Customer Vocabulary

Just curious how the members here deal with customers who don't use the correct terms for things.
Personally, I try to correct my customers in a way that they don't feel dumb, but they learn what the correct terminology is, so I can troubleshoot for them more effectively. There are some exceptions, however.
One of my customers absolutely WILL NOT use the correct terminology, and in fact insists that I learn what she means when she says the incorrect words. For example, "What slot is that cat cable plugged into?" translates to "What interface is the Ethernet cable in?" I have tried to explain that a slot is a chassis expansion, not an interface, but she will absolutely not change. It honestly used to frustrate me, but now it makes me laugh more than anything.

Find more posts tagged with

SAVE $250 on Your Boot Camp — Use Code "EXAM26"

Exclusively for TechExams members for Infosec Boot Camps starting before April 30, 2026

View Boot Camps

Comments

srabiee

I always got irritated at customers who confused the "backslash" with the "forward-slash" key, and vice versa.

I even remember having a customer laugh and belittle me because they accused me of not knowing which was which, but I was actually correct the entire time. And because they were the customer and it was a low paying IT grunt position, I couldn't defend myself and/or correct the customer. I mean, they went as far as to shout out across the office "Hey this guy is calling this key right here the forward-slash key! He doesn't know what he's talking about!" and encouraged other employees to laugh at me.

Very frustrating.

Mow

I always say "Forward slash, the one under the question mark" when I talk to a customer. Every time.

bpenn

I worked with an Information Assurance individual who referred to a TACLANE (encryptor) as a "Tactical Fast Lane."

Lol

joelsfood

Heh, I used to hear the Tactical Fast Lane thing too. It tended to not be worth correcting, based on the people saying it

cyberguypr

I wish I could recall how many different words I've heard to describe the system unit: disk, hard drive, floppy, brain, box, case, "big piece", "black/beige" piece" processor, memory, motherboard, adapter, "power piece", cabinet, modem, desktop.

ypark

When I asked a faculty member at our remote campus to "reset the switch mounted on the wall", he turned off the lights and back on...
then I explained to him that "switch is the device with blinking lights and all the internet cables connected to it".
He told me "You mean the router?" I said "Yeah, the router."

Sheiko37

Here "risk", "threat", and "vulnerability" are all used interchangeably. It gets more confusing when things like "threat assessment" is actually an impact assessment, or "risk transfer" is risk acceptance. Then terms like "due diligence" just mean working really hard.

Christian.

"critical" - "urgent" - "high priority"

People have used those terms so much that they lost meaning to me.

LeBroke

Mow wrote: »

Just curious how the members here deal with customers who don't use the correct terms for things.
Personally, I try to correct my customers in a way that they don't feel dumb, but they learn what the correct terminology is, so I can troubleshoot for them more effectively. There are some exceptions, however.
One of my customers absolutely WILL NOT use the correct terminology, and in fact insists that I learn what she means when she says the incorrect words. For example, "What slot is that cat cable plugged into?" translates to "What interface is the Ethernet cable in?" I have tried to explain that a slot is a chassis expansion, not an interface, but she will absolutely not change. It honestly used to frustrate me, but now it makes me laugh more than anything.

I'm quite guilty of talking like that myself if I'm tired or frazzled...

"And then yeah, plug in the thingie.. oh right, the cat cable into the other thingie in your pc."

Also, anything marked as Critical! Priority 1! Severity 1! Must deal with urgently!!@!@!!~~! >> Help! Can't login, password doesnt work need access to thing urgently!

...gets tossed to the bottom of my "things to do if I have some time left over today" pile.

Sheiko37

pretty crap practice to spite anything marked urgent.

LeBroke

Sheiko37 wrote: »

pretty crap practice to spite anything marked urgent.

Legit urgent, like a server down? Sure. But when a person makes the 4th urgent ticket in a week and wants it resolved immediately for something that's probably his fault/lack of reading the manual, his problem.

nster

Depends on your role in the company etc. I wouldn't bother insisting on "cat cable" or slot vs interface thing. Risk, threat vulnerability would piss me off and I'd correct people as much as I could. When the incorrect term actually makes you waste time, it is more likely that correcting makes sense

As Help Desk or Desktop Support etc, you'll hear the wrong term so many times, it is almost useless to bother

markulous

If they are just trying to explain something to me and I perfectly understand them, I don't go out of my way to correct them. I'm there to fix their issue, not teach them all about IT.

