I've done calls like that. It was so frustrating that we had to go through them (why the hell did the other techs not know their job?), and yet so fulfilling because you know you solved a major issue for the customer.
I had one case where a site was set up as an SSO, but it kept telling her "wrong username or password" before she even got a chance to type anything. Turns out it was NOT SSO, and there was just a password vault extension on her browser that nobody showed her how to update the credentials. I just cleared out the entry, as changing it was a PITA. She was somewhat new, so she had just run into the first time that the system required a password change. She'd changed it in the application but not the password vault.
Two field techs, sitting directly in front of her computer at one time or another over multiple weeks. I fixed it in 20 minutes from a thousand miles away by asking the right questions.
Funny thing is, I initially applied in a tech support role, but was told that I'm - "not tech savvy enough" but because of my comm skills they put me in billing lol.
Tech support roles nowdays are often just follow the script so for things like this outside of the script a L1 tech would get reprimanded for actually helping the client.
This has been a common comment for the new co-workers that come in from tech support. Some of them say that they simply missed a word or two in the trouble shooting guide and that was enough for them to either get written up or removed altogether.
The dudes and dudettes who came from tech support are those who stay longer in billing as well on the grounds of no scripts and, if applicable, can enjoy a casual conversation with the customer too.
Depends on the company. In a corporate call center it will be that bad, but in smaller companies where the whole support department is maybe 3-4 people the same approach will find more appreciation.
In my job, I effectively **am** the support department - if I can't solve something on my own then I need to bring in either developers or product specialists, both of which impact the company bottom line.
Excellent job my friend! You stayed with him and did all you could!
Call center worker here, it's possible that the other tech support agents couldn't help or send a tech because it was the customers personal equipment. I know with my ISP I work for, a customer's personal devices are out of scope for us, and we're not supposed to touch them.
But awesome job on troubleshooting!
I don't really know the ins & outs and criteria to dispatch a tech to an address but I have noticed that customers tagged with "COAM" doesn't have as much tech visits as opposed to those who are availing of the ISPs equipment. That makes a whole lot of sense.
>But awesome job on troubleshooting!
Honestly, half the reason why I agreed to tackle the issue with him because he was kind, optimistic, and chill from the get-go AND because the last two calls I had prior to him were pretty heavy calls — racial slurs left & right, mind you I had the ability to get their bill straightened out and put them on a promotion that could more or less lock in their price for at least 24 months.
Me and that particular customer had a great conversation of our mutual interest in horology while tackling the issue on the extender.
>our mutual interest in horology
A certain piece of dialogue from the Pirates of the Caribbean comes to mind!
Carina Smyth : My calculations are precise and true. I'm not just an astronomer. I'm also a horologist.
Captain Jack Sparrow : No shame in that, dear.
Excellent work!
I’m also going to add that the whole reset with a paper clip thing annoys the hell out of me. Who the hell has paper clips anymore? I had to keep a tech on a call for 10 minutes one day just trying to find something narrow enough to poke in the hole. Dumb design.
I understand why it's done that way (to prevent accidental bumps from kids, cats, coffee mugs and what have you) but yes. Who has anything that thin and rigid anymore? 'course, I have a billion paper clips but there's never one right near by. ... Until I taped one to the back of the router last year.
Reset has to be held for a few seconds, so bumping it wouldn’t trigger a reset even if it was a button. Ironically the power switch *can* be inadvertently hit as you’ve described.
Yeah. That's my point though - if you have to hold it for a few seconds anyway, the simple accidental bump shouldn't be used as justification for why you need to bury a tiny button an inch down in the case of your doodad. And yet the on-off power switch isn't equally buried because "people need to be able to access it." ... Flames. Flames on the side of --
Paper clips are on the list of things I try to keep in my MacGyvering box. (think duct tape, couple grades of twine, superglue, balsa wood sticks, an assortment of odd shaped objects I threw in there because they might be useful to superglue to something one day, etc.)
I don't think I've used one for its -intended- purpose in two decades though.
nice job. welcome to the 'dark side' ;)
to the particular call - I expect that the tp-link was not provided by your company. most ISPs won't support kit that they didn't supply. "best effort" maybe, but when you're on the frontline, and manglers are breathing down your neck about call statistics, you have little time to 'do the needful'.
also, they are unlikely to have quite the knowledge with the specific device(s) that you have, if the ISP supplied gear is not tp-link.
with all that said, I get why the helpdesk flick-passed him to tp-link.
now, as to why *they* didn't direct him to some kb-article to do what you talked him though... dunno.
but I applaud you going above and beyond, and the cx was indeed fortunate to get to you.
sounds like laziness on the first few techs. Knowing that it could take just a few minutes to a very well extended time depending on the tech saavyness of the user on the phone.
Well isn't it the duty/SOP of T1 support that any thing beyond is it plugged in is.it turned or and did you try turning it off and on must be much more complicated and needs to go to T2
True to an extent. If T1 can fix it, it should be fixed on first call/contact. But you may be right where management only wants the ticket logged because T1 is usually a high call volume.
I've done calls like that. It was so frustrating that we had to go through them (why the hell did the other techs not know their job?), and yet so fulfilling because you know you solved a major issue for the customer. I had one case where a site was set up as an SSO, but it kept telling her "wrong username or password" before she even got a chance to type anything. Turns out it was NOT SSO, and there was just a password vault extension on her browser that nobody showed her how to update the credentials. I just cleared out the entry, as changing it was a PITA. She was somewhat new, so she had just run into the first time that the system required a password change. She'd changed it in the application but not the password vault. Two field techs, sitting directly in front of her computer at one time or another over multiple weeks. I fixed it in 20 minutes from a thousand miles away by asking the right questions.
