Tales From Technical Support Content
I work for an internet support company and get many calls throughout the day. One call in particular i found quite amusing!
This customer was using the now, old fashioned dial up internet and was experiencing dropped connections. After teching the PC i then instructed the customer to 'simply' hang up and try the connection.
The conversation goes as follows:
M: Me C: Customer
M: OK, id like you to hang up and give that a try.
C: Hang up?
M: Yes, hang up on me
C: So you want me to turn off the computer?
M: No, put the phone down on me and try it
<customer puts telephone on chair still on the line>
C: OK, done that
M: No, i didnt mean putting the phone down on the chair
C: Then what do you mean?
M: I mean put the telephone on the base
<customer still didnt have a clue on how to terminate the call>
I then hung up myself on the customer
im currently a tech and been using pc' for over ten years an the net since we could get 28k,
this happened when i was with the big service provider AOL and had regular unable to connect and drop outs and assorted problems mostly there end but not acording to them,
so i couldnt get online tried the usual then dialed there dialin number from a handset only to get an engaged tone,
(ME)calling isp , i cant get online your number is engaged when will it be in service?,
(isp)lets try some modem init string that should help
(ME) but the line is engaged how will init strings help?
(isp) we need to put do this so your service will work
(me) how do init strings fix an engaged signal?
(isp) we need to put do this so your service will work.
(me) but can you tell me when the line wont be engaged?
(isp) init strings
(me)click( bash head against wall
i quickly gave up on there support all they ever wanted to do was give new init strings which can have some value sometimes but it wont fixe everything
NOW before i begin this maybe i should have worded some things differently but essentially what this is about is simple enough. Everyone remember when you could use multiple dial up modems to connect to the internet and have a higher connection speed? well this is like that except with cable, i'm a MCSA and did not know if this were possible or not so i contacted my ISP to find out, here is how it played out.
Online Chat Support:
Status: Analyst STPIACAR is here and your issue status is: working Problem:just need to know about more than 1
cable connection being used for the same system (double my connection in other words) can it be done>? user
fiery_kestral has entered room
analyst STPIACAR has entered room
STPIACAR> Welcome to Cox High Speed Internet Service Online Technical Support.
STPIACAR> Hi
fiery_kestral> Hi
fiery_kestral> I have an account with Cox and just wanted to know if i can double my connection by adding a
second line if you will.
STPIACAR> I understand that you want to connect two computer to your cable modem.
STPIACAR> Am I correct?}
fiery_kestral> No 1 system to two seperate lines
fiery_kestral> double my connection speed.
STPIACAR> However, Cox provides some useful links to help you configure your second computer, please click the
link below for more details at:
http://support.cox.com/sdccommon/asp/contentredirect.asp?sprt_cid=db10e81e-59fd-4d86-95ed-969504d08399
STPIACAR> Were you able to open this link?
fiery_kestral> I can do multiple computers
STPIACAR> Unfortunately, Cox Technical Support Department does not provide assistance to home networks that were
not installed by Cox.
fiery_kestral> i need to know about 1 or 2 computers using two lines of a cable connection
STPIACAR> I recommend that you contact your local department so that you can obtain further information whether
our home networking service is available in your area at:
fiery_kestral> like this take 2 cable connections
STPIACAR> http://www.cox.com/support/arkansas/contactsup/
fiery_kestral> and put them together and then connecting 1 PC to mentioned new connection
STPIACAR> Did you open that link I was send you.
STPIACAR> You need to use a router.
fiery_kestral> I know how to use multiple computers on 1 connection
fiery_kestral> i want to know if Cox allows multiple connections for 1 machine
fiery_kestral> what i am trying to get across is this, in businesses you may take two T-1 lines and have those
two T-1 lines as your internet connection. I want to know if I can do the same with CHSI connections
STPIACAR> I have checked your services and you do not have Cox home network, reason why I am not autorized to
support this issue. However, you will need some information that It will help you to set up your home network,
please review the following Web sites listed below.
Setting up a router can be found at:
http://www.cox.com/HR/help/hsi/router.asp
fiery_kestral> You are incorrect sir
fiery_kestral> i do indeed have a cox home network
fiery_kestral> if your checking via my email address then that is why you do not show
fiery_kestral> i have not even bothered to finish messing with that as i use my yahoo email account
fiery_kestral> I can provide you with my name with which you could see that i do have an account though. And then
perhaps answer the question i am asking
STPIACAR> You can use until 3 computer in your home networking.