Most common one I see is people calling PCs "CPUs". "My CPU won't turn on" etc. Even saw a ticket the other day where they called their PC a hard drive. "Hey please help my hard drive won't put out any sound when I plug my speakers into it". Umm pretty sure that's impossible.

Weirdest one though was probably when I was calling up a user that worked from home. She said Windows wouldn't load. I call her and ask if she can power it off completely and we will try to turn it back on.
She says "Which one?".
I say "Just your PC, you only have the one."
She says "No I have two of them".
I'm a bit confused so I say, "Ok so is one your personal computer and the other one is your work computer?"
She says "No, they are both my work computers and they both are black".
I say "So you use two PCs at the same time?"
She tells me she does.
After about 20 minutes of me trying to get her to reset her PC, I figure out she's trying to tell me she has two MONITORS with the work PC. I get not everyone is IT literate (that's why we get paid), but confusing a monitor and a PC? Not like this person was 90 years old and just got her first PC either, she didn't sound over 40.

nster

markulous wrote: »

After about 20 minutes of me trying to get her to reset her PC, I figure out she's trying to tell me she has two MONITORS with the work PC. I get not everyone is IT literate (that's why we get paid), but confusing a monitor and a PC? Not like this person was 90 years old and just got her first PC either, she didn't sound over 40.

Haha when I read about the CPU thing, I was like: Oh my users here call the monitor a computer, despite having a dual-monitor setup. Then you say this

Also have a few users calling the PC a hard drive. I'm usually pretty good at deciphering these things though, I've had way too much exposure to the way they think xD

On Monday mornings I often get "I need a new PC, it's not working", me: "what's wrong?", "it doesn't turn on", me: "is there any light on when you power it up?". Then one of three things, either the monitor was off, the monitor was unplugged, or they didn't press the power button on the computer. "but I never had to before, somethings wrong". *facepalm*

srabiee

My mother alternates between calling her desktop PC a "CPU" and a "hard drive." Funny stuff.

Anonymouse

It doesn't really matter to me. This happened a lot when I was in helpdesk. I'll play with their terminology or dumb it down so they can understand me. Whatever got the job done quickly with the end user being satisfied. End user doesn't want to be taught a lesson they just want to get back to work. Didn't want to frustrate them in that helpdesk environment because management would randomly send out surveys regarding our tickets and would be listening in on calls and viewing our desktops at random.

Mow

I guess I should mention that I am a consultant and mostly work with IT Managers and Directors of IT for companies, not typically end users...

echo_time_cat

Mow, I assume you've already tried playing dumb? "So, before we worry about what slot you are working with, let's first ensure you are looking at rack 5... ok...now we should be working with slot 8... ok great...so now the INTERFACE we should be connecting the cable to...." lol.

Mow

Yeah, I speak their language if I have to. It's pretty funny, I love it when I run into a term that makes sense the them, but I have no idea what they mean. As soon as I figure it out, I will usually use the correct term, but refer to it as their messed up term if they keep calling it that.

Shdwmage

I'll be the first to tell you I am terrible at technical jargon. I didn't have much of a use for it when I was the only IT person and my vocabulary suffered for it. I still confuse the slash keys, I say the one that leans to the left or to the right. (Horrible I know).

It has become substantially better, but I suffer on cert test for it. I'm bad with names in general, and then you start adding acronyms, ugh.

To the OP if you were to correct me, I'd probably respond with "That is all fine and good, I'm still going to call it whatever the heck I want." Just because I'm that person.

Mow

Haha, I would then refer to it by your terms. I'm not obnoxious about it, but I do try to use the correct terminology because, as I stated, it can save time when trying to fix an issue if I know wat is wrong without having a Rosetta Stone for my customers to try to crack their personal code for all things IT.