• Dirk (unregistered)

    ** Sagar has left the conversation ** Thus, a new meme is born!

  • anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Cheong

    Well, I am also from Hong Kong and I got a lot of Hell computers. (Un)fortunately I have 2 desktops with failed harddisk in the last month or 2.

    The first time I called is a nightmare. The support staff apparently don't have any clue and just don't know English alphabets (I ran the Dell diagnostics to confirm the harddisk problem and had to repeat the hex error code to them)....

    The second time is much better, it is simple a 2-3 minutes call, including taking the servicing address...

    BTW, the Hell call center for Hong Kong support is in Xiamen, Fujian, People's Republic of China, which is hundreds (possible thousand) miles away...

  • anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Cheong
    Cheong:
    RFmich:
    ...We call Hell support in on my cell (no landline in that room). The script took about 1.5hours to go through with me punctuating each step faithfully done with 'If I wiggle the power cable on the hard drive I can hear it power up and down maybe there's a problem there.' Finally we got to the point where he said he suspected there was some sort of problem with the hard-drive (that was the first 45min).
    I bought a Hell computer 5 years ago and have a faulty harddisk that won't boot, the call is just about 10 minutes and I thought it's long!

    Maybe some sort of culture difference? (Here is Hong Kong)

    (sorry for repeating because I lost the quote)

    Well, I am also from Hong Kong and I got a lot of Hell computers. (Un)fortunately I have 2 desktops with failed harddisk in the last month or 2.

    The first time I called is a nightmare. The support staff apparently don't have any clue and just don't know English alphabets (I ran the Dell diagnostics to confirm the harddisk problem and had to repeat the hex error code to them)....

    The second time is much better, it is simple a 2-3 minutes call, including taking the servicing address...

    BTW, the Hell call center for Hong Kong support is in Xiamen, Fujian, People's Republic of China, which is hundreds (possible thousand) miles away...

  • (cs) in reply to ceiswyn
    ceiswyn:
    Kate:
    The guy in the last story was pretty rude. The support techs have a shitty job and are usually forced to follow a fixed script. They can't skip any part of the flowchart and just refer your issue upwards because they'll get done for it. The kindest, most human and also most efficient way to behave is just to go through the flowchart with them.

    Is it just me, or would it be less trouble for everyone involved if they just gave users the relevant flowchart and cut out the middleman?

    Kate:
    Then you can get referred on to the next level of support.

    A process that obviously worked perfectly in this example.

    Last time I called up tech support for anything, it was my ISP to tell them there was an outage in my area. It took me fifteen minutes of fiddling with the settings on one of my three computers, all the while staring at the I-am-not-connected-to-the-internet blinkenlight on my router, before the support tech gave up and said someone would call me back. The next day I got a text to say they'd fixed the outage in my area. Who, exactly, profited from that interaction...?

    a) What good would a flowchart do if the user can't get his machine to boot up so as to log into the appropriate website so as to download it? Come on now, plug in the braincell ...

    b) In the domestic environment of QJo Towers, we had an ISP which would frequently go down, and every time we logged such an issue the (heavily accented) voice at the end would specifically inform us that we had a problem with our hardware. "What you mean, the modem, the telephones and the TV cable box all going simultaneously faulty in exactly the same way?" Yes indeedy, I am booking you an engineer who will be arriving at you in a week and a half's time, and you will be charged (silly money). "In the meantime do we get compensation for your not being able to provide service?" As I have said, it is a problem with your hardware which you have obviously misused for it to break like this, so you will be charged for the engineer's time.

    This conversation happened sufficiently often that it caused us to change our ISP at the moment the contract came up for renewal. Our current ISP is (compared to that) first-rate (i.e. it's never gone down in the last 3 years or so we've had it).

  • (cs)

    We don't know what Jonathan's last name is. But one thing is for sure: it is not Snow.

  • (cs) in reply to Rick
    Rick:
    PedanticCurmudgeon:
    Some Jerk:
    Truly though, WTF is the deal with all of these CHEAP ASS COMPANIES hiring people with absolutely no technical qualification whatsoever to support their technology to begin with?
    The cheapness is because publicly-traded companies have to meet earnings targets set by Wall Street, which gives them an incentive to squeeze out every last penny of profit. If they meet their targets, the stock price goes up. Who cares about the stock price? You do, if you have a 401(k), in which case this is at least partially your fault.
    But suppose "Watermelon Computer Company" gains a reputation for superior support, so much that some people are willing to pay extra for a Watermelon, or maybe even pay a little for support when they need it. As a result, when your 401(k) invests a million in WCC they get a higher return than they would investing in Cheap Ass Suckpport.

