Tales from Techsupport

[Alikat Astrae]

At my place right now, we're running large numbers of multi-core servers that each have a piece of a very large database for fast parallel access, and even though each server is running Raid arrays (some software-mirrored in Linux, some hardware Raid5 arrays with hot swap drives, depending on which model of server), we would have some problems like two sides of a mirrored array going out at once, and restoring all that damn data was like some kind of "Houston, we have a problem" shit.

So our solution? We bought TWO 24-drive external drive housings with some kind of multi-SATA external bus shit and a couple of cards to connect it to a big-ass server we had laying around, and stuffed them both with 2 terabyte drives, and fed them all with a new 30-amp power breaker running through a 30-amp UPS. Now the big server acts as a back-up processor with a copy of the WHOLE database while we repair and reload the broken array from the big server's gigantic pile of drives. It's going to allow us to sleep soundly when normally we'd be up all night trying to get it in shape for the start of business.

[Melcar]

Just to let you know this morning I received about 20 e-mails that were sent to me on Monday. Seems odd. A couple were time sensitive (meeting notes for yesterday afternoon), notice of death of a client. I don’t work Mondays so I’m not sure if that had anything to do with the glitch……FYI

Last week I had one (different person) -- I didn't get a single email yesterday or today -- but I'm getting Yesterday's emails today! help!

See that little + thingy by the word "today"? Yeah -click that.

Or in the case of the first quote -- click the plus thingy by the word "Yesterday" -- god I am so fucking good.

[Mileron]

Me: Hi, thank you for calling System Support, this is Me, how can I help you?
Customer: Yeah, does your (Tax Product) do XYZ taxes?
Me: I'm sorry sir, I have no idea, I'm in the system support group. We assist with installation and registration. Can I get you in contact with our usage group to answer that for you?
Customer: No, they just transferred me to you, saying you need to answer that. Get me to Sales.
Me: Yes sir. (I check the call transfer record - it's blank, meaning he called in to the Support Number and was never transferred. Further, there are no recorded calls for him since July.)
Sales (after I explain the situation): So you want me to tell him the same thing you told him, because he thinks it'll be more official?
Me: Yup.

Sigh.

[Merrick ap'Milandra]

Me: Hi, thank you for calling System Support, this is Me, how can I help you?
Customer: Yeah, does your (Tax Product) do XYZ taxes?
Me: I'm sorry sir, I have no idea, I'm in the system support group. We assist with installation and registration. Can I get you in contact with our usage group to answer that for you?
Customer: No, they just transferred me to you, saying you need to answer that. Get me to Sales.
Me: Yes sir. (I check the call transfer record - it's blank, meaning he called in to the Support Number and was never transferred. Further, there are no recorded calls for him since July.)
Sales (after I explain the situation): So you want me to tell him the same thing you told him, because he thinks it'll be more official?
Me: Yup.

Sigh.

HAHA. I used to get the reverse thing from sales people all the time. They could point out on the brochures exactly what a product could or couldn't do, but it was only "official" if it came from the I.T. Guys.

[Mileron]

Me: Hi, thank you for calling (company) System Support, how can I help you?
Customer (with really thick accent): Yes, I need help with A pile of x360
Me: Excuse me? I'm sorry I didn't understand that. Help with what?
Customer: A tile for XP 360.
Me: I'm sorry sir, I'm not understanding what you're looking for. I support (software) for (company.)
Customer: But Meanwhile Franklin 360 is your company's software!
Me: I'm sorry sir, I can't understand the name of the software you're saying. Could you please spell it?
Customer ends up spelling "Agile T360".
Me: Um, sorry sir, but no, we support (product type) (brand name) (software name). I'm looking through the list of products and even on our website I cannot find the software you're referring to. (Heck I even googled it and can't find what he's talking about)
Customer: Oh well maybe I'll find out more about the software and call back.

The thing that bugs me about this, is that to get through our phone menus, it says the name of company a good 3 times, the brand every single time a product is mentioned, and oh yeah even the pre-hold pre-queue message has it. How can you get that far and NOT realize you've got the wrong freaking number?

[FilanFyretracker]

Me: Hi, thank you for calling (company) System Support, how can I help you?
Customer (with really thick accent): Yes, I need help with A pile of x360
Me: Excuse me? I'm sorry I didn't understand that. Help with what?
Customer: A tile for XP 360.
Me: I'm sorry sir, I'm not understanding what you're looking for. I support (software) for (company.)
Customer: But Meanwhile Franklin 360 is your company's software!
Me: I'm sorry sir, I can't understand the name of the software you're saying. Could you please spell it?
Customer ends up spelling "Agile T360".
Me: Um, sorry sir, but no, we support (product type) (brand name) (software name). I'm looking through the list of products and even on our website I cannot find the software you're referring to. (Heck I even googled it and can't find what he's talking about)
Customer: Oh well maybe I'll find out more about the software and call back.

