Still More Ways Users Make Tech Calls A Living Hell

1) Failure To Pay Their Bill - Nothing is worse than a riled up customer going off on a rant in your ear about how they can't get online, only to find out they're not paying their bill on time. Not only does it set your mood in a downward spiral, but it embarrasses the customer when you type in their info just to discover what a slacker they are. (As chronicled in a previous post.) Some people get it, they call and ask to see if their account is still active. If they find out that it is indeed not active, they ask to be transferred to a billing rep. No embarrassment, no problem. But if their account is still active, then there's something else wrong, and we work on it. They aren't all worked up, and their displeasure level is much lower, and these calls generally work out okay. But as with all things good, they are few and far between.

2) Calling For Non-Internet Related Support - I get tons of these calls every week. The scope of support I am allowed to provide can only deal with Internet related problems. When users call me about Printer Issues, or why their mouse doesn't work, I have to politely tell that that I can't help them, and they should refer to another support line (if possible, I'll help them get the number to call). What's worse is when people don't like that answer, and continue to try to convince me to help them. I hate pulling out the "legal disclaimer", but sometimes I must. People, when I answer the phone with "Thank you for calling Internet Tech Support", exactly where in there does it say "And Hardware, and Games, and Printer Ink, and..."??

3) Not Writing Down Error Messages - Here's a classic exchange...

Me: Thank you for calling Internet Tech Support, this is Mike, how may I help you?
Them: Yeah, I can't connect to your internet service, I keep getting an error message.
Me: What does the error message say?
Them: It says I can't connect to you.
Me: What does it say *exactly*....
Them: ....I dunno.
Me: Did you write it down?
Them: No.
Me: Okay, we're going to have to hang up so it frees up your phone line, and then I want you to attempt to connect. When you get the error message, write down *EXACTLY* what it says, including the error code number, that's very important. Then cancel the connection attempts and call me back with that info.
Them: Okay. >click<

Error messages are very important. They tell me what's happening. Error codes can direct me to more specific information. I tell all my customers to put a notepad and pen next to their computer so they can write down the information that appears on the screen. I have one customer who keeps a log of what's running, what time the errors occur, what the errors are and what programs he was messing around in when they happened.

I think it's obvious why I like this guy. His tech calls have not lasted over 15 minutes in 3 years.

4) Calling 2 Minutes Before Closing - This has to be almost as annoying as trying to help someone who's completely blitzed fix a computer problem. Why people wait until the end of the day to call with a tech problem, I'll never understand. And I guarantee you that anyone who calls at that moment doesn't have a simple problem to fix, either. These customers generally are the ones who require a full TCP/IP rebuild. Most often, I ask them to call back when there's more time. If I wasn't a single father, I'd stay a little later, but as is my lot in life, when it hits 6pm, I'm outta there.

5) Not Calling About A Problem For Months - This is a general gripe and is squarely the fault of lazy people. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why people will suffer through months of connection problems, and NOT call right away to get them resolved. They will instead just quietly curse our names and bad mouth us. Far be it from them to contact us when the problem begins (or at least within a week of it) and get it troubleshot and resolved. These people usually have a good rant built up over time, but here's a clue. If you don't call us, we can't tell that there's something wrong. We have a customer base of over 6000 people, and cannot track all of them. If you think we're going to notice one person having a problem out of all of that, you're smoking something highly illegal. We're not psychics. You need to call us RIGHT AWAY, not 3 months later to get things taken care of right.