Tales From Technical Support Content
I worked in tech support for only about four months, but I have enough stories to fill a novel. I'm not incredibly
tech-savvy myself, but the call center basically gives you everything you need to figure out how to fix the problem
even if you don't really understand what it is you're doing. My favorite episode happened right at the beginning of
my short tech-support career.
I got a call from a very upset man who believed that we (major american isp)
were spying on his bank account. Though my powers of deduction I finally determined the root of his paranoid
rantings. Whenever he signed into his bank's online access page, a pop-up ad for our banking program would appear on
the screen. Feeling confident that this was an easy problem to fix (just needed to disable pop-ups on his browser) I
told him what he had been experiencing was in fact only a pop-up ad and that I'd be glad to help him take care of
that problem. This man absolutely refused to believe his 'problem' was that simple.
man: "I want you to
cancel my account with this service! I never signed up for this!"
me: "Sir, I understand that you never signed
up for it, but I'm trying to explain that you have no account for me to cancel."
man: "Take me off it!!"
me:
"Sir, what you're seeing is a pop-up ad for our banking services. It has absolutely no affect on your bank account.
It is only an advertisement."
man: "You're not doing what I'm asking you to do! Your company is spying on my
bank account and my activity on my bank account! I want to cancel my service with you if you don't take me off this
'wallet' service!"
me: "I'm sorry to hear that you'd want to cancel your internet service with us. I can get you
over to the people that can help you accomplish that, however, there's no need for such drastic measures, Sir. Your
bank's website has other advertisements, yes?"
man: "Yeah."
me: "This 'wallet' ad you see come up when you
log in is the same thing. It's nothing more than an advertisement. It in no way tracks what you are doing in your
bank account. I assure you it is harmless. I can walk you through the steps needed to disable pop-up ads so you
won't ever have to see it again."
man:"....(long silence)....Not seeing it isn't going to change what it's
doing! Take me off the service! I don't want it!"
And so on for a half hour before my supervisor came over
to ream me about having such a long call. The only thing I hated more than dealing with people like this guy was
trying to get the supervisors to lift a frakking finger to HELP ME when I had no other options. After another twenty
minutes of the push and pull, my sup finally decided to take over. She proceeded to spend another HOUR telling this
man the very same things I had been saying for the better part of the last hour. IIRC, the call ended with him
deciding to cancel his service with us, and he was transferred to the retention department...which I'm sure sent him
over the edge into a homicidal rage. If you've ever tried to cancel service with my old company, you'd believe this
to be true as well.
The worst tech support calls come from the customers who know a little bit. Like the lady who has to have it
explained to her why her old DOS command MEM does not properly report her memory in Windows XP...three times by me
and once by another tech in the space of a week. Or the lady who asks for a network cable and, when you ask her if
it is an ethernet cable, she snaps back, "I said a network cable!" Then you have to try not to act too smug when you
explain that there are many types of network cables, the most common of which is ethernet and, of that type, there
are patch and crossover varieties.
And clickers are the absolute WORST!
m=me
c=customer
m: Okay, I'll just walk you through a few things. Right click on this and left click on that.
c:
[click.click.click.click.tap.tap.tap.tap.tap.click.click.click]
m: Don't get ahead of me. Just right click
on this and left click on that.
c: I am.
[click.click.click.tap.tap.tap.tap.click.click.click.click]
Okay, now I'm in this screen. I was in here
earlier. This won't fix it.
m: Okay, you don't need to be in there. Close that and start over. Just
right click on this and left click on that.
c: Wait...
[click.click.click.click.tap.tap.tap.click.click.tap.tap>
Just wait...
[click.click.click.click.click.click.tap.tap.tap.tap.click]
Give me an idiot any day, but
please, God, not a clicker!
I have been a computer technician in my town for almost 6 years now, so I have seen a lot of them,
but the one that takes the cake is actually when I CALLED tech support. In fact, I have MADE more
annoying tech support calls than I have received. The dumbest people I have dealt with have been the
psudo-techs, not the customers! (I'm sorry, I don't know my name. I'm already out of the screen that
had that information...come on, you've all gotten them!)