STPIACAR> You need to have home networking.
fiery_kestral> i can use up to 3 computers in my home network? is that what you mean?
fiery_kestral> i have a home network
fiery_kestral> im a MCSA just so you know
fiery_kestral> i am versed in networking
fiery_kestral> i need information not about SETTING up a home network
fiery_kestral> but about using multiple cable connections much the same as some places use a T-1
STPIACAR> In this moment I can not verify your account because my tools is down.
STPIACAR> However, Cox provides some useful links to help you configure your second computer, please click the
link below for more details at:
http://support.cox.com/sdccommon/asp/contentredirect.asp?sprt_cid=db10e81e-59fd-4d86-95ed-969504d08399
STPIACAR> Please access this link to set up your home networking.
fiery_kestral> So you can't answer a simple yes or no question? Look Im sorry but come on. All i need to know is
YES or NO can COX use multiple connections to create a greater upload and download speed for your home network. I
know how to set up a network, i know how to admin one. Your not giving me the information i need.
STPIACAR> Were you able to open this link?
fiery_kestral> I dont need the link.
STPIACAR> Yes Cox use multiple connection.
fiery_kestral> So What i need to know is this
STPIACAR> You can use multiple connection.
fiery_kestral> CAN I have more than 1 Cox connection in my home set-up to work together to double my up and down
speeds with 1 device
STPIACAR> Yes you can.
fiery_kestral> So now
fiery_kestral> what do i need to do with COX to get this set up for me?
STPIACAR> In order to have more information you need to call your local office.
fiery_kestral> So you are now saying that YES i can have multiple connections set up to act as 1
fiery_kestral> so that in this i may have two 4 meg connections to now give me a total of 8 megs correct?
analyst STPIACAR has been temporarily disconnected. Please wait while the analyst attempts to reconnect.
We are experiencing higher than usual service times. Please wait and an analyst will be with you shortly.
analyst STPIACAR has entered room
fiery_kestral> well welcome back
STPIACAR> Do you want to have one higher connection in you home from one computer?
STPIACAR> Only one connection for one computer.
fiery_kestral> no i have the highest connection you offer
fiery_kestral> i want to have two of THOSE working as 1 connection
fiery_kestral> you know like you could do back when with the modem on dial up
fiery_kestral> two seperate lines that worked with each other
fiery_kestral> to create 1 faster connection
STPIACAR> Only you have one type of connection in your computer.
fiery_kestral> wow we gotta work on communications here
fiery_kestral> i know that i have 1 connection right now
STPIACAR> If you want to have better connection you need to upgrade you connection.
fiery_kestral> what i am trying to convey here is using multiple CHSI connections to create a faster connectino
fiery_kestral> i cant upgrade my connection as i have the highest you offer
STPIACAR> In order to upgrade your connection you need to call at your local office
STPIACAR> Is there anything else I can help you with today?
fiery_kestral> no i dont think so
fiery_kestral> ill handle it myself
I do phone tech support for a large computer company. The other day a woman called me complaining that her wireless internet would intermittently disconnect. I check to see that she was in fact connected to her network and not her neighbors; she told me she could not see her network on the list.
I asked her what her network name was and had her try to locate it but the computer had no idea there was a wireless router in her apartment. So after performing a reset with no luck, a hard reset with no luck, and finally a factory reset with no luck I asked her to unplug her Ethernet cable from the modem and plug that end into the computer, after plugging the coax cable back in and explaining I wanted the cable that looked like a large phone wire we got the computer to recognize the router over the wire.
After setting everything up and going back into wireless mode it disappeared again. At this point I was over an hour into the call when she starts to cut in and out on her phone, banging my head on the desk I ask her what kind of phone she has Cordless is it a 2.5 Ghz phone Let me check, Yes ARGH!
I am sorry to inform you but the problem all this time has been that the phone you are using to talk to me is disrupting your WiFi connection
I work at an IT help desk, and i recieved a work request for the recoring of doors on a hangar. Calling the customer back, i asked him to elaborate, and that we weren't quite sure what this had to do with computers.
