Dealing with "customer service"

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How do you guys handle this? I end up melting down trying to talk to Comcast to fix my internet. Everywhere I go is a brick wall. It appears the system is designed to keep people from getting any help, and employees always take inaccurate notes and never seem to understand anything I am saying to them...

I will sometimes put off for days calling the bank or insurance company even when I need to. It is a high-energy investment.

I try to figure out what it will take to resolve the issue on my own before I call customer service or tech support. That way I can sort of guide them through the steps or just say "I think the problem is xyz can we check that?" Otherwise it just becomes a never ending maze of flow-chart diagnostics and department transfers.

It is a horrible experience, but I have become habituated to the horror, because the Internetz is of paramount importance to me.

I have a strategy for talking to tech support. First, I tell them that I know how to use the computer, and they don't need to tell me to point the mouse at such and such button. Then, I tell them what is plugged into what and which lights are on and off on what. Then, I tell them what I have tried already. Then, they talk to me like they would talk to a person in person instead of reading from their script.

Good method, but I think a good method only works, say, 75% of the time. Sometimes you still end up trying to work with a disengaged employee.

I try not to call tech support. I let the kids do that. The last time I called them the problem logging on was caused by the caps lock key. Yeah, I felt like a dumb*** lol!

As for other customer service calls, always always always get the name of the person and write that down. That way if you call back you can tell them who you talked to. If you are calling to make payment arrangements on a bill, sometimes they have a transaction number for it and you can get that. That way if they mistakenly turn off whatever service it is, you have the proof that you made arrangements.

I work in IT. I've actually managed a servicedesk, so an opinion from the other side as it were.

The purpose of the first line call handlers is to keep people from wasting the time of the 2nd line engineers by eliminating the spurious issues, like people calling saying their computer isn't working, only to discover either it's not turned on, or there is a power cut. (and a lot of misc training issues as above!)

Yes, people really do call in with things like that daily. The percentage of real technical issues is actually under 20%. Fighting the system is pretty pointless, since the people who fight it the most honestly are often those we need to keep away from the second and third line staff to let them get some productive work done.

Given that I have to deal with other servicedesks semi regually (that's how you get parts etc) I can fully appreciate the issues people have when you actually have an issue on a bad servicedesk because i've had more than my fair share. (Dell's helldesk is really awful, though the HP one is quite good. They aren't locked to the script)

Basically, if after you have explained what the problem is and the person is still refusing to deviate from their script then they won't do at all, and the quickest and most painless way of dealing with them is simply to allow them to work through their script until it gets to the "escalation to somebody competent" bit. This should take under 5 minutes on average, because the script writer wrote the script with the intention of letting the helldesk tech move onto the next caller quickly. While I would occasionally like to extend my arm down the phone line and choke the person on the other end, getting irate at them only means you spend more time speaking to them because they can't complete their script.

Telephone calls always get logged, but it's actually quite difficult to log the relevant details of the problem since it's rarely apparent exactly what the problem is, and when users do give you all of the information it's usually contained within a torrent of useless info. The chances of the right info getting written down is shall we say slim since if your lucky about a tenth of what was said will be logged and it's rarely the right tenth. In a real servicedesk, the good staff get moved up to second line or first line management quickly. Who do you think that leaves taking your calls?

The second & third line guys were constantly complaining at calls not having enough details logged. If you want to get a decent response, send an email detailing everything you've tried. First line will probably still have a good go at seeing if they can lose you anyway (they do have targets for resolving a certain percentage of issues, and they'll ditch you if they can get away with it) however you can call in response to their email, and even if you have to work through the entire script then that email will get logged into the system, and when the first line guys give up and pass it to second line (someone competent who's not working from a script!) then they actually have all of the information down in front of them and can probably give you a solution strait off.

My internet went out so I called Charter and went through their automated diagnostic process and it didn't fix the problem. So then I get to speak to a real person who wants to do the SAME things over again that I just did. When I questioned him he said I was refusing to problem-solve with him. Repeating the process seemed redundant especially when my neighbor with an unsecured connection had her internet go out at the same time as mine. I lost it and had a big time melt down and ended up swearing at him before I hung up.

I'm usually fine as long as they are pleasant but when they start getting mean or if I find out later that they messed something up then I get frustrated and have a meltdown. Most of the time I can avoid melting down on the phone but not always. When I meltdown on the phone it usually starts in the form of yelling then tears.

I used to be the person on the other end of the phone providing customer service. Some callers were just plain mean from the start of the call. I had one call that was so bad I had a major panic attack and left for the night after only 45 minutes into my shift. Major meltdown!! I couldn't make myself go to work for 4 days after that. I kept having meltdowns and eventually ended up walking off the job and going back just to sign the paperwork saying I quit.

I have such a huge difficulty with "customer service" that I have to get my friend to call them. I cannot even call my mobile phone company or the bank. I can't even make an appointment with my doctor on the phone!

I had a similar situation happen awhile back when I had to call the tech support for my company. Except the problem in that case was because they didn't go through the usual steps to check the problem, instead they just made an assumption about what was wrong. They wanted me to take apart all my phone wires and surge protectors and such to see if a something was causing noise on my phone line. I knew that wasn't the issue and wasn't about to go through all that trouble so I said NO, and had to say no several times to more than one person. They just kept insisting it had to be line noise and refused to check anything else. The last guy I talked to was being really patronizing and rude and I finally broke down and just yelled at him. It was a horrible, horrible ordeal, late in the evening and he just would not listen to anything I said.

I finally had to just give up and call back the next day. I told the next guy what I thought the problem was, and he actually went through the steps to check it with me, and as it turned out I was right.

I should add... One hour later my internet was back up and so was my neighbors. The guy kept insisting it wasn't a problem on their end and that mine and my neighbors internet going out at the same time was a coincidence.

I have real issues with these kind of tasks, too. I wish we had a local aspie-resource center with volunteers who could simply do some of this for me.

Funny thing is, I have an easier time doing these kind of activities for someone else than I do for myself.

I work in customer service for a gaming console, and my job is to train new agents to be so good at their jobs, that the company couldn't bear the thought of firing them. (No, not everyone makes the cut, but I do my best, several of the people I trained just a few months ago have been promoted to supervisory positions already.)

So, when I encounter a lousy, incompetant, or downright rude customer service person, I repeat to myself "They're giving me job security, they're giving me job security."

I always skip level one and go for the people that know some stuff. I always say "sorry I know your just doing your job but my pc is plugged in.the lights are on and no one is home" I love fixing things so I spend a lot of time reading up and half the time it's beyond even the level 2 guys don't know the answer.

Just breath and remember the work for you.

Hell, I have a few Cisco certifications and cannot stand talking to Comcast/Verizon/any-ISP-even-business-class-ones. Always get thrown into the 'guy who thinks he knows tech but is likely full of crap' category since I seem to make what appears to be illogical associations between technologies to everyone else's eye, and then it takes 5x longer to go through the script..

Took about 10 calls to Verizon over the course of two weeks to simply get them to turn off interleaving on our DSL line..

It's not you, the hiring criteria is generally 'type 30 wpm and be able to read from and follow a script'.
Always cheaper than actually hiring someone that knows what they are talking about...

It's suprisingly difficult to find good customer service people to hire. The company I work for hires only the top 3% of applicants, and anywhere from half to 3/4ths of them wash out before they even get through the training.

It's easier to take someone who has the social skills and teach them the technical stuff, than it is to find someone who has the technical skills and teach them NOT to insult people over the phone.
(Seriously!)