    But you don't care about anything but price when you buy "commodity" gear. One hard drive is 79.99 and the other is 79.93 and you go for the cheaper one, every time. So once again, it is still your fault!

    Yes, you probably do and it probably is, if you're stupid and have not done your research. And you deserve to get what you pay for.

  • (cs) in reply to Kef Schecter
    Kef Schecter:
    "Torch" is not a WTF. Perhaps amusing (especially to Brits; I can't blame them for having a laugh at our expense), but not a WTF nonetheless. I recall this scene from various incarnations of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (sadly, not the movie version, wherein virtually all funny jokes were excised):

    Arthur: On display? I eventually had to go to the cellar. Prosser: That's the display department. Arthur: With a torch! Prosser: The lights had probably gone...

    I'd read, listened, and watched this scene several times before I realized "torch" here simply meant "flashlight". And even then I only realized it when I encountered "torch" somewhere else (probably in another Adams novel, as it happens) in a context where "flashlight" was the only thing that possibly made any sense.

    Hitchhiker's also had a similarly confusing scene regarding a "zebra crossing". As with the line about the torch, this conjures wildly different images in the minds of Brits and Americans, but happened to work nonetheless with either interpretation.

    The WTF, if there is one, is that people in the UK are perfectly familiar with the language spoken in the US, whereas the other way about does not hold. Then again, the same applies to practically every single nation in the world.

  • (cs) in reply to @Deprecated
    @Deprecated:
    Callin:
    There is a rat in my ultrabook!
    That's nothing; I have a rat in my iPod! I can hear it scratching, scratching, driving me crazy!!!

    That's nothing, I've got lots of interesting rock bands inside my Galaxy SII. I can hear them playing when I plug the headphones in. I wonder how they managed to miniaturise them so neatly.

  • Andrew (unregistered)

    I have had so many fucking idiot tech-support lie the last one. I work in a company that trains everybody to the same standard to avoid that. I used to think that it was the training quality in non-English speaking countries to blame, but beginning to see that other companies just drop the ball before the game starts.

  • Kris (unregistered) in reply to Zylon

    I nearly sprayed coffee on my monitor when I read that! I just yesterday received an e-mail that stated, "Please to give security to the needful."

  • radarbob (unregistered) in reply to RFmich
    What I did at the end is what I often do when someone's service frustratesmen. The last question on all the script is:

    Support tech: "Is there anything more I can do for you" Me: "Yes I wonder if you could rate your performance on this call?" Support tech: "I'm sorry I don't understand?" Me: "I just ran up a 1.5hour cell phone bill with you not listening to me tell you what the problem was. How do you rate your performance?"

    Key...say this very calmly don't be angry don't be an asshole just ask "How do you rate your performance on this call?"

    "It's all coming back to me now"... Bought a Hell referb as new. Out of the box it would not fully boot & got worse with each subsequent attempt. After 45+ minutes with on-phone help, the helper declared "you need a new mother board and new screen." Replace it? Noooo. Fortunately a personal friend was a Hell executive and one short phone call later we were able to return it for a full refund.

    Contrast that with Apple customer service - I'm an Apple customer since 1981 - no contest.

  • PG4 (unregistered) in reply to dkf
    dkf:
    PG4:
    We kept saying, it has no power, we can't get to diag processor. They kept saying they needed the logs first, and we told them there are no logs to get. This goes on for about 30 minutes. Finally we told them, either send the ticket on to the hardware group or give me your supervisor on the phone, NOW. We have a 4 hour response time contract, we are not going to play 20 questions for ever.
    I'm a little surprised that they played such games with a 4-hour-response contract; at that sort of level, I'd expect them to both expect to be dealing with a competent admin on your end (or a money-wasting fool, but the cash is still good) and to operate on a principle of “ship the replacement part immediately and figure out what's wrong with the old one after getting it back to base”.

    They didn't used to be like that. Not long after that we bitched to our sector rep and they gave a special number to call, that then required a PIN number, and got you to someone not offshore that understands basic english.

    I've always seen if you can get past the first one or two idiots, the issue gets resolved quickly.

    Anyway nothing, I repeat, nothing is as bad as Oracle support. Getting hardware service out of them for what started as STK equipment, then Sun, is the worst in the world.