First of all, I am a man. I do not
have a high voice and it is very obvious, even on the phone, that you are talking to a man. I was
called ma'am only once before and then it was an old lady, she was behind me and I had hair down to
my...waist. I wasn't speaking then.
I had a customer bring her computer in because she
could not get on the internet. I looked up the phone number for her ISP, which is a big name
nationwide company which advertises on television a lot (not AOL). A man answers the phone with a
thick accent. I explain to him that I was a tech working on the system of Susan ???? and I needed to
check some settings, to which the tech replies, in very thick Indian accent, "Hello, Susan. How may
I help you?" I paused for a second, then explained (again) that I wasn't Susan, I was a tech working
on the system. He promptly replied that he could do nothing to help me if I wasn't Susan. Now if
customers ask for help with their dialup, if they deal with this company the only help I will give
them is to help them choose another ISP. Otherwise, they're on their own.
I was recently working on a users computer, who was from our warehouse. The hard drive had gone bad,
and the cd was pretty much shot too.
So I got on the online chat with the tech support for this
big computer company (who shall remain nameless) because the computer was still under warranty.
We
went through determining the hard drive was bad, then the following conversation transpired:
Tech:
is there anything else I can do for you today?
ME: Yes, I tried to boot from the XP CD and the
drive does not boot. Since the hard drive is bad, it says OS not found
Tech: Can you try another
CD?
ME: I tried one diagnostic CD and two different XP CD's, but if you like I have an unopened
XP cd I can try.
Tech: No, that's okay, but can you try a Music CD?
ME:A music CD? how will
that work if the computer will not boot up?
Tech: Is there anything else I can do for you today?
ME: The CD still will not boot!
Tech: (after long delay) Oh, that's because the hard drive
is bad
ME: You're saying that it will not boot from CD because the hard drive is bad???
Tech:
Yes
ME: After delay, then tell me, why is it that when I took an identical machine and unplugged
the hard drive, it still booted from CD?
Tech: Huh?
Tech: is there anything else I can do
for you?
The next day I received a hard drive and CD drive.
As the resident geek I get people in the neighborhood popping in now and again to ask for help with
their computers. This one I got a couple of weeks ago, thought ya all would enjoy it.
My
neighbor comes on over and ask for help with a word document, couldn't figure out why it was locked.
So I wander on over to her place to look at it. She loads up the document, closes a pop up box, and
Word 2k3 loads in the document. She then leaves me to my own devices to which I closed the document,
reopened the document, read the pop up.
Sure enough, she hadn't registered Word 2k3 with
Microsoft yet and the trial had expired. So after asking if she had internet and finding out she
didn't. I pulled up the register by phone box and then patiently explained she needed to register
the program with Microsoft then it would work fine. Call this number here, give this number to the
system, and put the number they give into this box, and it'll work fine. With that all said and
done, left her with the phone and went home.
Haven't heard from her since! :D
I have a sales rep here at my work who has been having problems with their home pc. Speaking with
her a few weeks back, I told her to bring in the Computer Box as I didnt need the mouse, keyboard or
monitor. I told her to do this whenever she got the chance to do so. A few weeks went by and she
came into my office today carring the box. I told her I would get to it in a few hours to see what
was wrong with it. Well a few hours later I went over to the box and opened it up. Sure enough she
brought me the Computer box the computer came in and the styrofoam packing materials.
I
told her I fixed it and she can pick it back up...!!
I live in Maryland, just outside of Washington. Every so often I see a metro bus with an ad that
reminds drivers to keep their attention focused to the road. The ads say "Hey slick - you can email
the office later." I can only assume the folks who thought up this ad are the same folks that call
tech support while cruising down the highway wanting to know why their laptops can't connect...
