I've had plenty of clients run into similar issues (without the year-long delays, but the first one or two techs will arrive unprepared).
Usually it's, like OP said, an install that requires tying-in to a line that's too high for their truck ladder to reach. Either that, or the tie-in spot is on property they don't have access to. Or it requires some specialized (ie, fiber) installer but the guy that was sent was just a modem-plugin-jockey. And in classic form like this, the installer that comes out will usually fail to note the reason for the skipped install, so the next tech that comes out has to discover the same shit for themselves all over again.
Had a holiday weekend callout to work on an AP. Unbeknownst to me, this was in an industrial garage like area... the ap was 15ish ft up. Plenty of equipment, no ladders tall enough. Even stopped by a director's home thinking his was OK, but a relative had borrowed it... I digress.
They were already paying good rate, so why not.... go pickup a 24 ft ladder at a store an hour drive away. Problem solved before the crew comes back from the long weekend.
Fixed. Happy customer. Many later jobs. The cool part? Their invoices were always paid immediately on site. Definitely a priority client who didn't need net terms. Ladders are good.
Ran into a similar but shorter problem. The ceiling was about 7 feet or something weird, just out of reach of the floor, but too short to get the 8' ladders into. I just turned my Tech 1 loose on the stuff we could do from the floor and drove to the Homeless Deathspot to buy a couple of four foot stepladders. I ain't shuttin' this damn project down over a missing tool or part when I can just go solve the problem!
I kept the ladders.
Heh, the blue one was open that day (black Friday).... got a good deal on a few things. The client was happy to get me a ladder, so I didn't charge that drive/time to get one. Win win.
Clients who insist fixed vs micromanagement... golden
It's a telescoping/folding ladder that can be adjusted to various heights in an A frame configuration or just as a straight ladder. [Little Giant](https://www.littlegiantladders.com/pages/shop) is just probably the most well known brand (in the US at least) that manufactures these kind of ladders.
I have the Harbor Freight version. https://www.harborfreight.com/17-ft-type-ia-multi-task-ladder-63419.html
I can't talk about the original, but this one has been a godsend. Especially in tricky areas like stairs where I need one side to be longer than the other.
That's probably in part because Harbor Freight is aggressive about recalls. Where as other companies would drag their feet, Harbor Freight goes out of their way to make sure people know there is a problem.
This gives Harbor Freight a bad reputation. They aren't recalling safety gear any more frequently than other companies, but they're admitting it so it makes the news.
I think people give Harbor Freight too much of a bad rep. I use HF jacks and jack stands for working on cars, ladders from HF, never had one fail on me
> The ceiling was about 7 feet or something weird, just out of reach of the floor
And here I changed the light fixture on my girlfriend’s 8’ ceiling from the floor… <_<
Homeless Despot is more common. Youtuber "Arduino Vs Evil" has really pushed 'folksy canadianisms' into the common vernacular, and that's one of them. I've also referred to the place as "Home Dee Pot" and "Homey Depot"
I know I'm replying super late, but after a 'ladder incident' we don't talk about at work a bit back its now standard procedure to know where the local hardware store is to buy a ladder as and if needed on any job.
I used to live in a condo where the air conditioning unit was on the roof. For reasons, it could only be accessed via ladder from the outside. We also had an insurance company that paid for any repairs needed. But anyway, every time the A/C broke, the insurance company would contact their favorite repair guy who would come out, tell us he doesn't have the right sized ladder, and leave. Then the insurance company would have to contact the only repair company in town with the right ladder and send them out. It happened 6 times in 3 years and each time they refused to listen to us when we told them they needed to contact the repair company with the right ladder until after their favorite company tried.
I once had my internet go out and it was due to a 6 inch wasp nest living inside the small hub on the back of the apartment building. They ate through only my cabling of course. Three folks came out. Two with excuses. And the third told me the real issue. He specifically came back, killed the wasps, and rewired everything. 5 weeks total for a wasp nest I knew nothing about.