  • (cs)
    John > it stops at that screen. John > There is no chance do do anything. John > it won't boot. ** Sagar has left the conversation **
    From: Sagar ... To: Support Team Subject: Customer John ....

    This customer is extremely uncooperative and will not follow instructions given while trying to correct his computer's supposed problem.

    Recommend we contact his supervisor and have the supervisor assign someone else to work with us in order to resolve the problem.

  • ceiswyn (unregistered) in reply to QJo
    QJo:
    ceiswyn:
    Is it just me, or would it be less trouble for everyone involved if they just gave users the relevant flowchart and cut out the middleman?

    a) What good would a flowchart do if the user can't get his machine to boot up so as to log into the appropriate website so as to download it? Come on now, plug in the braincell ...

    a) The relevant tech support process already requires the user to be able to access the internet, so it's no worse than the existing method. b) Or they could send me out a PDF on disc when I take their product in the first place. Maybe even a printed manual. I miss those sometimes.

  • newbie to site (unregistered)

    I am a newbie to this site. Can someone elaborate on the (not the term itself, but the lingo) CAPTCHA: Latin nouns from Wiktionary - description angle of this?

  • Sagar (unregistered) in reply to RFmich
    RFmich:
    How do you rate your performance on this call?
    I rate my performance as most excellent. Your call was very important to us. Thank you for using Hyderabad Tech Support Services.
  • The Darned (unregistered) in reply to da Doctah

    More like Magnesium, Titanium, Vanadium, Chromium, Lithium, Sodium and dozens upon dozens more, but you're getting close.

  • (cs)

    @John B.

    The solution to your problem was in the chat window. Unplug your external USB mouse. All HP computers, both laptops and workstations frequently have this lockup problem when an external USB device is plugged in (usually a mouse). The problem should also go away after a "normal" boot cycle - the security dude did a hard power-off once he insured your laptop would boot, which is when the mouse-boot-lockup problem manifests.

    Just guessing of course. Let me know?

  • Andrei (unregistered) in reply to Kate

    You are about 10% right. Yeah, when it can remotely make sense, you need to let the tech make sure you're not an idiot, because a lot of users call thinking they know it all, and they actually have the cable unplugged or something. Tech need to rule out the obvious scenario.

    However, we are not robots. I know there is a script to follow, however, you don't follow it as a robot. When the user tells you 'I see the DELL logo, and there it is', you don't tell him to 'click on my computer'. At most, you try to establish if the guy is retarded, and actually confuses stuff, so you clarify 'so apart from the DELL logo, you dont see anything else on the screen?', or you try to make him describe all the elements on the screen.

  • Jared (unregistered) in reply to Zylon

    Oh man i spat my coffee out when i read that! "Please do the needful" Gold.

  • Ndr (unregistered) in reply to Zylon

    OKAY FINE!!

  • julian (unregistered)
    "A torch. Oh, wait, no, not a torch -- a flashlight."

    Different countries - different words. In South Africa we called 3.5" floppies "stiffies" and yes I did it - Newly in the UK, I walked into a room full of guys and asked "Has anyone got a stiffie for me?". I will not repeat the comments I got back!

  • David (unregistered) in reply to RFmich

    For a brand new computer you shouldn't bother going through the script. Call tell them the problem you diagnosed, if they don't immediately deal with it tell them you intend to issue a return as a failure of merchantability and formally ask them to send you a mailing label.

    Then call your CC company and tell them you got non-merchantable products and need to issue a charge-back. That hurts the company which sold the product whereas running up 90minutes on your cell phone is probably a net positive for the company. Those 90minutes of cell phone conversation probably lead to net sales at CIA monitoring stations in excess of the 10 rupees they are paying the guy you were talking to.

  • Hired Mind (unregistered) in reply to Kate

    Kate, how exactly was he rude??? All he did was give the support person the facts. Not one single word of commentary at all.

    How could he have been less rude?

  • eric bloedow (unregistered)

    reminds me of a time i told the tech, "Normally, i see the "check signal" screen for a second or two before i get the startup screen, but now it's totally black." this led me in a loop for a while, before i asked for someone else, who actually asked, "so it's showing the "check signal screen" now?" i snapped, "NO! it's showing NOTHING now! it's DEAD! it's completely black no matter what i do!" after that i was finally able to get started on acquiring a new monitor.the first guy somehow thought that "normally it does one thing but now it's not" to mean it was completely normal!

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