Note on account: Customer's wife is an idiot

[Boozy]

Usually, my husband is the one who calls our ISP tech support if we're having problems. He does tech support at work, so he knows what he's doing. The problem has never been on our end as long as we've been with this ISP, but we're sticking with them due to lack of options. Plus, their customer service and tech support is fantastic (to make up for their frequent service disruptions, I guess).
So I get up this morning and I can't get onto the internet. I reach for the phone to call my husband at work and then think "Wait. Its always a problem on the ISP's end. I'll just call them and let them know its down again, and I won't have to bother my husband, who has been very busy at work lately."
Good thinking, right? No.
After navigating the automated system, I had the following conversation:
Me: (polite, but sounding confident bordering on smug) My service is down again, and I thought I'd let you guys know and find out when it will be up and running again.
Tech Support Guy (hereafter TSG): Yes, I see you've had problems before. We're not however showing any outages in your area. Have you *incredibly technically advanced mumbo jumbo that I don't understand* to your modem?
Me: Um...what?
TSG: Oh...have you called tech support before?
Me: No, my husband usually takes care of it.
TSG (chuckling): Your husband has asked us to put a note on the account so that whenever he calls in he gets put right through to third tier support.
(I later confirmed this...husband was tired of calling in and being told to reboot his computer by three different people before finally getting transferred to someone above his skill level who could actually help him.)
Me: I think I'm gonna need first tier support. Do you have to transfer me?
TSG: No, I can help you. Let's start from the beginning. Have you rebooted your computer recently?
Me: Um. No.
TSG: Go ahead and do so now, I'll wait.
A few seconds later, everything was up and running just fine, and I felt like an idiot for jumping the gun and calling support. The first thing I was told when I got a computer was to reboot first, call second.
My husband is now a little annoyed with me, because we're pretty sure the next time he calls he's going to have to start back at first tier.

[myswtghst]

I doubt they'll take the Tier 3 note off the account just because of one incident, especially if the TSG didn't need to transfer you and you weren't a pain.

And yeah, I know the feeling. I'll call my brother (my own personal tech support line) and he'll laugh at me because I usually did something stupid and know how to fix it, I've just forgotten.

[digilight]

That actually is a pretty damn cool ISP (tech support/managementish wise) if they will automatically connect you with the 3rd tier instead of making you crawl thru the maze of hell first.

[Kilamon]

My Fiancee and I were talking the other day. Apparently, if I die, she is completely screwed for all her computer issues. Thus, she has informed me that I am not allowed to die.

[Boozy]

My Fiancee and I were talking the other day. Apparently, if I die, she is completely screwed for all her computer issues. Thus, she has informed me that I am not allowed to die.

I, too, am completely screwed on many levels if my husband dies.
Then again, if *I* die, so is he.

[Seshat]

The tier 3 guy has probably annotated the account with something like 'Boozy is not the family tech, if she calls, check the basics'.

As long as you're nice, polite, and -listen-, the tier 3 folks won't mind dealing with you. You've read enough CS stuff to know what NOT to do, right?

[jedifarfy]

Ugh, I wish I could do that. We had a problem with a weak signal on our cable internet. It would randomly just cut off. EVERY time I called, they wanted me to reboot the computer, reboot the modem, etc. The last time I bothered was when my stepdad bought a signal booster (we have our cable split a few too many times, we knew this, but didn't work because the booster were broken). The guy told me it wouldn't work, then tried to sell me THE SAME THING WE BOUGHT. But I'm just a girl, what do I know? :P

[Dips]

The most embarassing thing I ever did tech support-wise was call my youngest younger brother, YYB. He is the head of quality control for an online service at a major software manufacturer. I was having trouble signing into the service and was curious if it was something on my end or a problem with the service. So I called YYB on his cell to ask...

Me: Hey, YYB. How's it going?

YYB: Fine.

Me: I'm having trouble singing into [Service]. Is there a problem?

YYB: Um, yeah. I'm currently chairing a meeting where we're trying to FIX it.

Me: Oh. Um. OK. I'll just let you carry on then.

YYB: [to the rest of the room] It's my sister. She's calling to report that [Service] is down.

The little bastard didn't even bother covering the mouthpiece. I was able to hear the hoots of laughter and catcalls that they'd "get right on that."

He was nice enough to call me back and let me know when it was back up, though.

I love my family.

[Auto]

That actually is a pretty damn cool ISP (tech support/managementish wise) if they will automatically connect you with the 3rd tier instead of making you crawl thru the maze of hell first.

my thought too.

how do you get tier 3 support w/o going thru 1 and 2?

[Boozy]

how do you get tier 3 support w/o going thru 1 and 2?

I think the first guy I talked to was tier one. He asked for my address and account number, and then he transfered me to the tech who ended up helping me. I assume he saw the note on the account and bumped me up.

[Linda]

I should try calling our tech support and seeing if they'll put a note on my account!

I get fed up of being asked to "Use the mouse and click twice quickly on the big blue e" (even though I'm usually on Firefox) and "to use the keyboard to type in the white address box along the top, under the little pictures: h for harry, t for tommy, p for peter p for peter again, colon ...that's two dots one above the other... slanty line pointing forward on the key next to the full stop..."

Gah!

Yes, I did go through tech supprt like that. Once.

[tollbaby]

that's pretty much how the first level tech treated me last time I phoned. Finally I got fed-up, and asked to be escalated up because the guy had no idea what I was talking about. (My bandwidth had suddenly dropped down to nothing, and I phoned to complain after giving it a few days to resolve itself - what did first level tech have me do? Reset my modem.... eighteen times. Gee buddy, if it didn't help the first time, what makes you think making me do it over and over and over again is gonna help?)

senior-level tech asked me what the other tech had had me do, so I explained in detail... he's like "wow.... and you didn't throw something?" LOL turns out, there are problems with the wiring in my building (yeah, tell me something I don't know) and they suspect someone is leaching my net connection *grumble* Still having bandwidth problems, and I'm pretty damn pissed about it.

[Bacter]

This is one of those things that we can do at tech support that we really, really don't want customers to know about.

Consider the implications of the average SC knowing, knowing that they can request to be connected to the support technician with the most advanced training IMMEDITALLY. Never mind that their problem is that they've got a frozen computer and haven't restarted, they want to talk to an MCSE. There's a system for handling that at GS, but some smaller places could have nightmares.

-Edit: and it's true that I sympathize with people for being babied by tech support, but the reason is always the same. We have been BEATEN into acting that way.

[Imogene]

h for harry, t for tommy, p for peter p for peter again, colon

Did you clue the tech in on the fact that starting an address with htpp isn't going to do you any good?

[TNT]

Where I work it would be easier to get transferred to the CEO of the company than it would be to get transferred to Tier 2. I've never seen it happen.