The thing that bugs me about this, is that to get through our phone menus, it says the name of company a good 3 times, the brand every single time a product is mentioned, and oh yeah even the pre-hold pre-queue message has it. How can you get that far and NOT realize you've got the wrong freaking number?

This happens at Comcast, people call complaining about something and then complain more that you cant find their account. and since Comcast covers much of NJ but so does Cablevision people who are not even in a comcast service area still call them.

[Grindel]

Heh here's a similar situation I overhear from our support guys:

Client: OMFG I absolutely hosed my SQL Server when I was dicking around with Google Pacman overnight last night. Wait, I know! I have a service contract with the company Grindel's at for their product, and their product uses SQL Server. I'll call them and make them remote in and troubleshoot the issue!

Phone rep: *imagines solid iron asteroids crashing into whatever state the client's located in*

[Charbok]

The company I work has two categories of DSL circuits: Residential and Business class. Functionally, they're usually identical, with some obvious exceptions. However, we charge a premium for full, 24/7 support of a business class line. Residential customers get less support, but also have reduced rates.

Is it selfish that I get irritated when a customer is paying for residential service, but demands business level support just because they're running some fly-by-night business from their house? I field a call like that at least once a day, and it drives me batty. I may not like having to tell a customer I can't fix their DSL them simply because my job says so, but I have to follow SOP. That SOP says you can't make any money from your business until Monday, because you chose the cheaper route and didn't pay for the extra support contract.

[Eremius]

The company I work has two categories of DSL circuits: Residential and Business class. Functionally, they're usually identical, with some obvious exceptions. However, we charge a premium for full, 24/7 support of a business class line. Residential customers get less support, but also have reduced rates.

Is it selfish that I get irritated when a customer is paying for residential service, but demands business level support just because they're running some fly-by-night business from their house? I field a call like that at least once a day, and it drives me batty. I may not like having to tell a customer I can't fix their DSL them simply because my job says so, but I have to follow SOP. That SOP says you can't make any money from your business until Monday, because you chose the cheaper route and didn't pay for the extra support contract.

Why would you feel it is selfish on your part? You aren't the one that chose to save the $20/mo (or whatever), gambling that you wouldn't have any problems.

[Schezar]

Yeah, you don't need to feel bad about that. I kind of enjoyed it when I was doing front line support for business services internet/voice. When residential video outages happened people would try to game the phone system by choosing business instead of residential and we'd shrug and transfer them back to the starting point. Average handle times went down.

[Melcar]

HA, I had one a few months ago, lady calls up - "hi I'm trying to find some information on grants."

Uh OH - why the hell you talking to me?

"Oh, well isn't this the City office?" -- No this is the County office, specifically the Computer department in the County offices.

"well, can you tell me?" -- No.

"well, who do I need to talk to?" -- How the hell should I know?

"Well, what can you do to help me?" -- I can hang up and stop wasting your time on this Phone call.



(OK, I was a little more polite then that -- but it amounted to the same thing.)

[Melcar]

oops, proofreading for the Win:

uh-oh = uhm - OK.

[Merrick ap'Milandra]

Why would you feel it is selfish on your part? You aren't the one that chose to save the $20/mo (or whatever), gambling that you wouldn't have any problems.

Twenty? Try $200/month or more.

I've seen "business class" going for as high as $1500 a month depending on the area and how much line has to be run in for "guaranteed' service speeds and 24/7 support on a single-customer tap as opposed to a standard residential tap.

I've certainly never seen the option available for under 3 times the $60/month I pay for my residential cable internet. That's why people still try to sneak by with residential for home businesses, it's not a tiny difference in the bill.

Totally sucks for the phone support techs though, people get unreasonable FAST when it comes to their internet access.

[Schezar]

That's when techs burn out or learn to tell the cheapskates to talk to sales to sign a contract to upgrade to business class service.

[Alikat Astrae]

That cuts two ways, I remember when they tried to force you to buy an expensive business tier if you were planning on running ANYTHING more complicated than a direct modem connection to a single computer, no routers or switches or firewalls allowed, even in the bottom business class tiers routers/gateways weren't allowed, they would just assign you five hard IP addresses instead.

[FilanFyretracker]

The company I work has two categories of DSL circuits: Residential and Business class. Functionally, they're usually identical, with some obvious exceptions. However, we charge a premium for full, 24/7 support of a business class line. Residential customers get less support, but also have reduced rates.