Greetings! I have been reading this site for a couple of years since I did tech support for (rhymes
with) HBC Nahoo Dsl and never found the need to submit a story. But i was on the other end of the
chair just a couple of minutes ago and the old addage is true: Its not always the user. My adopted
Mom is having trouble with her wireless keyboard. It is a (rhymes with)Mell Dimension e310 with no
ps/2 ports on the back, all usb or wireless on this one. So I go and do the standard trouble
shooting. Check the battries, Try to reset the keyboard and reciever, Unplug the usb connection and
power up and replug it in. Nothing is working, Mouse works fine, keyboard is dead in the water. Now
she has a password on Windows XP when you boot up, this is essential later on. So trying to save
myself the phone call i get on their support site and go in the support chat (thinking that there is
some trick I am missing) posing as her to avoid the hassle. (her name has been edited just for the
H*ll of it.) Note some of the time stamps near the middle and end.
12/13/2006 02:46:37PM
Session Started with Agent (TARUN)
12/13/2006 02:46:50PM Agent (TARUN): "Thank you for
contacting Mell Technical Support. My name is Tarun and my rep ID number is ########. How may I
assist you today?"
12/13/2006 02:47:18PM Me (posing as her): "Hello i am having issues with
my Mell wireless Keyboard and Mouse combo"
12/13/2006 02:47:49PM Agent (TARUN): "Okay. I
understand your concern and I will personally attend to your matter. I assure you that I will do my
best to provide you quality service."
12/13/2006 02:47:54PM Me: "it seems that the reciever
is not detecting the keyboard but it will detect the mouse"
12/13/2006 02:47:55PM Agent
(TARUN): "I ll be glad to assist you. Please give me 3 minutes to pull up your account information.
In the meantime I would like to inform you that you might get an invitation to participate in a
survey at the end of this session. You will be asked to rate our inte"
  raction on a scale
of 1 to 5 with 5 being very satisfied. In order to participate in the survey, you must close the
chat by selecting the "Exit" button.
12/13/2006 02:48:13PM Me: "k"
12/13/2006
02:48:51PM Me: "while you are doing that here is a list of things that i have done"
12/13/2006
02:49:25PM Me: "I have powered down the comp and unplugged the reciever, rebooted and plugged it
back in"
12/13/2006 02:49:39PM Agent (TARUN): "Okay. Kindly go ahead."
12/13/2006
02:50:00PM Me: "i have hit the reset switches on the bottom of the kb first and then the reciever"
12/13/2006 02:50:14PM Connie Honeyman: "i have replaced the battries"
12/13/2006
02:50:26PM Agent (TARUN): "okay."
12/13/2006 02:50:35PM Me: "now i am at a loss"
12/13/2006
02:51:22PM Agent (TARUN): "Do not worry I am there to help you."
12/13/2006 02:51:55PM
Agent (TARUN): "May I have your telephone number and area code to update our records?"
12/13/2006
02:52:18PM Me: "sure ###-###-####"
12/13/2006 02:52:30PM Agent (TARUN): "Thank you."
12/13/2006 02:53:07PM Agent (TARUN): "As per the records with me you have a Dimension e310 ,
with Windows XP MCE Edition installed as an operating system on it. Am I correct? Is this the
product you need assistance with?"
12/13/2006 02:53:33PM Me: "You are correct"
12/13/2006
02:53:42PM Agent (TARUN): "Okay."
12/13/2006 02:53:46PM Agent (TARUN): "Since how long have
you been facing this issue?"
12/13/2006 02:54:54PM Me: "it has happened off and on for
about a month any time it storms and the power goes out, or if the usb plug is removed or sometimes
for no reason at all."
12/13/2006 02:55:15PM Agent (TARUN): "Okay. Have you made any
hardware or software changes to the system?"
12/13/2006 02:55:33PM Me: "none at all"
12/13/2006 02:55:40PM Agent (TARUN): "okay."
12/13/2006 02:55:53PM Agent (TARUN): "Are
you using the same system to chat with us, with which you are facing the issue?"
(Ok
standard script questions, I understand, i've been there.)
12/13/2006 02:56:09PM Me (posing
as her in case you forgot): "no i am not i am using my sons computer"
12/13/2006 02:56:15PM
Me: "we have a home network"
12/13/2006 02:56:35PM Agent (TARUN): "Okay. Are you near the
system with which you are facing the issue?"