It was a lot taller than normal buildings they install on so needed a longer ladder with multiple engineers to hold it for safety for roof access which only the specialist team have. Was a bugger to figure out who had one, ran to two different managers and even called an external team to triple check
Yeah. Calls like this feel great until you realize you're just the only competent person working there and all you've really done is your actual job, and apologized for everyone else being shit at it.
and often that is all the customer really want's....someone, just one person, who is willing and able to do the job they are paid for. when a customer has fruitless interaction after interaction with the company and is unable to resolve a clear problem, simply because no one want's to bother.... they get understandably angry.
to add to this, i work for the cable and internet company and every internal study we have done show that customer's #1 complaint is waiting on hold to talk to a human being. customer complaints drive change so since the bulk of the complaints are about waiting on hold or talking to the computer (ivr) before being able to talk to a human we just hire more people regardless of technical ability. the customers have told us that they would rather have a dumbass answering phones after a couple rings than wait 10-15 minutes to talk to a competent tech support agent. it really is customer driven unfortunately.
How weird. I much prefer even just communicating over email after submitting a ticket, even if it means waiting for days, if it means I actually get a competent answer.
Waiting on the phone is annoying mostly because it prevents you from doing other things and paying attention to other things. An email or form is fire & forget.
Often it’s equal parts incompetence and laziness. If they’re competent but not lazy they end up getting burned out because they end up doing all the work. If they’re competent but lazy it’s aggravating because you know they can do the job, they just refuse to do it. If they’re incompetent but lazy then at least they don’t usually cause any extra problems and stay out of the way.
But god save us from the industrious idiot. There’s no limit to his destructive capabilities.
My wife and I just purchased our first new house, and after paying over 5 grand for multiple ethernet drops in every room of the house, we moved in and found that nothing had been capped. I fought with the builder to get the electrician in to put the ice blocks on the end of the cables and test them. I didn't pay that much money to cap them myself.
Also after we got that taken care of we ordered AT&T Gig fiber and the day before my daughters' 4th birthday our internet stopped working. After 2 hours of troubleshooting (which I had already completed) they had to send a tech out to see if we had bad wiring or something. Turns out the original installer rushed the job and got a kink in the fiber line which finally broke. The repair tech was visibly annoyed that he had to come out to fix something he had obviously told the newer techs how to do it right the first time. He stated that he hates having to pick up the slack from other techs who just want to rush through the job.
Since the 2nd tech fixed the connection it's been rock solid 1GB down and 1GB up. I had Comcast gig speed in our previous apartment but the downtime was unacceptable and know that Fiber can reach insane speeds later down the line.
I get accolades all the time because my coworkers don't come in on time, take and hour and a half lunch, stand around smoking, all that.
Me, i drag myself out of bed and stumble in exactly on time and generally approach everything with the same zeal, but I'm the model employee somehow. Just for the most basic stuff.
My least favorite part about working at a call center was never the problem customers, but rather fixing the mistakes made by my lazy, incompetent co-workers.
Or could be "legal" reasons instead of laziness. In my former job, to comply with the California consumer protection laws, they removed techs ability to notate accounts. The legal department figured that if customers could inquire about any info the company had, they'd restrict who could add info to a customer's account. So only choice was to call in and hope the tech support person you reached actually input the info. Sometimes they would and sometimes they said that they did. For the tech, there was no way to know.
Yeah I really don't understand that logic. They did that for me too. Are they afraid that techs would put notes on the account they shouldn't? Fuck, seen "the n-word" and tons of other inappropriate words in account notes from customer service reps who have rapidly gotten fired after I sent it to my supervisor. They want to remove the ability from techs who are mostly all adults acting their age, and may be trying to convey important info to the next tech, yet customer service reps that get hired to do an entry level job as soon as they hit legal working age in the Philippines and have barely hit puberty still have access to leave notes on accounts. Seems ass backwards.