Is it selfish that I get irritated when a customer is paying for residential service, but demands business level support just because they're running some fly-by-night business from their house? I field a call like that at least once a day, and it drives me batty. I may not like having to tell a customer I can't fix their DSL them simply because my job says so, but I have to follow SOP. That SOP says you can't make any money from your business until Monday, because you chose the cheaper route and didn't pay for the extra support contract.

those calls come into anyone in an ISP that services people and businesses. even worse is when someone claims they are loosing thousands of dollars because its down. yet because all calls are recorded you cant respond "well then if you are making thousands in these few hours you could afford our business class service ya cheapskate"

[Mileron]

Customer Tech: We installed NewlyLicensedProduct_005. Now we get all these error messages that say "you do not have permissions" or "access denied."
Me: Verify Full Control permissions on Program_Folder_001
Tech: They're not Full Control
Me: Set them
Tech: OK
Tech: Still getting those errors. Remotely connect and look at my computer.
Me: (It's now 30 minutes into the call. I have 30 minutes left on my shift. I Remotely connect and sees that not all of the right users/groups have FC permissions on Program_Folder_001, so I set them with Tech's permission. Same errors. Weird.) Are there any locked files on the server?
Tech: How do I check?
Me: ... Could you RDP into the server please? (he does, I check, no locked files. Even on the server, getting "access denied" errors.)
Tech: You want me to reboot the server? (It's now an hour into the call. I should have left 2 minutes ago.)
Me: ... (dumbfounded. Out of dozens of calls this guy has placed in the last 2 years, this is the smartest fucking thing he's ever said.) Yes.
Tech (5 minutes later) OK server's rebooted
Me: (continues to try to troubleshoot -same problems. Can't even view basic text files in the folders - getting access denied.)
Me: Let's try something else. (I rename Program_Folder_001 to Program_Folder_OLD, reinstall, and HFS everything works! So then I try to copy data files from the old install to the new one and get "access denied." EVEN ON A FOLDER COPY.)
Me: It seems you have some kind of file corruption, sector corruption, or something going on with these prior folders. You need to restore from your last known good backup and make sure everything works, because I can't access at least half of your data.
Tech: Why?
Me: *facepalm* (90 minutes...)
Tech: What caused this? The new product install?
Me: (wants to say, NO YOU MORON but I'm nice and start spouting scenarios.)
Tech: So how do I fix it?
Me: spends the next 20+ minutes explaining how he should go about creating a new, unique folder, restoring the Program_Folder_001 to that location, etc etc
Tech: Why?
Me: Look, you need to talk to your IT director, because there's nothing more I can do. I have proved it's not the programs, and that there's something going on with the server. This is beyond what I can fix.

And the capper is, as I signed off with my departmental policy signoff "Thanks and have a good night Tech," I hear him mutter, "yeah thanks asshole."
Thanks for wasting my 2 hours and 18 seconds.

[Charbok]

I just took this call. Mind blowing.

Customer: Hi, I sent in a DNS change request yesterday and was looking for an update. I haven't heard anything back.

Me: No problem, did you get an auto-reply? It'll have the ticket number on it and I can easily look it up.

Customer: No, we didn't get any auto-reply.

Me: (I grab the customer's info and try to search for his ticket manually). While I'm finding the ticket, can you explain what kind of DNS change you need?

The customer rattles off, with alarming amounts of technical expertise, what basically amounts to a simple A record change. This guy is smart. I think he likes to show it off, but that's okay; I'll take smart customers who know precisely what they need/want over the 'Ummmm.... uhhhh..." customers any day.

Me: Okay, the last ticket I see from you guys is a month old. We never saw any DNS change request. Can you confirm where you sent it to?

Customer: Sure. www.support@[ourdomain].com.

Me: Wait... www?

Customer: Yeah. Your support e-mail address doesn't use www?

I know it happens to all of us, but it's hilarious how someone can be so technically minded, yet do dumb things like try to append the World Wide Web to an e-mail address.

[Eremius]

I just took this call. Mind blowing.

Customer: Hi, I sent in a DNS change request yesterday and was looking for an update. I haven't heard anything back.

Me: No problem, did you get an auto-reply? It'll have the ticket number on it and I can easily look it up.

Customer: No, we didn't get any auto-reply.

Me: (I grab the customer's info and try to search for his ticket manually). While I'm finding the ticket, can you explain what kind of DNS change you need?

The customer rattles off, with alarming amounts of technical expertise, what basically amounts to a simple A record change. This guy is smart. I think he likes to show it off, but that's okay; I'll take smart customers who know precisely what they need/want over the 'Ummmm.... uhhhh..." customers any day.

It would be at this point I would furrow my brow. If someone starts spouting large amounts of "expertise" for a simple task (like an A record change) chances are they just know how to throw terms and don't really understand what they are saying.

Me: Okay, the last ticket I see from you guys is a month old. We never saw any DNS change request. Can you confirm where you sent it to?

Customer: Sure. www.support@[ourdomain].com.

Me: Wait... www?

Customer: Yeah. Your support e-mail address doesn't use www?

I know it happens to all of us, but it's hilarious how someone can be so technically minded, yet do dumb things like try to append the World Wide Web to an e-mail address.

And there's the proof.

[Melcar]

No, we didn't get any auto-reply.

Where was the message from the Postmaster saying "INVALID".