Customer Support

DannyDrama · 20 May 2014 at 14:12

Nothing can top Sky when they cut your phone service and THEN ask you to call them.

Deleted member 77746 · 20 May 2014 at 14:47

SLIPPYFI5T said:
Anyone else get fed up with customer support chat in general? Been chatting to dell support for over an hour about a laptop that won't charge, turn on etc and all ive been asked is stupid things such as does it display on another monitor and if the keyboard works. I swear people take these jobs just because they like annoying people.

right rant over

benjii said:
The problem is if they don't run through their checklist and just assume the customer knows what they're talking about based on the customer telling them so and it is a simple problem, many man hours get wasted.

Most people phoning Dell customer service lines are clueless, hence why they have these protocols.

This.

SLIPPYFI5T · 20 May 2014 at 14:57

Well now thats been pointed out to me haha but to be fair if its in warranty I might aswell get them to do it rather then doing it myself.

Josh · 20 May 2014 at 15:04

Spent 3 hours online to nvidia tech support one day, new driver wouldn't update, asked me all sort of questions, virus programs used, hardware, overclocks, web browser and download location etc

After failing to find the fix using his methods of trying to get it to not stall, he said something along the lines of "well I'm stumped, the only time we get this issue is users to have AVG but you don't"

Queue me raging at him saying I told you 3 hours ago I use AVG, upon checking he was very sorry and gave me a free game code. But just the pure hell of having to sit there going through things was hard.

Can't really blame him, he just missed the most vital piece of information during the start of the conversation. All was well and know I can just laugh about it.

meandu229 · 20 May 2014 at 15:11

Ive been back and forthing with dell on twitter as my tablet has died but it was from US so it wont let me use the UK site to get an RMA till I have transferred the warrenty, its now been 20 days out of the 12 days they said it would take to transfer. Useless they are.

Another +1 to amazon, on live chat got some headphones for birthday (~£60-£70) they broke after about 3 weeks. Took about 4 minutes and they had the new ones dispatched to me (offered a refund too) and a label to send my broken ones back to them for free. Top service, The only other time I had an issue with a (refurbished) kindle was the screen broke at 6.30 on a Friday night I rang in and the guy was sympathetic and got a new one overnighted to me without me asking so was without kindle less that 13 hours.

EGuitarStar · 20 May 2014 at 22:49

Used to have a torrid time with Dell but then you learn to browse the web while they get you to try this and at and eventually tell you that they'll send an engineer out to fix it.

PardonTheWait · 20 May 2014 at 23:44

SLIPPYFI5T said:
dell latitude e6440 was just so frustrating. after telling them that it doesn't power on, how is plugging it into an external monitor going to help?

Because many people don't understand computers, and don't understand that when say mean 'no power' you mean 'no power' not 'doesn't get to the desktop'.

We get calls at work, say my laptops not switching on. I say not powering on at all, or just not booting up properly? They say not powering on at all.

They bring it in, powers up, goes BONNNGGGG, fans spin up, LED on the front lights up, but no picture, and when I tell them that it's powering on but doesn't have a picture, they look at me blankly. It doesn't mean anything to them. It's not 'turning on'.

They don't know you from Adam so they have to start at the beginning.

abbotsmike · 21 May 2014 at 00:35

Exactly the same with virgin, even half their engineers don't have a clue.

I run my superhub in modem mode. Try ringing up virgin support and they'll generally tell you any internet connection problem is because of your network, nothing to do with their modem not having a downstream lock!

pitchfork · 21 May 2014 at 09:29

SLIPPYFI5T said:
I swear people take these jobs just because they like annoying people.

No, people take ****** call centre jobs because they're not qualified to do anything else.

It's a dead end job, I wouldn't give a toss about helping people either.

The companies could hire people who know what they're talking about or pay them to provide quality service but then it'd cost the shareholders a few lobsters and bottles of bubbly or more likely, the customer more money.

porushinobu · 21 May 2014 at 10:24

pitchfork said:
No, people take ****** call centre jobs because they're not qualified to do anything else.

It's a dead end job, I wouldn't give a toss about helping people either.

The companies could hire people who know what they're talking about or pay them to provide quality service but then it'd cost the shareholders a few lobsters and bottles of bubbly or more likely, the customer more money.

Either that or, like myself, it is a horrible but necessary stepping stone while I prepare for something better.

Tealc · 21 May 2014 at 12:10

pitchfork said:
No, people take ****** call centre jobs because they're not qualified to do anything else.

Call centre work also tided me over for a couple of months while I got myself a quality engineering job after returning to the working world after a few years fostering.

It's much easier to walk into a call centre job than engineering. A 5 minute interview with a teenager (ok maybe mid 20s) was all it took to get myself an telephone and broadband support role

Engineering needs 2-3 interviews spread over several weeks.

We had no scripts. It was all off the cuff. Customers were generally clueless and a load of the guys asked customers to call back despite having line issues. I worked with quite a few muppets, that's for sure.

Borrish · 21 May 2014 at 12:31

They don't put any money into residential support because they don't care and simply put it's not worth them caring about either because there's no monetary benefit. They keep all the decent staff that actually know what they're doing for the business customers that are paying 10 times more (usually paying for the support as well). Virgin are a great example of this. Their residential support is beyond hopeless but their business support has always been fantastic in my experience.

pitchfork · 21 May 2014 at 13:09

porushinobu said:
Either that or, like myself, it is a horrible but necessary stepping stone while I prepare for something better.

Well yes, but it's still a job you can't even begin to care about - it's dead end.

Tealc said:
Call centre work also tided me over for a couple of months while I got myself a quality engineering job after returning to the working world after a few years fostering.

I'm well aware people take menial jobs as income earners. My point was that it was designed to be a job anyone can do, no actual skill involved so if you had anything that wasn't a standard issue caused by being a moronic customer then you're knackered for service.

I remember explaining what was wrong with my broadband to some bloke over the phone "SNR is too high on the downstream, can you send an engineer" and I may as well have been speaking spanish - all he could do is come up with the same crap that every other ******* does and wouldn't send an engineer until I'd done it, which isn't right.

If they'd design the job and train their staff it wouldn't be the case, but as a general answer to OP's question it's just that "Phone answerers aren't going to make good tech support"