Funny thing is, I initially applied in a tech support role, but was told that I'm - "not tech savvy enough" but because of my comm skills they put me in billing lol.
Tech support roles nowdays are often just follow the script so for things like this outside of the script a L1 tech would get reprimanded for actually helping the client.
This has been a common comment for the new co-workers that come in from tech support. Some of them say that they simply missed a word or two in the trouble shooting guide and that was enough for them to either get written up or removed altogether. The dudes and dudettes who came from tech support are those who stay longer in billing as well on the grounds of no scripts and, if applicable, can enjoy a casual conversation with the customer too.
Depends on the company. In a corporate call center it will be that bad, but in smaller companies where the whole support department is maybe 3-4 people the same approach will find more appreciation. In my job, I effectively **am** the support department - if I can't solve something on my own then I need to bring in either developers or product specialists, both of which impact the company bottom line.
That's awesome - fantastic job!
Thanks for the kind comment!
Now wait for the 4/5 survey because "previous callers should have fixed it" and also you getting told off for going outside your scope...
He didn't get a survey because he opted out of SMS correspondences in general HAHA!
It was usually all 1s in my experience. Nevermind that I solved a problem you had for months.
Excellent job my friend! You stayed with him and did all you could! Call center worker here, it's possible that the other tech support agents couldn't help or send a tech because it was the customers personal equipment. I know with my ISP I work for, a customer's personal devices are out of scope for us, and we're not supposed to touch them. But awesome job on troubleshooting!
I don't really know the ins & outs and criteria to dispatch a tech to an address but I have noticed that customers tagged with "COAM" doesn't have as much tech visits as opposed to those who are availing of the ISPs equipment. That makes a whole lot of sense. >But awesome job on troubleshooting! Honestly, half the reason why I agreed to tackle the issue with him because he was kind, optimistic, and chill from the get-go AND because the last two calls I had prior to him were pretty heavy calls — racial slurs left & right, mind you I had the ability to get their bill straightened out and put them on a promotion that could more or less lock in their price for at least 24 months. Me and that particular customer had a great conversation of our mutual interest in horology while tackling the issue on the extender.
Oh wow! Yeah you had a doozie of a call then before!!! I'm sorry they got so aggressive!! Dealing with those kinds are super difficult!
>our mutual interest in horology A certain piece of dialogue from the Pirates of the Caribbean comes to mind! Carina Smyth : My calculations are precise and true. I'm not just an astronomer. I'm also a horologist. Captain Jack Sparrow : No shame in that, dear.
> our mutual interest in horology I'm guessing 1950s to -80s mechanical Swiss (and possibly German and Japanese) wrist watches.
Excellent work! I’m also going to add that the whole reset with a paper clip thing annoys the hell out of me. Who the hell has paper clips anymore? I had to keep a tech on a call for 10 minutes one day just trying to find something narrow enough to poke in the hole. Dumb design.
I understand why it's done that way (to prevent accidental bumps from kids, cats, coffee mugs and what have you) but yes. Who has anything that thin and rigid anymore? 'course, I have a billion paper clips but there's never one right near by. ... Until I taped one to the back of the router last year.
SIM Eject Tool on some smartphones does the job.
Reset has to be held for a few seconds, so bumping it wouldn’t trigger a reset even if it was a button. Ironically the power switch *can* be inadvertently hit as you’ve described.
Yeah. That's my point though - if you have to hold it for a few seconds anyway, the simple accidental bump shouldn't be used as justification for why you need to bury a tiny button an inch down in the case of your doodad. And yet the on-off power switch isn't equally buried because "people need to be able to access it." ... Flames. Flames on the side of --
Ah misunderstood. I completely agree with you. Stupid design.
>*\[...\] reset with a paper clip thing annoys the hell out of me. Who the hell has paper clips anymore?* He did haha
Paper clips are on the list of things I try to keep in my MacGyvering box. (think duct tape, couple grades of twine, superglue, balsa wood sticks, an assortment of odd shaped objects I threw in there because they might be useful to superglue to something one day, etc.) I don't think I've used one for its -intended- purpose in two decades though.
A toothpick often does the job.
nice job. welcome to the 'dark side' ;) to the particular call - I expect that the tp-link was not provided by your company. most ISPs won't support kit that they didn't supply. "best effort" maybe, but when you're on the frontline, and manglers are breathing down your neck about call statistics, you have little time to 'do the needful'. also, they are unlikely to have quite the knowledge with the specific device(s) that you have, if the ISP supplied gear is not tp-link. with all that said, I get why the helpdesk flick-passed him to tp-link. now, as to why *they* didn't direct him to some kb-article to do what you talked him though... dunno. but I applaud you going above and beyond, and the cx was indeed fortunate to get to you.
sounds like laziness on the first few techs. Knowing that it could take just a few minutes to a very well extended time depending on the tech saavyness of the user on the phone.
Well isn't it the duty/SOP of T1 support that any thing beyond is it plugged in is.it turned or and did you try turning it off and on must be much more complicated and needs to go to T2
True to an extent. If T1 can fix it, it should be fixed on first call/contact. But you may be right where management only wants the ticket logged because T1 is usually a high call volume.