no, you aren't funny and you can't make me care.

[bainsidhe]

I must say it's interesting reading the differing points of view in this thread, part of the reason I enjoy this site. Add me to the crowd of people thinking the customer was sucky. Probably in how I read the post and related it to my own experiences. Similar thoughts run through my mind as I help bothersome customers, but I maintain my fake professional smile and demeanor.

I agree that some customers are ingnorant and don't intend to be sucky. I can be forgiving, especially if you act nicely. But by the end of the day I am exhausted, stressed, and find it hard to hide my irritation in frustrating situations. At the very least, this customer was indeed frustrating, which would be enough to earn my ire. The good news is, I don't take out my frustrations on the largely unsuspecting (and sometimes really annoying) public.

By the end of the post, something bothered me even more than the lies the customer spouted (not really a customer though, since he didn't purchase anything). Our company has distributors whose job it is to sell our product. Yet some of them can't be bothered to learn even the most basic details of our product line. Many of the calls I answer are for simple product/pricing-related questions that could easily be answered by opening our price list and taking their standard discount. But they find it easier to speak with us and have us spoon-feed the information. Most of our distributors are terrific, but a few specific ones call over and over for information already available to them.

I sympathize with the aggravation the OP felt after handing the step-by-step instructions to the non-customer. Our department will sometimes forward pricing information to our distributors when they call for basic information. This is done in order to teach them to look things up for themselves. It's a slow, painful process, but so worth it in the long run, since my answering simple questions over and over is not very productive. Please understand our company really does want to take care of the customer and help them when needed. We are actually very good at what we do and our business relies on our distribution, after all. But we are also not babysitters and some of our customers are just lazy.

Wow, that was a lot from me. Sorry for the length.

[Chanlin]

I've been in two jobs where I have been in positions similar to the OP (IE being asked to help get photos off of phones) One was in a local photo lab, it was my first job while I was still in High School. I didn't deal directly with customers and my duties were mostly janitorial. I didn't even get to touch film unless I was asked to bring a roll our front or look up already printed photos.

In any case if someone wanted help getting photos off of a phone our standard response was to send them to the manufacturer of the phone for help.

My present job with a prepaid cellular service has the same policy for 2 reasons.

1: This is a call center and we don't always have the time for painstaking support. Not to mention we support several different models of phones that have cameras.

2: Its a liability issue. If the phone breaks for any reason while were trying to support it then it becomes our fault. For this reason we always pass the customer on to the manufacturer of the phone for support on features that are not dependent on our service.

Back on topic: Being a tech myself and having been in the OP's position I can understand the annoyance with having the buck passed to you. Although it is annoying I also try to see things from the customers point of view of being foisted off on someone else.

In this case I agree that there was suck from the customer in trying to lie his way into being helped. These types usually were told "no we can't do that" before and will lie instead of take no for an answer.

I'm also on the wagon with everyone else that it seems like the OP was giving the customer attitude right away. As instructions were handed to him, his issue was slightly resolved, but not completely. A simple, "You can read over this, and there is a self service kiosk over there and I'll be over to check on you as soon as I am done with this." Would have worked just as well.