VOTW: Calling Tech Support Over Google Pacman

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Madhatter4

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hahahahaha I do phone tec support for a large ISP and we get idiots like this calling in EVERY DAY. I've had these morons call up and say they cant get there PC to even turn on and blame it on the modem/internet service
 

mdillenbeck

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I listened to the whole call, and I agree with those who said the technician did a poor job in describing the screen to an obviously computer illiterate customer. You can't keep telling a customer "you need to close the tab" and expect them to know what a browser tab it. Eventually he did get it and found a way to walk her through it, but he needs to learn describe things in alternate ways.

However, I wonder what would have happened if she had the Cool Previews add-on installed - she would have closed the tabs and it would have kept playing! heheheheh - that would have probably baffled both of them. (FYI - Cool Previews had code to load google in the background, so if you had it you were greeted to non-stop pacman sounds until you diabled it.)
 

ta152h

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[citation][nom]darkartist[/nom]I work in tech support and I feel this guy's pain.[/citation]

If you feel this guy's pain, and not the woman's, you're probably in the wrong field.

This woman's problem was very real to her, and from her perspective very perplexing. Do you think she likes to feel stupid, or feel confused by things she probably guesses are simple?

It's easy to be a self-righteous jackass and think you're better than people like she, but when you grow up, you look forward to these folks and make sure they never feel foolish, and that their questions are valid and understandable. Not only is that what seperates a dipshit loser from a professional, but it's probably part of the chasm between good and evil. At the end of the day, if you are in this business, they pay your salary, and you should appreciate them, not judge their issues as being trivial or not. That's up to them. They've paid for the privilege by being a supported customer.
 

ta152h

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[citation][nom]couldhavehandledbetter[/nom]Personally I think the tech support guy was a bit too indirect and inadvertently rude. I've been helping people of all levels over the phone for over a decade, and this whole situation could have been taken care of very simply by jumping directly to walking the woman through opening a different page. It's also important to use the same terminology that the the client/customer is using, else they won't know what the heck you're talking about.[/citation]

Exactly, this guy sucked, bad. For one, he wasn't friendly, and didn't try to make her feel more comfortable. Many of these older ladies are intimidated, and if you seem more "human", they feel more relaxed. Also, he had very, very long dead times, which you should never do. Then, his questions were not clear to his customer, and some of his silences after her responses might have been taken negatively by this lady.

In short, he sucked, although he finally did get it resolved, but about three minutes later than he should have.
 

schmich

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My brother had a bug where the sound was playing even though he didn't have the Google homepage on. Was very weird. Closed down FF fully, open it up and the sound would still be there.
 
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Believe me guys I work as a tech support agent and we received a lot of calls that day for this particular issue.It was a mess... and its just the tip of the ice-burg you can't believe the kind of calls we get.
 

ncarlson

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Brave man. He actually goes back to a possible round 2 by asking, "do you have any more questions?"

Great communication and patience on the support's part.
 

acce245

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[citation][nom]TA152H[/nom]Exactly, this guy sucked, bad. For one, he wasn't friendly, and didn't try to make her feel more comfortable. Many of these older ladies are intimidated, and if you seem more "human", they feel more relaxed. Also, he had very, very long dead times, which you should never do. Then, his questions were not clear to his customer, and some of his silences after her responses might have been taken negatively by this lady. In short, he sucked, although he finally did get it resolved, but about three minutes later than he should have.[/citation]
But this isn't his issue to address, per se. He did an excellent job for having absolutely zero stake in this. Imagine, if you will, that she owns a Ford but calls Marathon for information on how to use her car's gas cap. He could have simply said that he couldn't help her, and he would have been in the right completely. The fact that he didn't just hang up on her is credit to him.
 

techguy378

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Great. Somebody just had to ruin it for everyone. Pacman is something that should be on Google's website forever. It doesn't matter if millions of people use Google as their home page. Unless you click the "Insert Coin" button on the Pacman picture you won't get any sound. Thanks little old lady.
 

HappyBB

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Although the lady clearly sounded really not smart in making such a call, I think this is a good material for customer-service training. Moreover, we should know that there are people out there who have no idea about computer at all and they will probably act something like this. All I wanna say is to show some restraint and respect for people like this lady.
 

cashews

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I can believe this call, I had an old guy bring in his laptop to me and said that whenever he tries to access Google, a weird page comes up.
 
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You know, while the tech guy eventually took the right approach, he could have solved this easily in 2 min flat. "It'll go away tomorrow" is not a solution to a problem that exists today. Tech support get calls like this all the time and should know how to adapt to assist users at any level. Remember, many users see the computer as a necessary evil in order to achieve their objectives. This user is clearly trying to use it for study purposes and should get some credit for trying.
 

misry

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[citation][nom]The_King[/nom]This made me want to play google pacman again[/citation]

http://www.google.com/pacman/

We had several of these calls through corporate but we have the advantage of remoting in with the user on the phone so we could give them the option of turning the sound off or whatever. It was nothing. I *really* hate the serious ESO issues, (Equipment Superior to Operator).
 

theuerkorn

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It sounds odd, but that's just what some people have to struggle with. Besides, I think both kept their calm and I am glad the Google support didn't get all snobby on her.
 

ta152h

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[citation][nom]acce245[/nom]But this isn't his issue to address, per se. He did an excellent job for having absolutely zero stake in this. Imagine, if you will, that she owns a Ford but calls Marathon for information on how to use her car's gas cap. He could have simply said that he couldn't help her, and he would have been in the right completely. The fact that he didn't just hang up on her is credit to him.[/citation]

I don't know what his job was, exactly, but I'm sure the customer called him felt it was his. It doesn't matter, really, whether it is, or isn't, because if you get off the phone with a customer, and give them the impression you don't care, you've created a bad impression that hurts your company.

Either way, he attempted to help her, and just was terrible at it.
 
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