Tech Service Purgatory

Because I own technology, live in the boonies,  and am subject to laws of probability, I find myself having to call support numbers quite often. The internet is the most common offender of this, but far from the only one. More tech can improve .  . . and in some cases SAVE your life, but that doesn't mean it's less of a headache.

Tonight, I had the questionable pleasure of both chatting online and talking on the phone to support staff.  An item of tech I own has been fucking up and I wanted to know how to make this stop . . . beyond, you know, just reading about how to do that on the Help page . . . because I'd already done most of that.  And while this task was basically not offensive and ended in a hopefully good way, I still found all of the typical annoying factors as I was in process.

Wait Time

Yes, I understand why there is wait time before you get helped.  I'm not insane.  I know there are millions of people who are having problems with your crappy product and I am not the special little snowflake.  However, from a business perspective, it might do companies a lot of good to cut down on the wait time as much as they possibly can.

When people are frustrated and pissed off at you because your product doesn't work, probably the last thing you should do is put them in a situation where they can concentrate on how deeply pissed off and frustrated they are. Every second they are on hold, they are multiplying their anger at this situation.  Want to know why some people just explode into unintelligible gibberish when they finally get to talk to someone? You gave them time to get to that state, that's why. Plus, you tortured them.

Torture #1: Muzak

Once upon a time, there was an evil, evil being who sat around thinking of ways to make people's lives as horrible as possible.  He thought and he thought about how to torture the humans.  Then one day,it came to him . . . invent a form of music that took other music and canned it, sucked away all of its soul, and then filtered it through dentist drills and oatmeal. And that is how muzak was born.

You know, people always want to blame heavy metal for people going crazy and killing everyone.  Bullshit. Heavy metal didn't do that. Listening to muzak did. It opens up your brain and begins to whisper to you . . . very, very BLAND whispers about how mundane and pointless life can be.

And yes, this is what you get to hear on so many calls to get help.  Boring, off key,     affectedly saccharine tunes.  Muzak is the crotch of a melon orange Polyester men's jump suit from the 70's.  It exists, but you certainly don't want it shoved in your face.

Torture #2: Fake Company Talk

The muzak ends and you think you are about to get helped . . . instead some prerecorded voice comes on and begins to tell you about all the things the company can sell you. BASTARDS! How dare you trick me like that!

Has anyone ever thought about what a bad idea this is? Someone is calling you because your product/service sucks and you're going to try and get their captive audience ass to listen to commercials about your other services?  Do you honestly think that could work at all?  This person is already pissed off at you because you can't function as a service.  Do you think they are really going to want to buy MORE stuff from you?

Overzealous Customer Confirmation

Yes, we live in a world where people steal identities and products and services. Yes, it is a good thing to confirm who someone is and where they are so that you have a better idea of what might be wrong.  It could be their whole neighborhood who is without internet service.  I have no problem with this.

However, when companies start demanding two phone numbers and SS numbers and personal questions and your mother's maiden name . . . yeah, that's overkill.

Look, I know you're trying to make me feel all secure and some shit about how you are protecting me from the big bad thieves, but, honestly, this just isn't practical. If someone has sat there for 30 minutes, listening to musak and your stupid ads and more musak . . . they are not going to be LYING to you about who they are and why they need your help.  Because, who is going to sit there that long for some con?  Why would they even bother in the first place?

Snide Announcements that Most Questions can be Answered Online

I do not want to talk to you any more than you want to talk to me. Less, actually. You're getting paid to talk to me. I'm just getting a headache.   IF I have gone to the trouble to call you, it's a pretty safe bet I've already read everything online about my problem and taken all the reasonable steps to fix it myself. And they failed.

I always find this message especially annoying when it is coming from the internet provider. Fucker, if my internet was working well enough for me to go to your website and find out what my problem is, then I wouldn't even need to LOOK at it because my problem is that the fucking internet isn't working. Which, of course, I can't look up because, yeah. You get the idea.

Don't get me wrong, I love Help sections. They have gotten me out of lots of problems and I never had to speak to a soul.  Sometimes that just can't help though, so yeah, I gotta call you. But yay, job security for you.

Look, I know working as support for a company is a sucky job. Almost everyone who calls you is annoyed.  Many of them have no idea how to explain to you what is screwing up with their system.  Quite often, you have to read from a script.  Over and over and over again. Half the time, those solutions don't even work.

However, with more and more technology becoming available, more and more support is going to be needed. If there are ways you can make the experience more pleasant for everyone involved, it's a good idea to do so.

And how I'm going to end this post before my internet messes up again .  . .