ECOslin
09-06-2002, 08:17 PM
"I called HP Support and they acted like they'd never heard of such a problem." - from a recent post.
It's an old tech support trick. "that's a new problem, I've never heard of such a thing, Let me research it, I've got your number, I'll call you back."
And since there is no money for the Tech in calling the customer back, likely it won't happen.
And Heaven help the next tech who gets the caller, when he thinks to call back.
Phone tech support is done on a 'call-time' basis.
The tech who has the shortest calls, gets recognition, gets promoted, and gets more money.
The tech who has a longer average 'call-time', gets counseled, gets jibed by co-workers, and gets laid off.
When the customer calls in to a 'Call Center', it's basically Russian Roulette as to whether they get a good tech or someone just passing time.
The good tech has a good support background, their own notes(mostly never shared), and likely cares to help the customer.
Many of the people hired for this job are either actual Sales People or people off the street who had the two week training class, that mostly dealt with how to use the phone system.
I worked at such a "Call Center" until management discovered that there was no money in it, even to charge for calls, and set the phone system up to forward the consumer to the individual manufacturer's support lines.
I did team leader work. Copied and shared my notes, assisted in my techs(and others) calls and helped train my team-mates.
I'll also admit that I was overworked and tired enough on a few calls to be actually dozing off and giving non-sensical advice. Not often, but sometimes. (plug the yellow frog into the blue plane and reboot)
I've also made some vendor support people unhappy when they gave bogus advise, and I told the customer it was. (see the chapter on 'how to make friends and...') Most likely you'll never deal with that tech again.
If you can get the customer thru to a good vendor support person, it's nap time. The call time doesn't count against the tech, and they can fairly doze or do paperwork until the end of the call.
Get brownie points by saying 'Thank-you for calling our tech support whatever' at the end of each call for the Quality Assurance people listening and judging your calls. The biggest points are for time 'Time', 'Politeness', etc. You could still have a good call score, even if the customer's problem wasn't really solved.
A lot of 'old hands' know much of this already. I'm posting it for the new people. If someone gives you advice that feels odd, ask to go back into the 'Call-Que(Cue)' or second level Tech support or a Supervisor.
Complain about or Commend the tech who helped you. They pay a lot more attention to 'physical' mail. Even if you don't remember the techs name, the center has records as to who got what call when.
Before that job ended I managed to get most all the awards, all the pretty medals and a lot of Attaboys. Thanks to all the customers who wrote letters, I kept them.
Edward :)
It's an old tech support trick. "that's a new problem, I've never heard of such a thing, Let me research it, I've got your number, I'll call you back."
And since there is no money for the Tech in calling the customer back, likely it won't happen.
And Heaven help the next tech who gets the caller, when he thinks to call back.
Phone tech support is done on a 'call-time' basis.
The tech who has the shortest calls, gets recognition, gets promoted, and gets more money.
The tech who has a longer average 'call-time', gets counseled, gets jibed by co-workers, and gets laid off.
When the customer calls in to a 'Call Center', it's basically Russian Roulette as to whether they get a good tech or someone just passing time.
The good tech has a good support background, their own notes(mostly never shared), and likely cares to help the customer.
Many of the people hired for this job are either actual Sales People or people off the street who had the two week training class, that mostly dealt with how to use the phone system.
I worked at such a "Call Center" until management discovered that there was no money in it, even to charge for calls, and set the phone system up to forward the consumer to the individual manufacturer's support lines.
I did team leader work. Copied and shared my notes, assisted in my techs(and others) calls and helped train my team-mates.
I'll also admit that I was overworked and tired enough on a few calls to be actually dozing off and giving non-sensical advice. Not often, but sometimes. (plug the yellow frog into the blue plane and reboot)
I've also made some vendor support people unhappy when they gave bogus advise, and I told the customer it was. (see the chapter on 'how to make friends and...') Most likely you'll never deal with that tech again.
If you can get the customer thru to a good vendor support person, it's nap time. The call time doesn't count against the tech, and they can fairly doze or do paperwork until the end of the call.
Get brownie points by saying 'Thank-you for calling our tech support whatever' at the end of each call for the Quality Assurance people listening and judging your calls. The biggest points are for time 'Time', 'Politeness', etc. You could still have a good call score, even if the customer's problem wasn't really solved.
A lot of 'old hands' know much of this already. I'm posting it for the new people. If someone gives you advice that feels odd, ask to go back into the 'Call-Que(Cue)' or second level Tech support or a Supervisor.
Complain about or Commend the tech who helped you. They pay a lot more attention to 'physical' mail. Even if you don't remember the techs name, the center has records as to who got what call when.
Before that job ended I managed to get most all the awards, all the pretty medals and a lot of Attaboys. Thanks to all the customers who wrote letters, I kept them.
Edward :)