Why do the lunatics always do this when we are short handed? On top of all the other sucky people we've dealt with this week?
Get a call from some IT guy at some public library on the west coast; I shall call him Soapy. Another person at the library had asked for a free trial of our software in September, liked it and bought two licenses in December.
Soapy managed to install one license onto a machine and get it activated. Then, instead of installing the other license on the other machine and activating that one, he (apparently) re-imaged the first license onto the second machine.
Resulting in the activation program we use thinking it was on the first machine, becoming confused by the unfamiliar surroundings and collapsing into a whimpering mass of error codes.
I don't want to speculate what prompted Soapy to do things that way, but I have my suspicions.
Anyhoo, it's very easy to fix it when that happens. You call us. We tell you to remove the software, you then do a clean install, the activation program thinks it's at home and is happy. Three more clicks and you're done.
Soapy was successful in reaching us. It was lunch time; I was at lunch (at my desk). He got Mark. Mark doesn't do much activation troubleshooting, but knew to tell him to re-install. Soapy didn't want to. He argued a bit with Mark about that, but that wasn't the main issue. The main issue was that Soapy felt personally affronted by the fact that we make our users activate.
He spent a good few minutes letting Mark know his displeasure and then asked him why. Mark's answer, "We do that to make sure that everyone who uses the program is paying the same price for it. That helps us keep everyone's price as low as possible. If we didn't do that, our paying customers would be paying higher prices to subsidize the people who don't pay for the program at all."
At least he tried. Soapy didn't want to hear the explanation he asked for. He wanted to lecture us for being evil and greedy. Logical explanations made his crusade look silly, so he wasn't going to hear them.
This on a day when we are both busy and shorthanded.
Mark did get him to refocus back on the actual issue. Soapy still refussed to re-install. Mark wasn't 100% sure that the alternative Soapy was demanding didn't exist, so he sent him on to Carl. If there was another way, Carl would know.
So I got back from lunch and found an email from Carl. I don't have many details, but apparently that call didn't go well. He still hadn't re-installed and Carl thought I might know of an alternative. He gave me Soapy's number.
He also wrote that Soapy was doing a presentation in a few minutes and considered it an emergency.
I really didn't want to talk to this guy, but it's my job. So I called and got voicemail! Yay!
I left a message explaining that a remove/re-install was required. I assured him that trying anything else would make the problem worse, but remove/re-install would fix it.
About 20 seconds later he called me back. He had a question. Care to guess what it was?
"I don't want to remove it and re-install it. Is there another way?"
Knowing that the guy had an "emergency," I decided to give him good customer service by keeping it simple and brief.
"Removing and re-installing is the only way to clear that error code." I use the same intonation as the Star Trek computer when I know I'm dealing with someone who wants to engage me in a long and pointless discussion. It works sometimes.
It didn't work this time. He decided to try the silent trick to see if I'd accidentally let the secret easy way to activate slip out.
I let the silence hang there. He spoke first to ask if there was an easier way. My response was, "We always give our customers the easiest available solution. If there were an easier way, I would have told you."
Seriously, what possible reason could we have for not giving people the easiest fix? It would be terrible customer service and, more importantly, it would make our jobs harder.
So he asked me give him a version that didn't need to be activated. I told him that we don't have a version that doesn't need activation. There's no such thing. Even WE have to activate and we own the damn copyright. Even if we did have such a magical version, we certainly wouldn't sell it to some schmuck who bought a couple of licenses. We have clients with 300 or more users who don't give us that much crap about activation.
He just went on and on and on about what a hassle it was to activate. I finally let him get to me. I asked him if it was hard to activate the first computer.
No. It wasn't hard. But the second one was!
I was thinking, "Only because YOU are making it hard, buddy." But I simply pointed out that, when done correctly, activation is very simple and we are here to help in those cases where something goes wrong.
So he started the "what abouts" and "what ifs". You know, naming multiple scenarios where they might lose an activation.
I tried to assure him that, as a paying customer, we would take care of him if he lost an activation, but he was back up on that soapbox and beyond hearing and reason.
Then it came out. The thing that had REALLY been bugging him all along. See all software should be free to anyone who wants to install it and only commercial customers should pay for it.
I know that there are programs out there that work that way and people who have had success with that business model. For many, many reasons that model would not work for us. The main one being that fewer than 1% of our customers are commercial entities. I don't think you need to be good at math to figure out why that won't work.
When he paused long enough to breathe. I assured him that I'd note his objections.
That wasn't good enough and he went on some more telling us how to run our business. I was wondering what happened to the presentation he was supposed to be doing. Wasn't it an emergency?
I got a bit tired and accidentally engaged him. I explained that we couldn't do it that way and stay in business.
He wanted to know how come?
OK. He opened the door to an honest answer.
"Because I don't work here for free, sir. Neither do our other employee. We don't get free rent, free electricity or free computers either."
Soapy didn't hear much of it. He had started talking over me again and stated that it would be better for us if people were pirating it than not using it at all. It's like advertising.
Advertising? If people can pirate something instead of buying it, what good is advertising going to do us? Does he honestly think that having people pay for things only when they feel like is a valid business model?
I decide to just repeat the mantra, "Sorry you feel that way. I've already noted it. Is there anything else we can do for you?"
He was already talking over me AGAIN.
This wasn't going anywhere so I ended the call by wishing him a good morning (he was three hours behind us) and hung up. I'm allowed to hang up on customers who are wasting time when other customers need actual help.
I believe that, for people like Soapy the truth and logic are poison. They dare not let it in for fear it will burn their brains. So they talk and talk and talk to keep it away.
So anyway, I helped other customers for 10 minutes. Then I went back to make a note on Soapy's license.
He had activated since I hung up. So it took him less than 10 minutes to actually do it, once he was done arguing on the phone with three of us over the course of an hour.