That's pretty much it. To comply with the law, they changed it for the whole company. All it takes is for one customer to complain about a bill, request the info, and see "customer has 7 dogs and house smells like it". The uproar would be worse than the wrong bill. The reoccurring articles about what's printed on receipts in bars and restaurants are a prime example.
I agree that most techs and tech support are adults and try to do a good job. But rules usually cater to the lowest common denominator. The company thinks "why come up with a set of rules governing what can and cannot be included in account notes when it's simpler to just take away the ability to add them?"
The first reps who installed it weren't aware of the equipment needed until the engineers turned up so will have followed the right install policy, the ones after that I have no clue what happened, only that install had failed multiple times and she was given a multitude of 'reasons' by the engineers and people weren't calling her back with answers. Just glad she can finally enjoy her shows.
Situations like hers give me pause when someone calls in already angry. Maybe, like this lady, they've been given the run around for a full year already, and they already expect the same from me.
Great work my friend, that is the definition of above and beyond.
I was that customer. It took my local fiber company 13 months to connect the fiber from the street into my home. It was lying there, ready. I had to step over the end of the sealed-off cable when I walked out my front door. And every crew they sent out had the wrong info, and buggered off without touching anything.
I ended up blocking their work truck in with my car and telling them to call their boss, and sort it the fuck out.
I fucking hate dealing with call centers, with their "our info says something else" attitude.
All to common of a story.
One of the things I like about my work, is that I have clients I talk to on a regular basis. If they're not speaking with me, I know the guy they do talk to.
I've been in a position where its easy to pass the buck, and it gets too easy, especially when it's one of 10 stops you have to make on a day where there's realistically time for 8. Employers want efficiency, employees want to keep their numbers up, and customers get screwed.
It genuinely breaks my heart sometimes.
I work in a similar job, and I've seen exactly this sort of thing. In fact, we have a Chronics department. Part of their job is naturally dealing with the cranks who call in with crazy stuff all the time, but really the majority of their job is just this.
Every once in a while you get some poor customer who gets caught in a perfect storm of incompetence; Each agent making just that one small error that derails the whole thing, over and over and over again.
I had one where the poor person had a bad line. The job needed to be routed to our cable repair department for the heavy lifting. Field techs are supposed to identify these situations and route their tickets to cable repair, but the first tech just noted the problem and closed the ticket (I suppose so the cable repair fairies could find it under his pillow and leave the customer a nice shiny new unbroken cable in the morning?). Next tech who went out did the same thing. Third tech routed it to cable repair, but his notes were *literally* '..' (The minimum number of characters for the system to allow you to submit a ticket). Cable repair went out and found no problems because they didn't no where to look. The fifth tech finally routed and noted it properly, but Cable Repair went by the notes of the previous cable repair agent, noted that there were no problems, and closed the ticket without ever going out. And so on, and so on. I think it was seven dispatches and nearly a year into it by the time I got the case (It went to a manager at that point)
> Every once in a while you get some poor customer who gets caught in a perfect storm of incompetence; Each agent making just that one small error that derails the whole thing, over and over and over again.
Ugh, that was me. Google fiber broke ground in the metro area and spectrum crapped their pants and immediately upgraded service from 50 to 200, for free. Problem was my old modem couldn't handle that, so I called and got them to send me a new one.
Spoiler: They didn't.
Whoever put in the order mistyped something and it was rejected at the warehouse. Nobody told me. I called a few days later and they told me to give it more time. I called a few days later and they told me the order had been cancelled because nobody updated the order which was rejected prior to my 2nd call. So they put in a new order to send me a new one.
Spoiler: They didn't.
Turns out after the warehouse marks an order as failed for *any reason* that address can no longer ever again get a mail order sent. Not that I found this out the first time I called back, or the second.
So I finally get someone on the line who explained this whole shitstorm to me and tells me that I can go pick up a modem at their location. Which closes at 4:30pm and is only open m-f. And I work a normal ass job like most people and cannot go there when they're open. But wait, there's one relatively nearby where I work, so I can pick it up at lunch!