He replied, "Oh, you guys don't handle that? I was looking on the website and saw "work request", and that was work, so I figured I should do that.
At this point, I directed him to the proper facility to handle his request, and before i got off the phone, my coworker interjected, "We don't do doors...we only do Windows!"
I took a call from a customer that had recieved his "modem kit" in the mail. He was reading the packing slip and was concerned that he didnt get all of the items shipped.He told me the part number and I looked at the "kit" we send out and I saw six items in the kit. His packing slip says 7 items. He was getting rather frustrated that he didnt recieve all of the parts. With the parts he did get I got him online and surfing. Still wanting everything he paid for he was wanting his 7th item. I placed the customer on hold and went to the Supervisor and asked what this was. Now on the call for over 45 minutes and both of us very frustrated I found out the 7th item is the actuall box that the kit was shipped in. Telling this to the customer he says thats stupid and it cant be the box. I asked him to look on the flaps of the box for the part number. He saw nothing. I asked his to look on the bottom of the box and there she was in a font large enough to see from another city from end to end on the box "BSUB77908".
Tech support DJ,
Dj Stephen LaCroix
First a bit of background. I was moving registrars from Enom to Moniker. Enom was supposed to keep the zone records alive for at least two weeks after the move. They did not. So my clients sites all went down for a day.
I then managed to get the zone records set up at the new registrar. Went to a particular clients site and nothing. One of my other clients decided to upload a 2 gig video file to my server. Server had to be rebooted.
Site still not up. But it was up from other locations.
Turns out the Verizon DNS servers were caching and since the pages were not new, they would not refresh. When I contacted Verimizion teh support and asked when their servers refreshed they kept trying to tell me how to connect. I asked again about their servers, giving them the host name and IP address they insisted it was not theirs, and where did I get the numbers from. I should set up the machine for DHCP.
The solution was to force an update to their system. I am glad their security is as good as their help. heh heh heh.
Coffee Cup Holder Story: OK some of you may have read the story from Ronnie A. The coffee place . Let me tell you this actually happened to us, as we like to call it the CD Story, Coffee tray Dispenser
About once a week on Fridays we would have our technicians come together to meet, inform them of changes, news, etc. We would listen and discuss unusual problems issues, etc to see if others could help and/or generally let them kick back and blow off some steam. During the week we would have a number of calls handled by our Help Desk Center who would then involve or dispatch as necessary technicians or other staff. This one however took the cake and made for a good laugh as one of our technicians told it.
One day one of our tech's got a dispatch from the Help Desk Center informing him of the need to go across town to one of our facilities and support a user with a CD Problem. The wording sounded legit, sounded like a simple clean problem and fix - "User reports CD tray broken - Tray is stuck open and will not close".
Now our technicians generally carried some spare parts with them so he went about his way to the site with tool bag in hand. As courtesy he called and asked to speak with the user where she happily re-iterated the problem and eagerly awaited his arrival.
Upon arriving at the site the women happily met him at the front of the office, briefly explained the problem again and showed him to her cubical. As they approached the cubical she paused and there on the floor before him was the PC Tower on the floor with the CD Tray Stuck Open, as he approached the PC and attempted to close the tray she continued her conversation she said "I came in sat down in front of my desk as I usually do, started my PC and noticed that the CD tray was stuck open. Although I was going to use it later I though this was a bit unusual and attempted to close it by hand but it would not close, so that is when I called the help desk."
He acknowledged her and started to refocus on the problem when he heard her state the following.
User: "I've never had a problem with this in the past, shortly after calling the Help Desk I started thinking I recently switched from a small to a large and I think that s when I might have broken it.
He looked back up at her in confusion.
User: The Coffee tray Dispenser". I think I broke it, when I switched from a small cup of coffee to a large cup of coffee. I mean I thought it was really creative of them (The PC Manufacturers) to put a tray holder there right on the PC at arms reach, it s handy and keeps it off your desk.
He looked at her in amazement, paused for a moment as if she might have been joking and teasing him and then realized she was for real, convinced that was what is for. He looked back up, looked around the cubical where everything had been marked and noted beyond the point of neatness and being organized (stapler marked stapler, paper clip holder marked paper clips, drawer marked drawer, etc) and decided it wasn t worth explaining or and further repeat visits. He asked her if she had any CD s lying around in an effort to see if she actually knew of it s alternative usefulness and in slight confusion she replied Coffee Cups as if to wonder why he would want any empty coffee cups lying around.