Get a call from some IT guy at some public library on the west coast; I shall call him Soapy. Another person at the library had asked for a free trial of our software in September, liked it and bought two licenses in December.
Soapy managed to install one license onto a machine and get it activated. Then, instead of installing the other license on the other machine and activating that one, he (apparently) re-imaged the first license onto the second machine.
Resulting in the activation program we use thinking it was on the first machine, becoming confused by the unfamiliar surroundings and collapsing into a whimpering mass of error codes.
I don't want to speculate what prompted Soapy to do things that way, but I have my suspicions.
Anyhoo, it's very easy to fix it when that happens. You call us. We tell you to remove the software, you then do a clean install, the activation program thinks it's at home and is happy. Three more clicks and you're done.
Soapy was successful in reaching us. It was lunch time; I was at lunch (at my desk). He got Mark. Mark doesn't do much activation troubleshooting, but knew to tell him to re-install. Soapy didn't want to. He argued a bit with Mark about that, but that wasn't the main issue. The main issue was that Soapy felt personally affronted by the fact that we make our users activate.
He spent a good few minutes letting Mark know his displeasure and then asked him why. Mark's answer, "We do that to make sure that everyone who uses the program is paying the same price for it. That helps us keep everyone's price as low as possible. If we didn't do that, our paying customers would be paying higher prices to subsidize the people who don't pay for the program at all."
At least he tried. Soapy didn't want to hear the explanation he asked for. He wanted to lecture us for being evil and greedy. Logical explanations made his crusade look silly, so he wasn't going to hear them.
This on a day when we are both busy and shorthanded.
Mark did get him to refocus back on the actual issue. Soapy still refussed to re-install. Mark wasn't 100% sure that the alternative Soapy was demanding didn't exist, so he sent him on to Carl. If there was another way, Carl would know.
So I got back from lunch and found an email from Carl. I don't have many details, but apparently that call didn't go well. He still hadn't re-installed and Carl thought I might know of an alternative. He gave me Soapy's number.
He also wrote that Soapy was doing a presentation in a few minutes and considered it an emergency.
I really didn't want to talk to this guy, but it's my job. So I called and got voicemail! Yay!
I left a message explaining that a remove/re-install was required. I assured him that trying anything else would make the problem worse, but remove/re-install would fix it.
About 20 seconds later he called me back. He had a question. Care to guess what it was?
"I don't want to remove it and re-install it. Is there another way?"
Knowing that the guy had an "emergency," I decided to give him good customer service by keeping it simple and brief.
"Removing and re-installing is the only way to clear that error code." I use the same intonation as the Star Trek computer when I know I'm dealing with someone who wants to engage me in a long and pointless discussion. It works sometimes.
It didn't work this time. He decided to try the silent trick to see if I'd accidentally let the secret easy way to activate slip out.
I let the silence hang there. He spoke first to ask if there was an easier way. My response was, "We always give our customers the easiest available solution. If there were an easier way, I would have told you."
Seriously, what possible reason could we have for not giving people the easiest fix? It would be terrible customer service and, more importantly, it would make our jobs harder.
So he asked me give him a version that didn't need to be activated. I told him that we don't have a version that doesn't need activation. There's no such thing. Even WE have to activate and we own the damn copyright. Even if we did have such a magical version, we certainly wouldn't sell it to some schmuck who bought a couple of licenses. We have clients with 300 or more users who don't give us that much crap about activation.
He just went on and on and on about what a hassle it was to activate. I finally let him get to me. I asked him if it was hard to activate the first computer.
No. It wasn't hard. But the second one was!
I was thinking, "Only because YOU are making it hard, buddy." But I simply pointed out that, when done correctly, activation is very simple and we are here to help in those cases where something goes wrong.
So he started the "what abouts" and "what ifs". You know, naming multiple scenarios where they might lose an activation.
I tried to assure him that, as a paying customer, we would take care of him if he lost an activation, but he was back up on that soapbox and beyond hearing and reason.
Then it came out. The thing that had REALLY been bugging him all along. See all software should be free to anyone who wants to install it and only commercial customers should pay for it.
I know that there are programs out there that work that way and people who have had success with that business model. For many, many reasons that model would not work for us. The main one being that fewer than 1% of our customers are commercial entities. I don't think you need to be good at math to figure out why that won't work.
When he paused long enough to breathe. I assured him that I'd note his objections.
That wasn't good enough and he went on some more telling us how to run our business. I was wondering what happened to the presentation he was supposed to be doing. Wasn't it an emergency?
I got a bit tired and accidentally engaged him. I explained that we couldn't do it that way and stay in business.
He wanted to know how come?
OK. He opened the door to an honest answer.
"Because I don't work here for free, sir. Neither do our other employee. We don't get free rent, free electricity or free computers either."
Soapy didn't hear much of it. He had started talking over me again and stated that it would be better for us if people were pirating it than not using it at all. It's like advertising.
Advertising? If people can pirate something instead of buying it, what good is advertising going to do us? Does he honestly think that having people pay for things only when they feel like is a valid business model?
I decide to just repeat the mantra, "Sorry you feel that way. I've already noted it. Is there anything else we can do for you?"
He was already talking over me AGAIN.
This wasn't going anywhere so I ended the call by wishing him a good morning (he was three hours behind us) and hung up. I'm allowed to hang up on customers who are wasting time when other customers need actual help.
I believe that, for people like Soapy the truth and logic are poison. They dare not let it in for fear it will burn their brains. So they talk and talk and talk to keep it away.
So anyway, I helped other customers for 10 minutes. Then I went back to make a note on Soapy's license.
He had activated since I hung up. So it took him less than 10 minutes to actually do it, once he was done arguing on the phone with three of us over the course of an hour.
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