Tech support gone bad

Not to be a pessimist, but it's been my experience that getting the person's name, even their 'badge number,' does little good. I had a similar experience with Dell (whom I consequently hate and whose name I will not hesitate to besmirch in public) and the supervisor I was finally allowed to speak to informed me that it was my word against the tech's. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't any customer support center always have a recording that comes on before you can speak with a human, saying, "This call may be recorded for quality assurance"?

Now I see that for the damned lie it is. They're not interested in quality assurance. They're only interested in seeing how many times they can get you to re-install Windows. Which is generally not very bloody helpful.

The mail server has gone down today. This affects roughly about a third of the 300 or so people I support. The mail servers we use are spread across the US. None of them are located in our building. I can understand the employees not realizing this, but if you're having a problem, and your neighbor is having a problem, and your boss is having the same problem, chances are, me running up to your cubicle isn't going to solve much.

When I get in this morning, I check the voice mail.

You have.. 5 ..new messages. To listen to the first message, press One-One.

"Hi jeremy, this is Bob, from up on the fourth floor. I'm getting an e-mail problem, whenever I try to start up Outlook, I get an error saying that I can't connect to the mail server. Oh, and a few other people around here are having the same problem. Can you come up and look at our computers for us?"

"Hi jeremy, this is Beth from AR..."

And once I work through all the messages, I get a phone call. I check the ID on the display: a new employee who came on Tuesday. I know for a fact that she's using the mail server that's down.

"Hi, this is (name withheld), and I'm having a problem with.."

"Is it an e-mail problem?"

"Yes, b.."

"The e-mail server's down. They're fixing it right now. Is that it?"

(shaken) "um... Yes"

"Okay, bye"

(Coworker bursts into laughter as soon as I hang up the phone)

BOFH, I am.

correct me if i'm wrong, but doesn't any customer support center always have a recording that comes on before you can speak with a human, saying, 'this call may be recorded for quality assurance'?

—prole, above

Rest assured, my good fellow, that your calls are being recorded for Quality Assurance purposes. However, Quality Assurance measures only conformance to a strict set of 'guidelines':

• Did the tech use the Official Greeting? (Never again will you wonder why we sound so soulless)
• Did the tech get the customer off the line in ten minutes?
• Did the tech use lots of we words (this is right off of our QA sheet) to build a rapport with the caller?
• Did the tech step outside of the (extremely narrow) supported products list? (This is often worth more points than it has any right to, and explains why it's so hard to get help with anything other than The Product, the previous two versions of Windows, Internet Explorer, and Outlook Express.)
• Did he ask all the mandatory questions? (Which is why ISP support lines almost always ask what operating system you have, even if it's obviously a problem with the connection, not the computer. Imagine the conflicts this can generate with the previous rule.)

Note that nowhere in the list does it require that the technician have any idea what he's doing. Half the time he's just reading off a script tree anyways. Your best hope in most situations is to just go along with it; he'll escalate you eventually.

Generally, internal helpdesks are more useful and less constrained than customer support lines; theoretically you can go down the hall and fix it yourself if you work in the same building and you don't have to worry about losing the caller's custom. Internal helpdesks are also less concerned about irate callers deciding to sue the company.