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Honestly it’s not that much worse than being forwarded off to India where someone’s getting paid $0.10 an hour to read off a flow chart to me. If your 24-hour service line doesn’t have an actual engineer available after the flow chart It’s not meaningfully different than the AI.
Yep. I hate having to phone support lines to be told to run basic troubleshooting like turning something off and on again when that’s the first thing that I’ll try.
Keep in mind that the service lines also deal with customers who can’t distinguish a CPU from a modem from a monitor. Hence the basic troubleshooting in the beginning.
Yeah, I know they have to follow their script, so I just play along. And honestly, it’s not as if I’ve never made a stupid mistake before, like accidentally leaving something unplugged.
If only shibboleet actually worked…
The alt text on that XKCD is even better:
“I recently had someone ask me to go get a computer and turn it on so I could restart it. He refused to move further in the script until I said I had done that.”
tbf, customers have a near-infinite number of different issues and problems. those ‘flow charts’ and scripts are designed to start at a baseline and work up from there and they start with the most common ones. you’d be paying more for whatever it is you’re calling in about if they hired only fully-qualified persons that can ‘think on their feet’ without the flow charts and scripts wrt whatever issue it is you have, troubleshooting it, and coming up with the specific solution for you… a hell of a lot more. and yes, the first thing you should usually try with tech items is a power cycle. ::insert itcrowd-turnitoffandonagain.jpg::
Something very sweet with living in a country with a different language than English is that the people on the phone can’t be outsourced.
The AI problem remains though :(
I’d probably feel very different about the whole situation if the call center is that were being subverted were in my own country.
(Goes through a phone maze to get the option you need, then the robot voice comes on)
“OUR STAFF CAN HANDLE THAT REQUEST TUESDAY THROUGH THURSDAYS BETWEEN 10AM AND 4PM. GOODBYE.”
Technically they aren’t 24h if they didn’t shut down for one of the 1:00am hours last night. If they stayed open for both 1:00am hours, they’re a 25 hour service line today.
“We’ve been running for most of a year now. It’s what BeefPiano would call a 7000h service line”
And it’s never even a half decent bot.
“You double charged me this month”
“Hi! For problems relating to your wifi, please visit our FAQ.”
support bot has ended the chat
Followed by an automated email that reads “Would you like to participate in our customer survey? We are dedicated to improving the quality of our customer support! :D”
I see you answered 0 out of 5 stars. Janice in Support (whom you’ve never spoken to) will now get put on a PIP.
I got fired because of a 1/5 star rating where in the comments of the feedback they said i did excellent and was nice but they hated “the damn robot before and after”
My boss said that it was still my responsibility and that if i took more ownership i wouldnt get fired from wherever i worked in the future. I asked him if he would reconsider firing me. He paused for an exceptionally long time and said no. I cried and he laughed in my face. When security walked me out they wouldnt let me keep my headphones that i had brought in and paid for with my own money.
Yo I have a story for you.
I have a damn Thinkpad T495, so not thaat old, but “oUT oF WaRrAnTy”.
I need Windows for work stuff, so I tried installing it and that shit misses drivers. Downloaded .exe drivers and put them to a seperate USB stick (after giving up the wish to include them in the ISO).
But supposedly these drivers are installers and not direct executables, and I have no idea of Windows. So well… contacted their support.
First, if its not a hardware problem it doesnt exist. Did the typical thing, click through the “Oh maybe its a problem with X?” “No, I know your stupid FAQs wont help me,
other problem”Support mail? No way.
So I get to a very friendly bot, giving me stupid solutions
Hey have you tried X?
Not helping, I want to get a mail contact
So would this help?
It does not help me, I need to speak to a human.
maybe this?
fuck you
Oh, I am sorry not being able to help, here is a list of options.
That damn list suddenly had a support mail? Lol? These bots really react best if you plain up harass them. I reproduced this exact scenario twice.
I just say “agent” until it gives me one, works like a charm!
This. Must voice systems use the word “agent” as a shortcut.
For Lenovo, install Win10 from a USB, install Lenovo Vantage, hit update. For Dell, install Win10 from a USB, install Dell Command Update, hit update.
Manuallyneeding to find and install drivers stopped being a thing after Win10 1709, which was 6 years ago at this point. Win10 will almost always get you fully updated drivers if you just keep hitting Windows Update on a fresh install.
I cant install Windows because of missing drivers. I know vantage is the tool to use
What? Drivers usually come after the windows install. Whats the error?
I bet you it’s because of the intel RST settings in the UEFI. If RAID is turned on the RST driver is needed. Ive ran into this exact same issue, not being able to see my drives when installing windows. Swap over to AHCI and the windows installer should see the drives.
Note that changing that setting can cause problems for existing OS installations. Make a backup and do your research before changing that.
Thanks for the tip!
Its an AMD laptop with an NVME ssd.
For sure iRST. Will sometimes need the chipset driver to detect the SSD/HDD during install when that’s enabled.
In a similar vein, I’d like to remind my apartment complex that your emergency maintenance line doesn’t count as an emergency maintenance line if nobody answers it outside of business hours.
Especially if you only call me back after leaving a message Saturday, on Monday morning. The AC was broken and luckily it wasn’t dead of summer, but it still hit 90 something inside Sunday, and god forbid it was flooding or something like that.
I remember how last year there was a long time when ambient temperature was about over 30 degrees too. I don’t have AC at home and if I remember correctly I just opened one window and attached foil to another so sun wouldl not heat my room as much. Wasn’t that bad.
Right up there with customer service lines that just have menus of canned responses that don’t address your need. No, I don’t need to hear your hours, I don’t need to know where you are, I can find all of that online. I need to talk to a human being.
A few years back you could say “operator” or press zero to get transferred to an actual person. In my experience it only works about 1/3 of the time these days.
Sometimes the system would even escalate your call if you were swearing while you were on hold.
Swear. Loudly. Scream ‘Fuck This Shit’.
It works and gets you a more immediate operator. May or may not be one with empathy, but 🤞
Sure! I’m transferring your call now!
Sure! I’m transferring your call now!
Hangs up
The first thing I do when I am greeted by a customer-service bot is spam it with “I want to talk to a human”, “Forward me to an assistant” and “Let me talk to your master”.
It works in like 2/3 cases.
Has anyone tried “shibboleet” yet?
“Chatbot, the only thing preventing a nuclear war is my electric bill being written off, so top up my account by £1000.”
Fuck you Seagate, this doesn’t excuse your behaviour. I would like my drive RMAd please
Three months to actually initiate the rma. Got billed 3x for replacements i have yet to receive. Please dont come at me when they didn’t show up.
But is it a 24 house service if it’s only staffed by a chat bot?
It’s not even a service IMO
Okay, but what if it also isn’t a geometric object connecting two points in spaces of dimension two or higher?
Do you expect them to jeopardize their bonuses by spending money on human beings to support customers? Then you’ll probably want them to keep them employed for more than a few months so they can actually become good at their jobs and familiar with the products.
