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Why Tech Support Is Purposely Unbearable

nytimes.com

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Re: Why Tech Support Is Purposely Unbearable

#51

Post by 97s »

vacri wrote: post #44
97s wrote: post #23

Coming from a tech support background. I used to be a top performer at a support company and set most of the records for call times etc. I was hated by most of my peers, and many of my supervisors because I set numbers to low for most of the other teams and they were under preforming. I am not saying this to brag but to state how awful most support workers are. Most of my co-workers had no idea what they were doing b…

Doing general inbound customer support (not tech) for a telco for a couple of months, I had the opposite time-related experience. I had a low number of daily calls, and was occasionally upbraided for it. But when I got a customer, either their issue got fixed, or it got escalated to the next level[1]. They didn't have to call back unless there actually was work to do on their side. The usual experience was a couple o…

It's crazy isn't it. Did your higher-ups think he was doing a better job because he was working more on calls all day, where you were off them quick? In my job as soon as you got off a call you got right back on another one with a new customer. So I would have like 2-3x the calls per day of another person. I think that is one of the reasons the other people took so long, they figured whats the point, this person is nice and old I will just stay with them over getting a rude person. Who knows the logic behind it all. I tell you what though, I have some incredible stories that I will never forget. Some insanely funny customers and some hilarious co-workers.

When I first got to my job I had quick call times right away. Several supervisors told me they were going to listen to all my calls because they thought I was just hanging up on people. After they listened to them all, they told me to slow down and take more time. I was like, but I am rewarded for doing a better job and having faster call times. Literally that is how bonuses are given. WTF... None of my customers ever said "slow down please to me." I think they didn't want to pay me more for doing a good job. I just needed to do average so I met their agreement numbers with the internet company.

Re: Why Tech Support Is Purposely Unbearable

#52

Post by KKKKkkkk1 »

beyondcompute wrote: post #3

A solution? The good ol' government regulation. If companies 'cannot' achieve acceptable standards of customer support service, those standards should be imposed on them. This game where ordinary customers are so often the victims must be put to an end.

Perhaps said regulator could start by regulating the IRS and the DMV.

Re: Why Tech Support Is Purposely Unbearable

#53

Post by vacri »

97s wrote: post #51
vacri wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing general inbound customer support (not tech) for a telco for a couple of months, I had the opposite time-related experience. I had a low number of daily calls, and was occasionally upbraided for it. But when I got a customer, either their issue got fixed, or it got escalated to the next level[1]. They didn't have to call back unless there actually was work to do on their side. The usual experience was a couple o…

It's crazy isn't it. Did your higher-ups think he was doing a better job because he was working more on calls all day, where you were off them quick? In my job as soon as you got off a call you got right back on another one with a new customer. So I would have like 2-3x the calls per day of another person. I think that is one of the reasons the other people took so long, they figured whats the point, this person is n…

I think that part of it is that number of calls is the only quantitative KPI that can be relied upon. And not only do talented people not like to stay in the callcenter on the phones, talented managers also don't want to manage callcenters (very high staff turnover, cost-center department, not much sense of achievement when you solve problems, no political power to change the company's product when it's causing problems, etc). So the talented people cycle in and back out for the most part, and the less-talented people remain.

Re: Why Tech Support Is Purposely Unbearable

#54

Post by illnewsthat »

97s wrote: post #47
hobs wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also a large difference between the small fry support and the larger corporate support, especially when you consider the vendor relationship that many large companies have. In a small company the support personell can be really hit or miss but often times can have major impacts on the product or even directly submit patches to the code you are running. At a bigger company they may pay a third party to mainta…

Exactly. The company I worked for was a huge customer support company that developed the firmware that went on most of the modems that rural internet companies used. Some of the smaller companies paid on per a call resolution basis. The other's just had large contracts for us to help them no matter how many calls we got. It was a major problem when customers called in for simple questions that were outside of what we…

Thanks so much for sharing all this, I find it super interesting! I've spent a long time on hold wondering why it's so hard for large companies to properly scale customer service.

And I'll definitely keep in mind the tip about thanking the supervisor when a representative is particularly helpful.

Re: Why Tech Support Is Purposely Unbearable

#55

Post by drdeadringer »

97s wrote: post #23

Coming from a tech support background. I used to be a top performer at a support company and set most of the records for call times etc. I was hated by most of my peers, and many of my supervisors because I set numbers to low for most of the other teams and they were under preforming. I am not saying this to brag but to state how awful most support workers are. Most of my co-workers had no idea what they were doing b…

> For example Comcast has on demand, but once you watch a show you have to literally go back and search for the TV show name again before you can watch the next episode. It's horrible.

Oh my God. I'm not even sure if search in 1996 was this bad. I'm almost thinking that this is by design for some sadistic reason, like there's no way that this is this way out of natural happen-stance.

Re: Why Tech Support Is Purposely Unbearable

#56

Post by pcmaffey »

97s wrote: post #48
thearn4 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My conspiracy theory lately has been that Netflix's search and basic UI is terrible on purpose, to make us not notice the shifts and declines in the streaming catalog quality. For the life of me I can't imagine why else they would ignore calls to improve it.

I subscribe to netflix once a year and binge watch all my favorite shows during the holidays. I tried staying subscribed to them, but their UI is so bad I never know what is new and what isn't. Why can't they have a list of newly added shows that isn't a huge picture. I don't enjoy horizontal scrolling.

Instantwatcher.com is your answer, with direct links to watch on netflix.

Re: Why Tech Support Is Purposely Unbearable

#57

Post by pkaye »

beyondcompute wrote: post #3

A solution? The good ol' government regulation. If companies 'cannot' achieve acceptable standards of customer support service, those standards should be imposed on them. This game where ordinary customers are so often the victims must be put to an end.

They do need a regulation that we can cancel a service using the same methods as ordering the service. If I can order a service online, I should be able to cancel it online.

Re: Why Tech Support Is Purposely Unbearable

#58

Post by vmarsy »

beyondcompute wrote: post #3

A solution? The good ol' government regulation. If companies 'cannot' achieve acceptable standards of customer support service, those standards should be imposed on them. This game where ordinary customers are so often the victims must be put to an end.

Which companies would be subject to such regulation? For instance, a startup without an established customer support center would be fined and forced to shut down because of those fines or because of the money spent on customer center ?

What would be the kpi for customer service? Time spent on the wait line? Customer ratings?! Business days before an email reply? What if someone malicious starts DDoS me with fake customer service requests just to make me unable to deliver an "acceptable standard of customer support service"?

Re: Why Tech Support Is Purposely Unbearable

#59

Post by michaelbuddy »

Clever headline. Almost makes you think the NYTimes is telling the truth. But the places I've worked, the desire was always to resolve the phone calls one and done. Get the answer, get them resolved so they don't have to call back. The conspiracy theory the NYT is cooking up is clickbait.

Re: Why Tech Support Is Purposely Unbearable

#60

Post by abalashov »

97s wrote: post #23

Coming from a tech support background. I used to be a top performer at a support company and set most of the records for call times etc. I was hated by most of my peers, and many of my supervisors because I set numbers to low for most of the other teams and they were under preforming. I am not saying this to brag but to state how awful most support workers are. Most of my co-workers had no idea what they were doing b…

I found that the quicker I answered questions the more questions I received.

A kind of Jevons Paradox for tech support? :)

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