help desk woes

people without common sense. sigh...

[1:35:07 PM] ME: Thank you for contacting -job- Technical Support. How may I help you?
[1:35:50 PM] Visitor: Hi, I'm preparing for an -IT related thing- next tuesday. I'm on -company support website- but I don't get the security popup that I'm supposed to get.
[1:36:03 PM] ME: May I please get your name and login ID?
[1:36:23 PM] Visitor: Visitor, -name of thing they are trying to do-
[1:37:01 PM] ME: May I please get your login ID?
[1:37:02 PM] Visitor: -redacted-
[1:37:19 PM] Visitor: Is that what you need...
[1:37:22 PM] Visitor: ?
[1:37:53 PM] ME: What security popup are you expecting to get on the support page?
[1:39:09 PM] Visitor: That page checks bandwith, browser etc, than it says I should press OK, and wait for the popup. I guess the flash-popup to check audio, video
[1:39:52 PM] ME: Does the OK popup say No usable webcam was detected?
[1:40:21 PM] Visitor: Nope, it doesn't show at all
[1:40:50 PM] ME: Do you have a blank white box?
[1:40:49 PM] Visitor: Don't think it is the popup blokker either. Don't see that. Maybe I should reboot the system first.
[1:41:24 PM] Visitor: Nope
[1:41:45 PM] ME: Do you see an area that has a dropdown with 'Do you see your camera?' under it?
[1:42:19 PM] Visitor: yes
[1:42:31 PM] Visitor: dropdowns are empty though
[1:42:46 PM] ME: Above the drop down, do you see video from a camera or nothing?
[1:43:22 PM] Visitor: No video. It contains picture of the popup I should be seeing...
[1:44:03 PM] ME: Does this popup have five tabs and the word close on a button?
[1:45:15 PM] Visitor: Aha, it has 5 tabs. I can click on them....
[1:45:29 PM] ME: Proceed to advise on how to configure adobe settings
[1:45:15 PM] Visitor: Issue fixed.

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Comments

Kai123

I've gone to calls with people saying the PC is broken when they haven't turned the PC and/or monitor on.

Cisco Inferno

1st rule of help desk is to assume everything. especially the obvious first.
Such as, things are not plugged in. And that every user is stupid. No seriously, you'll learn.

The Silent Assassin

Cisco Inferno wrote: »

1st rule of help desk is to assume everything. especially the obvious first.
Such as, things are not plugged in. And that every user is stupid. No seriously, you'll learn.

That is so true. Whenever you are doing end user support always assume that the person you are helping is clueless because if you set expectations, even basic ones, you will be let down.

--chris--

Cisco Inferno wrote: »

1st rule of help desk is to assume everything. especially the obvious first.
Such as, things are not plugged in. And that every user is stupid. No seriously, you'll learn.

First rule of any troubleshooting ticket should be this.

I just spent 2 days looking at a network issue that was relatively obvious once found because I assumed the ISP techs were right. They were wrong!

Shdwmage

Always double check whatever everyone else has already done. Don't trust them to have done it on their own.

Surge

Shdwmage wrote: »

Always double check whatever everyone else has already done. Don't trust them to have done it on their own.

Could not agree with this more. This will bite you on the ass almost every time.

Kai123

Cisco Inferno wrote: »

1st rule of help desk is to assume everything. especially the obvious first.
Such as, things are not plugged in. And that every user is stupid. No seriously, you'll learn.

Very true. Sometimes its painful to go through the same process that a user explicitly has explained they have already done (especially when your on-site), but its apart of the job. Chances are they never did it, or think they did it, or don't want to look stupid so they said they did it.

"That didn't work when I tried it".

Ukimokia

As much as people like to hound on help desk customers. Sometimes I feel like the help desk agents aren't very...helpful. I've worked Help Desk for the last year now and I can not tell you the number of times I've had a customer call in with an issue that they've had for a while and have told me the last 2/3/4+ techs they've talked to haven't been able to fix the issue or have just escalated it. Then I find out it was a simple fix, but no one bothered to take the 10 seconds it takes to actually look at something they should be looking at or this that and the other. I think people assume too much that the user is imcompetent (even though it is mostly true) to the point where they become very arrogant and then end up shirking their jobs. I've learned to never assume anything even the solutions you think are right.

mokaiba

uki, not a matter of being helpful or not. The woe is people contacting tech support for support they can fix themselves just by reading what is on the screen in front of him. In the guys case I had, he needed to adjust the adobe settings on the popup in front of him that was telling him to do it. that is a woe because 75% of my calls and chats are something like that (people not reading what is in front of them).

chronos42

mokaiba wrote: »

uki, not a matter of being helpful or not. The woe is people contacting tech support for support they can fix themselves just by reading what is on the screen in front of him. In the guys case I had, he needed to adjust the adobe settings on the popup in front of him that was telling him to do it. that is a woe because 75% of my calls and chats are something like that (people not reading what is in front of them).

Not to mention that many of them are not technically competent enough to follow basic instructions sometimes. I was on the phone with a guy this morning...his caps lock key was stuck (probably didn't want to admit to spilling a coke on it or something), and I literally had to teach him how the Shift key functions. How people live in 2014 and still don't know some of the most absolute basic computer functionalities is beyond me.

Ukimokia

Actually I would say it is a matter of being helpful. Yes there are people who are contacting the help desk who don't seem to be able to do anything for themselves. Unless ther person is acting incompetent for the sake of trying to get you to do their work. Your job as help desk is to help them. There will always be people who just simply don't understand and/or are over cautious when it comes to technology not just computers in general but any kind of help desk enviroment. That's why you're there in the first place. Unless it's installing software or account management, there is almost nothing that I can do that the customer can't. In a perfect world everyone would have the training and know how to do everything, but it's not, and you can't have the complicated issues that actually take the effort without the little issues like, "My computer wont turn on" and the monitor is turned off. Complaining about customer incompetency is nothing more than just looking for something to complain about, because it's something to be expected. This is nothing new.

I have a much bigger issue with techs who simply just don't do their job because they work at a help desk. I always put 110% into everything I do, and when I see someone putting 10% of the work in because they don't like where they are. That's my help desk woe.

Verities

I have a similar funny story:

When I was a tech support intern I went to an office to help a lady with her printer problems, accompanied by another intern. She tells us that her printer "just stopped working all of the sudden". So I get on her computer, open up control panel, finder her printer, try a test page and nothing happens. I sit there for a minute perplexed while she's looking at me like I'm inconveniencing her, then it dawns on me that I never checked the power for the printer. Sure enough, no lights, no led, power button is in the off position. I push it to the on position, print a test page, and tell her the problem was that she turned off the printer. She then decided to argue with me for about what seemed like 5 minutes that she did NOT hit the power button on the printer (she has a private office and no one had come in our out but me and the intern) while I proceeded to argue that she did. The other intern, wanting to de-escalate the situation interrupts us while looking at her and says "It happens, sometimes these printers turn off". We then leave her office and proceed to laugh all the way back to our office.

Good times.