12/13/2006 02:56:45PM Me: "yep its about 5ft
from me"
12/13/2006 02:58:08PM Agent (TARUN): "Can you perform the troubleshooting steps
which we have to do?"
12/13/2006 02:58:20PM Me: "sure"
12/13/2006 02:58:35PM Agent
(TARUN): "Great."
12/13/2006 02:59:04PM Agent (TARUN): "Before beginning are you also using
the wireless mouse ?"
(I said that at the beginning didn't I?)
12/13/2006
02:59:52PM Me: "yes i am"
12/13/2006 03:00:23PM Me: "it goes through the same reciever"
12/13/2006 03:00:50PM Agent (TARUN): "That means both the keyboard and mouse are wireless."
(I would hope so....)
12/13/2006 03:01:04PM Me: "that is correct"
12/13/2006
03:01:41PM Agent (TARUN): "Okay."
12/13/2006 03:03:04PM Agent (TARUN): "Press and release
the Connect button on the right side of the keyboard, then immediately press and release the Connect
button on top of the receiver. (An ink pen or paperclip is needed to press the Connect button on the
keyboard) Wait 30 seconds"
  . Press and release the Connect button under the mouse, then
immediately press and release the Connect button on top of the receiver. (An ink pen or paperclip is
needed to press the Connect button on the mouse).
12/13/2006 03:04:41PM Agent (TARUN):
"Once we are done let me know."
12/13/2006 03:04:55PM Me: "just got finished"
12/13/2006
03:05:38PM Agent (TARUN): "Is it working fine now?"
12/13/2006 03:05:52PM Me: "still having
the same issue, mouse works, keyboard doesn't"
12/13/2006 03:07:20PM Agent (TARUN): "Okay"
12/13/2006 03:07:30PM Agent (TARUN): "I appreciate your patience. I am still looking
through my resources and would request you to allow me another 2 minutes to look into the issue."
12/13/2006 03:07:44PM Me: "sure thing"
12/13/2006 03:09:07PM Agent (TARUN): "Thank
you for staying online. I appreciate your patience."
12/13/2006 03:09:32PM Agent (TARUN):
"Let us go ahead to Start and then to Control panel."
12/13/2006 03:10:59PM Me: "there is a
password on my machine so right now before it will go to the desktop i have to type it in, lol so we
might have a problem with that :)"
(You know.... the whole keyboard issue.)
12/13/2006
03:13:34PM Agent (TARUN): "No problem I will wait till you reach there."
(Wait all you
want, it ain't happening)
12/13/2006 03:14:08PM Me: "i cannot type in the password because
the keyboard doesn't work"
12/13/2006 03:15:27PM Agent (TARUN): "You can plug in some good
known keyboard ."
12/13/2006 03:15:59PM Agent (TARUN): "We have to log on to windows before
we begin further troubleshooting."
12/13/2006 03:16:52PM Me: "i would but this model of
dell doesn't have a ps/2 connection because they went with the whole wireless thing"
12/13/2006
03:17:06PM Me: "and i do not have any other usb keyboard"
12/13/2006 03:17:18PM Me: "just
ones with a ps/2 connection"
12/13/2006 03:19:49PM Agent (TARUN): "Kindly put in the PS 2
port (purple ) in color."
(Don't you have the product info in front of you?)
12/13/2006
03:21:30PM Agent (TARUN): "I am afraid there is no PS 2 connector behind this system tower."
(Duh)
12/13/2006 03:21:50PM Agent (TARUN): "You have to try for USB keyboard."
(Nope don't have one as i just said)
(I just said all of this about 5 min ago......)
12/13/2006 03:22:57PM Agent (TARUN): "What I can do best is I can provide you the we blink
which will easily guide you how to troubleshoot your keyboard."
12/13/2006 03:23:08PM Agent
(TARUN): "Is it fine with you?"
