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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 bzipitidoo on Sunday July 10 2016, @08:23PM
I haven't tried emailing them. Closest I've come is posting in their forums, if they maintain any on their website. I seldom get to the step of returning the item.
I left a couple of things out of the list:
2.5. Is there a workaround I can live with? Or is the problem with some feature I don't need?
4: Out of warranty? Throw it in the recycling or trash bin, and make a note of it as possibly a brand to avoid in the future. I have too much old junk cluttering up my home as is.
Right now, my primary desktop has a small glitch. It sometimes fails to detect the hard drive or USB subsystem on power up. Will sit there with the hard drive light on, not flickering as normal. One power cycle of the box is usually enough to get it working for as long as I want to leave it on. If only the USB system wasn't detected, which means the keyboard and mouse do not work, I need only wait for the GRUB menu to timeout and boot the default OS (Linux). I don't know what resetting and probing of USB the kernel does, but whatever it does, the mouse and keyboard work by the time the GUI comes up. Been like that for several years now, and I can live with it.
Last time I returned an item was the famous Linksys WRT54G router. I'd heard what a great router it was, that it ran the Linux kernel, and got one. Little did I know at the time that Linksys had just completely changed the internals without changing the product number, only the revision number from 4 to 5. Slimy. Internally, they dumped Linux for, I think, VXworks, and cut the RAM in half. Seem to have rushed the new product into the market without much testing. It just. did. not. work. Took 10 seconds to pass through IP packets even when there was nearly zero traffic, and locked up after about 15 minutes (probably overheated). I never got around to trying the wireless part, this was all with network cables. I returned it for a full refund 2 days later.