With that he sensed that was it, he removed the defective CD player, and replaced the empty space with a filler panel. He explained to her with some reservation that they only supplied one CD with each new system. With that she seemed to be OK and apologized for breaking it.
They said their good-byes and as he departed her office manager stopped him near the front of the office asked if everything had gone well. He paused and hesitated then explained the situation, what when on and the reason for his actions. As if to fear some kind of antagonism and resentment instead he looked at the office managers face where instead she smiled, chuckled, and said she was fine with that, and that she completely understood, and with at most sincerity apologized for his inconvenience.
He smiled and left. Later that same afternoon he wrote up a response and closure to the open call ticket in the help desk system. That Friday morning meeting we all sat there in astonishment, laughter then raised our coffee cups to the now King of Tech Support Tales . We printed out that Call Ticket and had it framed as a reminder, good laugh, and hail to the best experience yet. Yup It can happen to you.
Russ D.
We use WebEx to support our clients and to get there, we instruct our users to go to our support website. As I was giving the client the address of the support site, abccompany.com, she asks me, "Is that C - O - M - M?" I am not kidding.
Just give me a replacement!
While not really a tech story, it involves trying to get a replacement for something technical.
Early last year I moved to Japan for several reasons which I won't go into at the moment. In order to stay connected, I got myself a new laptop (from a company that rhymes with Hell) and aside from a broken CD-RW/DVD combo drive which was out of warranty so they didn't replace it, I didn't have any issues with it. Well, that's not completely true as I was running out of room and found that every few weeks I had to delete things from my HDD in order to do simple things like log on.
So I purchased an external DVD burner which looked really spiffy and was USB 2.0 compatible however it wouldn't work. Sometimes it would start to burn the DVD but stop with some unknown errors, burn the DVD but once done it was completely unreadable or at one point it started burning from the middle of the DVD. No matter what I did, from changing the software used or flashing the firmware helped so I set out to return it.
Now, there is a mindset in Japan that basically says, "don't make trouble" and you can see this jsut about everywhere you look. This also applies to things that don't work. People are more willing to simply purchase a new one, and hold onto the old one than to return it for a replacement. Don't ask me, I don't understand it either.
I pack the burner up and head to the store, locate another part and head for the cashier. Well, I'm thinking this guy thought I was trying to pull a fast one because I got the 3rd degree when trying to return it.
Me: Hi, I purchased this Monday but it doesn't work properly so I'd like to exchange it for this one (holding up the replacement).
Cashier: What do you mean? What did you do to it?
M: I didn't do anything to it, it just doesn't work properly. Every time I try to burn a DVD I get an error.
C: No, that can't be right. You must have broken it.
M: Listen guy, I didn't break it. It doesn't work. Look here, (I pull out the DVD that started to burn in the middle) you see where it started to burn? This is supposed to happen at the hub, in this case the laser was mis-aligned. You can see that it's not supposed to do that. I paid money for this and I want one that works.
C: (starts examining everything as if he knows what he's doing and checking the box to make sure I didn't leave anything out) Wait a minute, where's the manual? You're supposed to have a manual with this!
M: I never got one, all I had was the DVD, the manual is on there. (Not true, but I simply couldn't find it when I packed it back up. But then it's only a manual).
C: (looking again at the box) What operating system are you using?
M: Windows XP. English version.
C: (triumphant smile on his face) Well that's why, this is sold in Japan and only works with a Japanese OS!
M: (Totally losing it now) That is absolute bullsh*t! This is machine code which doesn't matter what language it speaks. Besides, the burning software is in English. And just because something is made in one country doesn't mean it won't work in another.
C: (looking smug) Well I know computers....
M: Oh yeah? Well Mr. Computer genius man, I'm a farking computer engineer! (I pull out from my wallet my business card showing my degree, as well as every single certification I happened to have and pointed each one of them out and what it showed). This burner is broken and I want a new one!
C: (reluctantly) Okay. But if this one doesn't work, you can't return it.
M: Fine, whatever!
Funny thing was, he never made a mark or anything on my receipt showing that this unit had been exchanged.
And the new burner worked without a problem. :)
