OT: I Don't Think This Company Should Go Bankrupt But - Good Lord!

[J T]

Wed, Apr 7, 2004, 10:36am (EDT+4) [e-mail] (Charlie=A0Self) says: But the whole horseshit sequence started with "is it plugged in," which is the kind of goofiness that tends to set me up for respnses like, "Well,no. It's been running off my tinfoil beanie for the past 10 months, so why the hell should I plug it in now?".

We used to have to go out on the floor to trouble-shoot terminals. It was pretty useless to ask if they'd checked to see if it was plugged in, because the response was always "yes". But, when we got out there, chances were about even that the plug had been kicked loose, or even out. A good portion of the other times, it was things like the screen got turned off, and so on. These were supervisors, mind you, 4-year degree people, hired as supervisors, direct out of college - and didn't have a clue about what anybody working for them actually did. They were supposed to turn off their terminal when they left it, so no unauthorized people would use it, but they couldn't be bothered with a

5-second log in, took too long, so they'd just turn the screen off - and then forget they'd done it. It was either someing along those lines, or the terminal was totally dead and had to be swapped out, never seemed to be any in-between.

JOAT Don't e-mail me while I'm breathing.

[Buttonhole McGee]

Tom,

Did they sell you this replicator for that price?

Maybe this tale of woe will be enjoyable:

[Charlie Self]

JOAT responds:

Second lieutenant talent. And that's what most recent college grads are.

Charlie Self "Adam and Eve had many advantages but the principal one was that they escaped teething." Mark Twain

[Paul Kierstead]

OK, I probably over-reacted a little. And to be fair, I am a very good very urban Canadian boy, which in many canadian cities means you had better learn accents or you are not going to survive. In Toronto, over

50% of kids in school do not have english as a first language.

But from your description I certainly do not see a failure to communicate clearly due to an accent as being the problem. The problem was that a) Dell presented out-dated information b) Dell refused to address your subsequent problem with that. It wasn't a failure to get the message, they just did SFA about it.

Neither of these had anything to do with offshore customer service. Personally, any company which uses offshore customer service I knock down a notch because I am sick of companies shipping more and more jobs and money (and dodging taxes) out of the country, but I still don't blame the offshore people.

Just my opinion; not really trying to start a war over it.

[Paul Kierstead]

Ok, I admit to having a lot of experience with accents so always find it a little difficult to imagine other people don't, even though I was brought up with a accent so strong that most of Canada wouldn't understand me if I didn't train myself to speak differently (for Canadians, I am a newf more or less...you would see the problem).

But I have encountered so much entirely dismal customer service onshore that I have a hard time believing that offshore has much to do with it. As well, the original problem was a lack of Dell actually addressing the problem, not in communication.

Just my opinion.

[ranck]

I used to work a help desk back in the mainframe days. I like to think I was pretty good at it, and one day they asked me to write a script of questions so they could use cheap student work study types to do first line support. I pretty much told them I couldn't do it because my questions depended a lot on who called and what they said was the problem. If a Physics professor called and launched into a fairly complex question there was a good chance he knew more about computers than I did, and he certainly knew enough to check that the power was on. If, on the other hand, the Physics departmental secretary called and said, "my computer doesn't work" then asking if it was plugged in might be a valid first question. Actually, some of those departmental secretaries were pretty well clued in too.

On the receiving end of a tech support line I have had some experience with some an overseas help desk and I was favorably impressed. The guy seemed to know his stuff, and when I explained that I was using Linux instead of some Windows or Mac OS he didn't skip a beat, but gave me useful information that solved the problem. I suppose it makes a difference how much they pay for the outsourced support line.

Bill Ranck Blacksburg, Va.

[Doug Miller]

Ayup. While I applaud Wal-Mart's efforts at hiring the handicapped, excuse me, the differently abled, one store on the north side of Indianapolis has IMO taken that just a bit too far. One of their employees has a *severe* speech impediment. Guess who makes the loudspeaker announcements?

-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

For a copy of my TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter, send email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com

[Kevin]

Both are true. I was there.

Windows or Mac?

Cust: I need some statistics software for my computer. Me: Is that for a Windows or Mac? Cust: Huh? Whaddya mean? Me: Is your computer a Windows or Macintosh Cust: I don't know. How would I tell? Me: How many buttons does your mouse have?

Floppy lost

Cust: I am having trouble with my stat software. I need to reinstall and things aren't working. Me: What is the error message you are getting? Cust: Well I know it's missing or something is broken. I put the first disk in and it did some stuff. Then it said to put in disk labeled Disk 2. I was missing disk 2 so I labeled a disk and put Disk 2 on it and it still doesn't work.

[Rob]

Is that the one that they need to fog a mirror for? Or is that the pulse required?

[Charlie Self]

Paul Kierstead responds:

I've got enough myself being form NY with my mother's family all in Virginia or lower.

Yeah, communication IS the problem in a great many instances, and to add an obstacle in the path of help seekers is even more dismal. The lack is in knowledge on the aprt of the help personnel, and poor speaking accents. If Dell has to hire an overseas group to do its help desk work, then I really wish they'd check out the intelligibility of the accents before doing so.

Charlie Self "Adam and Eve had many advantages but the principal one was that they escaped teething." Mark Twain

[Norman D. Crow]

"J T" wrote in message news: [e-mail]... The sad part was, the same person(s) would call every time this happened, and we'd go thru the same routine. The really sad part was, the people calling were alost all 4 year college degree, delectrical engineers, the high school grads all got it the first time they were told.