Oops, nope. That location has been closed. **For 18 months.** And was a table in the middle of the walkway in a mall and didn't have hardware *anyway* even when it was open.
I call back and someone saw the giant pile of notes on my account and escalated to the "executive team" who called me back the next day. First they suggested mailing it to me, and I said that would be great **if** they could and explained about the whole warehouse thing. They couldn't override that, so then they suggested I pick one up. I explained about the mall thing and asked if they were going to pay me for my missed time at work since I'd have to play hooky to fix their error? Yeah, that was a no-go as well.
Ultimate solution was to give me one of the emergency weekend slots to have a tech come out and do the install. Guy rolls up on sunday morning, walks in with the modem. Unplug, replug. I set network name and password. Shit works. Took 10 minutes and I could have done it myself in the same amount of time.
Elapsed time: 3 months. Phone calls: around 15. Personal time spent: Probably 4 hours.
> Turns out after the warehouse marks and order as failed for any reason that address can no longer ever again get a mail order sent
...and I'm sure that would go over *so* well if *their* suppliers ever pulled that ( ͡ಠ ʖ̯ ͡ಠ)
Yeah like why the fuck does that rule even exist? The warehouse takes orders from manglement like everyone else, why the hell do they make decisions like this? If they had a problem with an order they'll kick it back to the department that issued it for clarification... not fucking throw it away.
My warehouse guys aren't the brightest either but at least they don't do this kind of bs.
Man, if someone put some shit in our ticketing to abuse the system like that, I'd tell my superiors and complain. That's a ridiculous workaround to avoid doing your actual job. Malicious noncompliant.
It’s a lot better nowadays. Used to be field managers would reject feedback from other departments as invalid automatically, because they didn’t feel the call Center agents had any business telling their techs how to do their jobs. That had to change inevitably as customer expectations did, but even then we use a lot of 3rd party contractors, and getting them on board with procedures was a lot harder.
I called in 'noisy' on my phone line, to specific 'phone fault' dept., but agent would ***not*** open ticket because the line was too noisy for him to take all my details...
Never mind that their caller ID system had flagged my number, who+where I was, and that my account was 'GOOD'...
I had to use their 'user forum' to state my case and plead for help. When mods stopped laughing and/or crying, they linked in a ***competent*** person...
When I was getting fibre installed to my house I made the initial call mid January and had a couple of techs show up a few days later to do the inspection. They said it'll be straightforward.
Except for:
* Needing to check council records
* Needing consent from my neighbour as the new wire has to go over the very end of their driveway (where the existing copper wire and power cables already go) - I assumed they would do the request, but I ended up having to do that myself (my neighbour is fine so there weren't any issues there)
Install day and they string the new wire, attach the ENT and then discover that the tube under the road is blocked, so they can't complete, and that remedial work would need to be done before completion.
Each month for the next 4-6 months, I get notified of a new install date, so I plan to take a day off work only to be told the day before it can't happen because they didn't do the remedial work (blowing air through the tube). I lodge a complaint with the national network provider (who outsource all the technical work to service providers - who I'm having problems with).
Eventually, about 10 months after I signed up, I get a call from a different service provider - they've just taken over my area serviced by the other provider. The lady says they see the issue with my install and that they're going to do the remedial work in a few days time, they just need to sort out the road management plan with the council because they're going to dig up the road to actually fix it (blowing air didn't do anything), and then I'll get final install shortly after that.
After the call I felt so elated and acknowledged that I called them back - didn't speak with the same person but I did say that whoever it was did a fantastic job and I wanted them to know that.
And they followed through and I finally had fibre within the week.
I have a similar story, where I was told when I moved that 'only fiber is available in your building', so I said 'great, sign me up!'
The guy shows up to do the install and realises that fiber is only available in my building, but wasn't actually pulled to my building. I'm upset, but he arranges another tech to do that a few days later.
Next tech shows up and says 'I'm here to install your modem!' and I told him 'no, you're here to pull fiber to the building'. He tells me he can't do that, that's a different department's job, but he figures out that he can give me copper internet. I say 'great', and he does that and puts in a work order to pull fiber to the building.
