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In which I learn a harsh lesson about unrealistic expectations

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  • In which I learn a harsh lesson about unrealistic expectations

    I worked at the campus computer store in college. Generally speaking I liked it, but it was my first retail job so at that time I was a little naive when it came to SCs.

    We did computer repair at the shop. The length of the repair depended on multiple factors, the most critical being tech availability. We only had one full time tech and when he got backed up, he got backed up.

    So one afternoon about 2:30 PM a guy comes in to drop off his laptop for a repair order. He asks how long it will take to be done.

    Now here's where I screwed up. You see, I knew the tech had a light work load at that moment so there's a good chance the repair wouldn't take long. If I was handing a customer like this now, I would have said "2 to 4 days".

    What I actually said: "Well, there's a slight chance it could be ready by tomorrow, but most likely it will take a day or two."

    Guy comes back RIGHT AT OPENING the next day saying that I "Guaranteed" it would be ready for him and demanding to know where his laptop his.

    He blows a gasket when he finds out its not done yet and tears a strip off my manager for it.

    When I came in later that day I went over my version of what happened with the manager. I didn't get in trouble, but he did caution me to be very careful about giving people repair estimates.
    "If we refund your money, give you a free replacement and shoot the manager, then will you be happy?" - sign seen in a restaurant

  • #2
    We have a thing like that in work, orders come direct from suppliers and the supplier gives us a guesstimate, if you say to someone "around the 29th" all they hear/remember is the 29th so now we just say the x week of y month.

    SC's have selective hearing...

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    • #3
      Quoth cono1717 View Post
      We have a thing like that in work, orders come direct from suppliers and the supplier gives us a guesstimate, if you say to someone "around the 29th" all they hear/remember is the 29th so now we just say the x week of y month.

      SC's have selective hearing thinking...
      FIFY

      what's fun is when someone *does* guarantee something and ... you don't know it was guaranteed by a specific date/time because the person who made the guarantee isn't you... and isn't even a tech!.

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      • #4
        Quoth cono1717 View Post
        if you say to someone "around the 29th"
        That line works great in February.

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        • #5
          Quoth Raveni View Post
          That line works great in February.
          Unless its a leap year, in which case, the 30th should be quoted for February.

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          • #6
            Customers will hear what they want to hear, even if you didn't say it. What he did what put words in your mouth and blame everything on you even though you didn't directly state that his laptop would indeed be ready the next day; you said there is a slight chance, but also added a day or two. Customers always think they're right and it pisses me off when they put words in your mouth that you never said. And don't try to correct them either. Fuck that noise. They'll pull the management card on you.

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            • #7
              I've found that its best to always over-estimate how long something will take.

              While some people will blow a gasket due to the estimate, I tell them its only the average timeframe.

              There are a few benefits to this. First is that if the estimate is intentionally longer than the actual average, the person will not starting ranting at how long its taking and how its not ready yet until that date, at which point its already done anyways.

              Second benefit to that is its working with Scotty time. If you want to be a miracle worker, under-promise and over-deliver. If the work will take 1 week to complete, give an estimate of 2 weeks. That gives you buffer room in case something goes wrong, and if you get it done in the 1 week as you expected to, then you're seen as doing it ahead of schedule.

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              • #8
                Quoth Hyndis View Post
                I've found that its best to always over-estimate how long something will take.
                I was thinking the exact same thing. By over-estimating, customers will think you're faster than you really are by delivering the product faster than advertised. If the customer isn't satisfied when they hear the quoted time, the ball is in their court to simply go elsewhere or wait it out. I've noticed that waiting in line at a restaurant is very similar. Most of the time I'm quoted one specific time, when in reality the actual wait time is half of that.

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                • #9
                  And the relevant scene:
                  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xRqXYsksFg

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Quoth Hyndis View Post
                    I've found that its best to always over-estimate how long something will take.
                    This. At my last job, I was the only tech on staff, so I knew what my workload was and how fast I could reasonably get things done. I always told my customers it may take a couple weeks for me to fix their system if it looked like a major problem--even if I knew I could probably get it done in 2 or 3 days.

                    Hyndis already explained the benefits of doing this, but there's always that unforeseen circumstance that might crop up...

                    -you need to order a part you don't have on-hand, and that's going to take 3 days to arrive. This was average time for everything we ordered, so I always factored that in.
                    -you wake up sick one morning and have to stay home to avoid making everyone else at the office sick.
                    -the weather takes a turn for the worse and you have to be closed for a couple days until things improve. This happened once when our AC decided to give up the ghost on a 104-degree day with 100% humidity--and when you're an IT shop that must use computers for job duties, you shut down for the day for the safety of the humans and the machines in the office until the AC gets fixed.
                    -your phone system goes down to the point you can't call your customer to let them know their system is ready. That happened at least once, and nobody ever figured out what caused it. (I think it was a surge, but we never confirmed it.)

                    And my favorite...

                    -your systems architects are so swamped with an emergency onsite job (for example, a failing hard drive in a RAID that's crippling an entire server at the 911 command post) that you have to drop PC repair for a day to go help somewhere else.

                    It always helps to overestimate in case those "what ifs" pop up. Believe me: when you're in the IT business, they pop up when you're least expecting them!

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                    • #11
                      Yeah... I've had to learn the hard way that if you give an estimate between x and y, they'll automatically assume x is a firm guarantee.

                      So I always overestimate... by a LOT... and when it happens quicker, I've only ever had ONE person complain that it took faster than I had told them... I simply said, "Consider yourself lucky, it being this quick surprised me too." Which was kinda a half-truth.

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                      • #12
                        When in doubt, especially on a lengthy, time-consuming project: Figure out the worst-case scenario, with all reasonably conceivable delays, how long it COULD realistically take you to finish...Then add 50% to that time estimate.
                        "For a musician, the SNES sound engine is like using Crayola Crayons. Nobuo Uematsu used Crayola Crayons to paint the Sistine Chapel." - Jeremy Jahns (re: "Dancing Mad")
                        "The difference between an amateur and a master is that the master has failed way more times." - JoCat
                        "Thinking is difficult, therefore let the herd pronounce judgment!" ~ Carl Jung
                        "There's burning bridges, and then there's the lake just to fill it with gasoline." - Wiccy, reddit
                        "Retail is a cruel master, and could very well be the most educational time of many people's lives, in its own twisted way." - me
                        "Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down...tell you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens...makes her a home." - Capt. Malcolm Reynolds, "Serenity" (2005)
                        Acts of Gord – Read it, Learn it, Love it!
                        "Our psychic powers only work if the customer has a mind to read." - me

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                        • #13
                          Quoth DiRF View Post
                          Yeah... I've had to learn the hard way that if you give an estimate between x and y, they'll automatically assume x is a firm guarantee.
                          Had that situation when I worked in computers. Someone asked how long it would take to add a feature to the program I was maintaining (I had written the damn thing). I had a gut feeling that this was a pathalogical case (would be either trivial or virtually impossible, with no middle ground), and told them that this would be the situation. I'd need 2 days to look into it, at which point I'd know if it was a matter of another day or if it would require a complete rewrite of the program. The next day I was CCed on their e-mail to someone, where they stated that I had promised that the fix could be done in 2 days. Needless to say, I briefed my manager on the situation.
                          Any fool can piss on the floor. It takes a talented SC to shit on the ceiling.

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