God Bless college grads & Naval Academy grads! Y'all know what "feedback" in a sound system is, right? Late '50s, USS Salem, 6th Fleet flag in Mediterranean. I was an ET3(E4 Electronics Tech for you non-squids) on the emergency comm watch(basically a sleep-in unless there was trouble), and the same Lt.(O3?), the shining star of his Annapolis class, had called me to the bridge 4 times in 3 hr. on the mid-watch complaining of feedback on the "fleet net"(UHF voice command circuit). First 2 times made careful check & tested, everything OK. 3rd time stayed in shadows and watched. Dodo was standing in front of an aux. speaker talking on the mike! Very courteously explained to him that he should turn his back and move a couple feet away, only to be called back again shortly! Last time I went to O.C.(Officer Country) and awakened our Warrant Officer, explained the problem, then stood back in the shadows and listened (gleefully, I might add) while he very politely taught this Lt. what to do. This was NOT an A**-chewing, he just nibbled around the edges until it FELL out! Never had a feedback call from the bridge when he had OOD again!

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Had one a few months back. She could not understand why her computer did not work right. I asked if anything happened. "No, nothing. I didn't do anything"

OK, seemed like a keyboard problem so I thought I'd just swap it out and try it. When I picked up the keyboard, water drained out of it. Even though there was a 3/4 empty bottle sitting on the desk, she had no idea how it could have gotten in there. Ed

[Tim Douglass]

And maybe the best in the industry is not too good.

Tim Douglass

[Tim Douglass]

I've worked as tech support (software) in the past, but a year or so ago I still managed to pull one of those dope-slap moments.

The power supply went out on my wife's computer, so I ordered a new one. It came and I installed it, plugged in and tried to turn on the system - nothing, not even the fan. Fiddled around for a while then called the company and they graciously agreed to accept it back as DOA. Paid the return shipping and they sent out a new unit, identical to the first. Installed it, plugged in tried to turn on - nothing again. Now I'm not stupid (well, maybe a bit) so I figured that the odds of getting two DOA power supplies in a row were pretty slim, so I started working backwards. Cord plugged into wall... check! Cord plugged into power supply... check! Power in wall socket... check! Power supply properly plugged into motherboard and power switch... check! Still wouldn't work. Finally decided that I *had* gotten a second DOA power supply so I started to remove it from the system.

As I was taking the screw out there was a little click and something moved slightly on the back of the power supply. I turned it over and there was a little rocker switch labeled 0-1, now in the 1 position. Light bulb time! ATX power supplies can be switched on and off through the front panel switch, but many (maybe most) have a power switch on the back of the supply. The original on that system didn't, but the replacement did. I'd just wasted two weeks and $15 bucks in shipping charges (not to mention causing the mfg. to toss a perfectly good p.s.) just because I hadn't *turned the stupid thing on!!!*

Oh well, as Albert Einstein once said "the only difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."

Tim Douglass

[Roy Smith]

Boy, does that bring back memories. I used to work an in-house help desk a long time ago. Every once in a while I would get somebody on the phone who resisted all my efforts to get them to read me the error message they were getting on their screen. They would give me vague descriptions of the problem, or tell me stuff that I just knew couldn't possibly be true. So, I'd say, "OK, don't do anything, I'll be at your desk in 5 minutes".

When I'd get there, I discover that their screen was blank or something. "Where is the error message you were telling me about?", I'd ask. "Is this the state the machine was in when I told you not to do anything?" They'd assure me that they hadn't done anything at all. "But, you were reading me an error message on the screen when we were talking on the phone, what happened to that?". "Oh, well, after you hung up I tried deleting the file and that didn't work so I rebooted the machine". "But, I asked you not to do anything". "Oh, I didn't do anything, I just rebooted the machine because sometimes that helps".

If you've never worked a help desk, you probably won't believe that stories like this are true. :-)

[Roy Smith]

It's got to be 10-15 years ago, but I still remember one tech support call I had with Apple. I don't remember what the problem was, but it took a couple of calls to get things sorted out. What was so impressive was that they were correlating caller-id info into their trouble ticket system (this is back when caller id was a new technology).

As soon as the call was answered, the guy said something like, "Hello, Apple tech support, are you Roy Smith?". I was a bit surprised at this, but admitted that I was. He continued, "OK, I see you talked to John yesterday about your XXX and he told you to try doing YYY. How did you make out with that?"

With some companies, you could be 20 minutes into the call before you even get to that point.

Typing this on my 12" PowerBook G4. Awesome little machine.

[Larry Blanchard]

I finally (after several years) got one of the techs at my ISP to add a note to my customer record. It says "if this guy says we have a problem, check it out - he's usually right". We'll see the next time it happens :-).

[Larry Blanchard]

You mean being pissed off that a US company has customer support people that can barely speak the language? And that if you don't speak "the Queens English" with a lilt, they can't understand you either?

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

[Larry Blanchard]

After posting that, I checked their website. They now carry 4 Toshiba laptops along with all their other stuff.

[Tom Watson]

After sending my nasty email to as many Dell addresses as I could find

- and cc to the State Attorneys General Office in Austin, Texas - the home State of Dell (and having received a swift reply from the SAGO, which was also cc'd to Dell), the impacted bowels of the Dell customer service leviathan have begun to move.

Checking the online Order Status function on the Dell website shows that my order has gone from a back ordered status, through "kitting", "assembly", "testing" and "boxing" - in the space of one business day.

It would appear that the unit will be shipped by EOB this day.

Remarkable.

I'll be glad to take off this gorilla suit. It is scratchy and smells of the metabolic excretions of a pissed off consumer.

Thank you all for listening to my whining.

Thomas J. Watson-Cabinetmaker (ret) Real Email is: tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet Website: