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Post by alkatraz on Jun 22, 2007 5:03:41 GMT -5
The BIGGEST problem facing tech. support (at least in the UK) isn't the lousy, annoying, bitchy, idiotic customers (although they are a big problem), the problem is the corporate greed that drives the rules they have to abide by and the environment they have to work in.
Minutes per Call
Calls per Hour
Number of times you managed to give birth to Jesus in between calls
Number of times you managed to get someone off of the phone in under 4 seconds without them making a complaint against you
All this and more is because management just won't hire more staff to deal with bitching customers so instead they put more pressure on the staff they already have.. and when they leave, they'll just hire more as it costs the same.
All the while, support staff are not allowed to use their own intelligence and nouse to deal with the problem at hand, more often than not they have to follow a crib sheet - and if they don't.. the random checks made by some arsehole who's paid twice what you are just to sit and listen in on your calls will catch you out and that pay rise will get further and further away.
The customers are bad - but you can get used to them and they are in the end why you are there.. the bosses are why people take their own lives.
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Post by alkatraz on Jun 22, 2007 5:04:56 GMT -5
 b i t c h = pregnant dog??
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Post by Cy Kosis on Jun 22, 2007 5:10:37 GMT -5
b i t c h = pregnant dog?? LMAO..!! That's the proboard profanity filter for you..!! <Cy> |
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Post by phreak on Jun 22, 2007 5:22:54 GMT -5
Yea, I have to agree with you. I used to work for a crappy company that will not be named though it used to be number 4 seller of pc's in the UK and then went Bust a year or 2 later.. then got resurected.. then went bust again. But fortunatly I got out before it even went bust the first time.
They didn't seem to care that we were helping people or not or even if we fixed the problems just that we hit our call targets. Hell we could be telling the customers to reboot the computer 50 times for all they care.
Fortunatly I am in the education sector now and so it is a little bit easier because if a teacher is abusive to you then we can just report them to the head. Mwuuuuhhaahaahaaa
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swoop
New Member
Posts: 7
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Post by swoop on Jun 22, 2007 5:31:54 GMT -5
No, I disagree. It's a double sided coin. On one side you've got numpty (l)users who dont understand, wont read the manual and have to maintain the impression of superiority and generally act as supercillious little tossers....... and on the other you've got bone idle and stupid tech support numpties who have no bleedin clue what their talking about and just want an easy life.
Oh and on the 3rd side of this multidimensional coin you've got idiotic, non technical management that give ridiculous scripts for 1st level tech support plebs to follow which forces them to ask some really daft questions whether they want to or not cos some other numpty is listening to and grading their calls and their end of year bonus depends on it.
You can't win. Just try to keep an open mind.
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Post by alkatraz on Jun 22, 2007 6:06:22 GMT -5
and on the other you've got bone idle and stupid tech support numpties who have no bleedin clue what their talking about and just want an easy life A lot of the time, since the job market is saturated you will actually find people who are qualified to be Unix Sysadmins having to take these jobs and SOUNDING idiotic because they are forced to follow scripts, but actually being frustrated people who just want to help. |
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Post by Trax on Jun 22, 2007 6:13:42 GMT -5
A lot of the time, since the job market is saturated you will actually find people who are qualified to be Unix Sysadmins having to take these jobs and SOUNDING idiotic because they are forced to follow scripts Humm, may be the case in 2nd and 3rd line support roles, it certainly wasn't the case at my last place... Standard hiring practice for 1st line was if they knew what a phone was and could write their name with a crayon, they were hired. Quality Service managers, Customer Support Champions and a whole other slew of titles were rolled out to the most deserving of these people... One 1st liner spent over an hour on the phone to a customer trying to work out why they couldn't get a net connection. I was doing some re-wiring and seen as the Team Leaders were busy patting each other on the back, he asked me. My first question was "Dial up or broadband?" He didn't know... Guess where this is going - yup, they were phoning from the line they were trying to connect on. This wasn't covered in the "Recommended Questions List" so was never asked. Unsurprising the company got swallowed up by a bigger one in the end. Just thank the gods that I was always internal IT and Networks, not a phone monkey. |
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Post by alkatraz on Jun 22, 2007 6:15:49 GMT -5
Trax - the problem you mention.. guess what the cause is... yup! Corporate Greed. Where possible, get away with hiring the most competent idiots you can find that will take minimum wage to be yelled at.
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Post by John on Jun 22, 2007 7:15:09 GMT -5
I fully agree with the corporate greed line, if that wasn't there then I am sure customers would've had a much easier time on the lines. And us staff would get treated a bit better.
I remember one manager who came in as a 'friend' of the bosses son to cover anothers maternity leave. All he knew of call centre management was from those books.
Yes, that's right, every Friday we had quizzes, team building games and prizes given out randomly to the 'best' in x categories. If the money he spent went onto wages and training then perhaps the company wouldn't be in the situation we're in now.
That said he did leave us with a nice pair of sofa's and a glass table in the rec area. Small blessings.
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Post by Bob Dylan on Jun 22, 2007 10:02:52 GMT -5
hahah ;D bitch s h i t = nuts  fuck c o c k = cock p u s s y = pussy |
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Post by jeet on Jun 24, 2007 5:05:34 GMT -5
b i t c h = pregnant dog?? Bitch is female, dog is male. Pregnant dog = freak of nature. |
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Post by jeet on Jun 24, 2007 5:08:52 GMT -5
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Post by Patch on Jun 24, 2007 6:36:43 GMT -5
I work as first line tech support. The company I work for (large multinational insurance based out of England) has recently gone through all kinds of changes.
We used to support something like 1200 different systems, on a multitude of platorms (Windows through UNIX through IBM mainframe, with all kinds of bespoke applications strung together in the 1970's by a child programming a calculator - I'm sure you understand).
We have recently gone through some major changes. To this end we are now 24x7, with effectively no increase in the number of people, we have virtualised with a new team in India.
And we've doubled the number of systems we support (ish... its complicated).
How much was my pay rise, considering :
I have been exdpected to double the amount of knowlege about the systems I have.
As one of the senior geeks I am expected to support everyone else.
I went to India for three months and trained the new team over there.
Yep thats right - £800. Brilliant eh - that puts me on the £15K mark.
oh... and some of my current targets for 'promotion'? To get a 95% first line fix rate. And take 40-60 calls a day. And respond to at least ten mails a day (although I need to do nearer 50 if I want it to be recognised).
This doesn't include project work, training, supporting everyone else, being stand in team leader why the actual TL's are all off in a 'meeting' elsewhere.
This is why you don't get good tech support - if I didn't really enjoy the tech support area i'd have been gone ages ago, to an internal team, getting paid a good 50% + more than I do.
This is why first line sucks - they bang on about it being the most important role (as the 'face of IT') and then pay effing peanuts, get monkeys and the ones who are actually really good feel under recognised and leave. Leaving the dregs to deal with everything.
Customers are AWFUL on a regular basis but they can't help it - they aren't techy's, if they weere they wouldn't be calling.
It is the management to blame when you start getting poor service from your IT help desk. We don't obviously generate money (we are in fact a cost) so they do it with minimum funding.
However factor in 'repeat customer spending' then we are one of the biggest revenue generators in the company.
rant over.
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Post by bofh1961 on Jun 25, 2007 4:38:35 GMT -5
Understaffing is a chronic disease in Britain because with all the employment legislation it makes sense to get as much work as possible out of as few employees as they can get away with. Middle managers build their little empires by taking on more responsibilities rather than by taking on more people thus increasing their staff's workload. My worst customer once complained to my manager about me because I respectfully suggested that if he wanted a certain package to work in a certain way that he petition a certain software manufacturer to make those changes in the next release. He seemed to believe that I could reverse-engineer and then rewrite the software in five minutes for his benefit. He's found me very unhelpful ever since.
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Post by Eres on Jun 26, 2007 14:23:13 GMT -5
Corporate greed may have it's faults, but the customers apettite to choose price over quality 9 times out of 10 is what allows corporations to give such piss-poor service to it's customers.
I get regularly called by so-called unix administrators that don't even know how to use vi.
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