1 is that the CPU is overheating, which is why I usually operate the PC with the side cover off. However doing so hasn't stopped the problem
from http://abates.tetrap.com/archives/2004/12/23/my_crappy_pc.html

http://bink.nu/forums/2116/ShowPost.aspx

http://kindel.com/blogs/charlie/archive/2004/05/26/282.aspx

All cite overheating memory, cpu for blue screens

STOP Messages literally mean Windows has stopped! These appear only in the NT-based operating systems: Win NT, Win 2000, and Win XP. Most are hardware issues.

from http://aumha.org/win5/kbestop.php

and finally gentlemen from Microsoft themselves,

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d...d_stp_hwpg.asp

Wonders where this page says format hard drive

gline · 24-01-2006 1:52pm

so u didnt have any tools or pc stuff with you?

if it is cpu then just the heatsink was probably not on right and needed reseating, if it is memory then a cheap case fan blowing hot air away from it would probably do the trick there, probaly no need to format or replace anything.

dbnavan · 24-01-2006 1:57pm

gline wrote:

so u didnt have any tools or pc stuff with you?

I wasnt there to fix the problem, i wouldnt meddle with a machine under warrenty to a company especially when its possibly a dodgy cpu, if I lift it out and damage it, it becomes my fault!!

I was there to show him how to backup.

'technical' support me ar*e

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