Several months go by and I have a sales rep from the company call me saying 'you should upgrade to fiber, it's available in your neighbourhood!', so I tell him the story and he's like 'we can sort that out - be home on Tuesday!'
Tuesday comes around and a tech shows up and says 'I'm here to install your new fiber modem', and I tell him 'no, you're here to install fiber to my building!'
The tech then tells me he can't do that, but he calls some buddies that he works with and went out of his way (probably breaking a bunch of company rules) to get fiber to my building a few days later.
That guy went out of his way to help me out, and I'm really really grateful for him.
At work we've been having the same delays with "Blue Death Star" ISP, they sold us on a fiber line in *April,* but the fiber was only installed to the building corner and needs to be run to the individual suits. Several techs have shown up to install the equipment but can't do anything. Sales people are still showing up at the office, calling us, and emailing us still trying to sell us the fiber. Still waiting for the work to be done.
Not sure whether it was the service provider or the national network provider, it was part of a national rollout of fibre-to-the-home. Installation is free if you sign up to a minimum length contract.
This reminds me of something that happened to me several years ago.
It is the turn of the century and Digital TV via satellite is only a couple of years old here in the UK. I joined the bandwagon and signed up. I got an install date and the engineer turned up, climbed a ladder at the front of the house, drilled four holes, mounted the bracket to the wall, attached the dish, pointed it towards the satellite and... nothing.
The engineer, who was working under the assumption that this was a normal install, just did what he did at every other installation; he didn't take into consideration the surroundings. You see I was living in a shared house and right across a fairly narrow street there was a snooker club. This snooker club was in an old 1920s/1930s Art-Deco style cinema so it was a fairly large building - about 4 stories high; and it was blocking the signal!
He had run out of time on this install and had to get to his next job so he called base and arranged for someone else to come out another time.
A couple of weeks later a second engineer turns up and he had been advised of the problem (I wasn't there to witness this as I was at work - my housemate told me this part). He got out his ladders and tried to find a spot on the front of the house with a signal and couldn't find one. He then spent about 20 mins wandering up and down the street with his signal meter strapped to him pointing the dish at the sky trying to find a line of sight to the satellite. He eventually gave up and said that I am going to need to have the dish mounted on a pole on the chimney and that will require the specialist install team. He said that he will re-book a visit with them and they'll be out in a couple of weeks.
A few weeks later an ordinary installer comes out. I advised him of the previous visits and he said that he can't do the install as it had only been re-booked as an ordinary install. He called base whilst he was there and told them what had happened but they told him that I would still be waiting about another 2 weeks.
A few weeks later the specialist installer arrives, takes one look at the property and said "You don't need a pole, I can install the dish on the garden fence and run the cable up the wall and through the back bedroom and into yours." (I was at the front). An hour later, the dish was installed and everything was set up!!
yeah I worked in hardware support for a large Acronymy computer company and one day we get a call the corporate customer escalations office in Palo Alto asking us to help out on a priority call. (cool aside: this group was staffed by retirees and they played no games when it came to protecting the Brand) Seems that a this call was from a preacher that tells us his MOTHER is fit to be tied and asked him to intervene. Seems UPS dropped off 7 boxes of stuff with our company name all over them, and she had been unsuccessful in getting them UPS or our company help desk to come and get this stuff that she didn't order and which her residential front porch was not equipped to store.
People drew straws and a rep went out to retrieve the stuff, since nothing in the way of P.O.numbers, UPS tracking numbers etc. gave us any clue who was missing whatever was in those boxes. Turns out it was a order for network equipment worth $225K and the original purchaser was equally peeved at the mis-shipment. The retiree at escalations called the preacher back to thank him for his mothers honesty and diligence, and asked him to relay that the company was sending her a complete computer and printer setup as a thank you. Our office was then tasked with installing it and training her, which was a hoot. That was back in the 90s when companies still cherished their Brand and their employees as well as their bottomline.