(getting tired of this almost 45 min chat session of
nothing)
12/13/2006 03:23:24PM Me: "go for it"
12/13/2006 03:24:39PM Agent
(TARUN):
"http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/acc/p54093/DellWirelessMultimediaDesktopPlacemat.pdf"
12/13/2006 03:25:08PM Agent (TARUN): "Kindly go through this weblink and it will easily guide
you ."
(After I downloaded this and then went to go install Adobe Reader I opened it to
find that it was the docs that came with the pc. Some walkthrough....)
12/13/2006
03:25:40PM Me: "sure, peace out"
Now what I am going to do is wait until she gets home and
then I will get her account info. Then its phone call time to see if we can get either someone
smarter, or get the stupid thing replaced. Thanks for hearing my story, I may post more of my
personal ones later. Take care :)
I work for a large company that supports recruiting and training centre pc's. There was a call that
came in regarding a downed server. I called the site up and went through the usual troubleshooting
procedures. Having dicovered that the UPS was down and both PSU's were attached to it, I suggested
to the user that he find another kettle lead and plug one of the PSU's into a wall socket (I think
you can guess where this is going)...
In all seriousness, the user said to me...
"We
don't have any kettles on site. We only have an urn"
How I kept a straight face when
explaining what a kettle lead was I don't know!
I usually have no problem with Apple's tech support, but I must have gotten a particularly braindead
worker. Having worked as a fieldtech for years I know how easy it is, my call was supposed to be a
formaility but...
A: Apple
M: me
all in all, this took me 40+ minutes.
A: Welcome to Apple tech support, how may I be of service?
M: Hi, I recieved my Macbook
[serial number] today, and it's dead on arrival.
A: please hold
*of course....*
A:
Hello, this is [name] from customer service, you macbook is broken?
M: Yes, it refused to start
ever since...
A: I'll put you through to Tech Support
M: I just...
*annoying elevator
music*
A: Welcome to Apple tech support, how may I be of service?
M: I just got refered here
from CS, and I'd like to report my macbook DOA.
A: Allright sir, Do you have the laptop with
you?
M: yes, the type is [type]
A: thank you, do you have it on?
M: Erm...no...It's Dead
on Arrival.
A: Could you please turn it on then?
M: uhhhh, I'd love to, but it won't start.
A: Just press the round butt,
M: I know HOW to turn it on... but the laptop WILL NOT POWER
UP!
A: Do you have the laptop connected to the power?
M: *getting pissed* Yes, I've tried it
on battery, on power, it is connected to both the wall and the laptop, I didn't chop the cable, nor
have I opened the machine, the leads are all clear, I haven't done anything to the laptop. I have
owned it for a full 3 hours now.
*all those years as fieldtech and you can dream the standard
list*
A: Allright sir, I need you to check if the power cord is connected to both the laptop and
the outlet.
M: ....Could I ask you a question? How many people are there in your department
right now?
A: 23, why?
M: So, If I call back, I wouldn't get you on the phone again?
A:
I'm afraid not sir.
M: Good. *CLICK*
one 3-min call later got me an adress and
free shipping method for returning the laptop on the condition that if it was OK i pay for shipping.
Not long ago, I worked for a local internet café. I always got many computer illiterate people, but
there was one special case.
He was called Crazy English Guy.
At first, it was
frustratingly little things. How to access email, why his inbox wouldn't pop up when he was logged
in (he'd sit there for 15 minutes or more looking at the screen when I logged him on, wondering why
he wasn't in his email). Then he asked how to access other windows when he'd click on a link and
another popped up. (He hadn't noticed the buttons in the toolbar)
But one day he brought in
his company laptop. We had wireless internet, and it was simple to set it up to the cafés network.
Well... it should have been.
I spent a good two hours trying to find out why it wouldn't
connect. I'd asked him all the basics- was there a built in wireless card, software, ect. Nothing
was working at all, and I couldn't understand it.
Finally, I explained to him fully how
wireless worked, and what he needed. He pulled out of his bag a wireless network card, and said "Oh!
This thing!" and laughed.
I was ready to kill.
