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Why Tech Support Is (Purposely) Unbearable
Getting caught in a tech support loop — waiting on hold, interacting with automated systems, talking to people reading from unhelpful scripts and then finding yourself on hold yet again — is a peculiar kind of aggravation that mental health experts say can provoke rage in even the most mild-mannered person. Now Kate Murphy writes at the NYT that just as you suspected, companies are aware of the torture they are putting you through as 92 percent of customer service managers say their agents could be more effective and 74 percent say their company procedures prevented agents from providing satisfactory experiences. "Don't think companies haven't studied how far they can take things in providing the minimal level of service," says Justin Robbins, who was once a tech support agent himself and now oversees research and editorial at ICMI. "Some organizations have even monetized it by intentionally engineering it so you have to wait an hour at least to speak to someone in support, and while you are on hold, you're hearing messages like, 'If you'd like premium support, call this number and for a fee, we will get to you immediately.'"
Mental health experts say there are ways to get better tech support or maybe just make it more bearable. First, do whatever it takes to control your temper. Take a deep breath. Count to 10. Losing your stack at a consumer support agent is not going to get your problem resolved any faster and being negative in your dealings with others can quickly paint you as a complainer no one wants to work with. Don't bother demanding to speak to a supervisor, either. You're just going to get transferred to another agent who has been alerted ahead of time that you have come unhinged. According to the NYT, to get better service by phone, dial the prompt designated for "sales" or "to place an order," which almost always gets you an onshore agent, while tech support is usually offshore with the associated language difficulties. Finally customer support experts recommended using social media, like tweeting or sending a Facebook message, to contact a company instead of calling. You are likely to get a quicker response, not only because fewer people try that channel but also because your use of social media shows that you know how to vent your frustration to a wider audience if your needs are not met.
Ever wondered why tech support is so shitty? This article from the New York Times may explain the reason:
You may consider yourself even-keeled, the kind of person who is unflappable when those around you are losing their cool. But all that goes out the window when you call tech support. Then you fume. Your face turns red. You shout things into the phone that would appall your mother.
It's called tech support rage.
And you are not alone. Getting caught in a tech support loop — waiting on hold, interacting with automated systems, talking to people reading from unhelpful scripts and then finding yourself on hold yet again — is a peculiar kind of aggravation that mental health experts say can provoke rage in even the most mild-mannered person.
Worse, just as you suspected, companies are aware of the torture they are putting you through.
The article goes on the state that some of the reason is the simple fact that users are getting more sophisticated and can solve the simpler problems themselves. But:
The most egregious offenders are companies like cable and mobile service providers, which typically have little competition and whose customers are bound by contracts or would be considerably inconvenienced if they canceled their service. Not surprisingly, cable and mobile service providers are consistently ranked by consumers as providing the worst customer support.
The article goes on to describe companies and situations where excellent customer service can be found, and situations in which customer service is intentionally awful. I'm wondering what Soylentils think about the conclusions of this article.
(Score: 2) by black6host on Sunday July 10 2016, @01:08PM
Usually I provide all the tech support for my mother, who turns 80 today. Happy birthday Mom!
However, there are times when I can't because of lack of physical proximity. Last week she wanted to hook her smart TV up to netflix and I have no idea of her setup nor have I owned a smart TV. If worse came to worse I could probably figure it out but doing so with my mom is like getting your teeth pulled. "Mom, don't do *anything* until I tell you. Ok, select this option. What do you mean you've already done that and the next two options after that, I asked you not to do *anything*...." I'm sure many of you have lived through this. First we had to figure out if the TV was connected to the net. I gave her some options to try and if she was connected things would be easy, if not then we'd figure something out.
Anyway, she decided that was too confusing so she called her cable company. Tech support said they didn't hook up smart TVs to netflix. So she hung up and called again and got a different person. She repeated this process until she finally found someone that walked her through the whole setup (took about 5 calls.) Turns out the TV wasn't connected to the net, they walked her through that and then helped her set up a netflix account! Took hours but she got it done.
Moral of the story: If you don't get treated the way you'd like then hang up and call back to get somebody else. Repeatedly, until you get what you need. It's now at the point where that's my Mom's SOP and she gets resolution to her problems whether it be billing, support or whatever. Tech companies, governmental agencies, whatever... :)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 10 2016, @01:22PM
We have a phrase for that at work when talking to vendor support..."put me back in the queue"
Usually they're pretty stunned when you say that you'd prefer starting over with anyone else. Seems to be better than asking to escalate which,as the article says, generally only gets you the neighboring cube.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 10 2016, @04:43PM
I worked at a call center for a few weeks. The worst thing you could hear was people asking to talk to someone else horizontally or that they were going to hang up and call back. Those hurt your numbers a lot more than any other action the person could take. Even more so than escalating. The reason is that escalating is seen as a SOP power play by some people. I was literally asked to talk to my manager before I finished my welcome message at least once a shift.
However, with hang ups and lateral transfers, the company knows that the person is resigning themselves to starting over. Instead of a power play, it is seen as an act of desperation or frustration and desperate or frustrated people can quickly become pushed to the point where they cancel. Every call center has a caller history and you'd better believe one of the first things done is checking the last time you called and they probably have a system to automatically escalate if you call too much. I know I was told to be extra careful with people who called recently.
On an unrelated note, one of my coworkers told me a genius way to ask if something was plugged in, ask how many prongs the plug has and, if it is a power strip, how many those have. Don't know how many callers expressed anger at the mere suggestion of it not being plugged in. However, many problems were magically fixed after having them check the plug and either telling them to flip it if unpolarized or plug it in correctly if it was polarized. Often times the problem would be fixed before I could finish describing the solution to plugging it back in.
But back to the GP post, she probably gets good service because repeated calling will either luck out to someone who wants to help or will automatically bump her up a tier. Last thing the company wants to see in a cancellation report is that the call center people told her the service didn't work with Netflix or they were otherwise unhelpful, because that was money they could have saved with extra effort.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 10 2016, @03:08PM
She must have Comcast or TWC, Cox will help you set up anything.