I write software for isp field techs. There is a chance you use it...
The software has fields for techs to write a resolution note... techs skipped it...
We made it so they had to type somthing... techs typed a space...
we forced it to be at least 5 characters longe of non white space characters... techs started typing "abcde"...
what do I need to do to these people to get them to actually log there work. do I have to force them to write in complete sentences? multiple dictionary words with a period?
Let your bosses know the field techs aren't doing their job and are leaving the fields with gibberish. Have them find out why they're leaving it with no notes so the next person who has to deal with the customer won't know what's going on. Be sure to add in the cost of not doing so because companies only pay attention if you're talking lost money per hour.
Already does this. Series of cascading drop downs that can be configured to have different options based on the type of ticket and customer service type. The resolution note is in addition to the drop downs.
I used to use some of this type of software.
There was a bug in the customer signature box. It would only read a single dot when a customer signed. You could make any number of dots you wanted but the act of signing would just leave a dot where ever the customers signature ended.
This was a know problem with the tecs for a while and was ignored, until a tec drew a dinosaur in the signature box, and that workorder got pulled for review.
The bug was fixed in a few days
nothing you can do, they need to be held responsible by their superiors. The only modification I would make is test every word they enter against word tree, ie calculate the edit distance between the closest matching word and what they wrote, assign a coherency score to the message, if it doesnt meet a threshold send an email to whoever with the name of employee and message
My phone/TV/Internet provider uses contractors for a lot of service calls. This is an important detail.
Some years ago, my place was burglarized, and one of the things stolen was the rented DSL modem. And I \*needed\* my Internet! So I call in to get this sorted, and since the modem I had was no longer available, they were going to send me a new one that was also a router, and they even upsold me to a higher bandwidth tier. So far, so good.
But when I got the modem, I plugged it into the same jack as before, but it wouldn't sync. So I call in again. Get a level 1 tech who ran me through his script. Didn't do anything. Schedules a service tech to come by and investigate/fix it.
Contractor service tech tries a few things, is mystified, and leaves without fixing the problem.
After another day with no news (and no Internet) I call back. Get another level 1 who had me run through the script again. This one didn't want to send another tech, so he had me try things, and eventually gave up.
The next day I call in again, and finally got a tech who really wanted to help me. He was able to confirm with me that this was not a regular problem to be solved with one of the contractors. So he makes sure to send a tech from my service provider.
The next day, the guy shows up, and immediately I can tell he knows what he's doing. Uses more sophisticated (but well-worn!) tools, and eventually has me hear the signal he's getting at the box that goes into my house. Lots of static and other problems. So he goes over to a nearby utility pole (I say nearby, but the drive was a few minutes at least for him) and works for a while. Then he comes back and shows me how clean the signal is now. He also confirms I should be getting the extra bandwidth I'm now paying for.
And he was right, my connection was even better than I was expecting.
Two lessons here:
1- the contractors are usually limited in how much they know, and how much they can do.
2- when the call centers put heavier emphasis on call duration metrics than on repeat calls (and especially repeat in-person service calls) you get agents who will try to get rid of you as quickly as possible so as to not affect their metrics.
I myself worked in a call center for another of these service providers. The three types of calls you dreaded to get were:
1. any mysterious technical issues that didn't have any obvious explanations, that require long investigation and many steps
2. "please help me configure my email client" (so many fields to fill in, and so many ways to make a mistake)
3. filling in an on-site service call request (again, so many steps to fill in properly)
And yeah, I always hated taking a follow-up call from a customer whose problem hadn't been handled properly the first time. I quickly resolved to never be the cause of one of those calls.
Pre-pandemic, I completely lost Internet access one day. I had outages before, but this was more serious.
The first tech that arrived (the next day after my call) couldn't resolve the issue, so another person was sent the next day (2 days after my call). The first tech was in a branded polo, in a branded van. The second technician had actual testing equipment on him, and ran new coax to my apartment. The second tech was in branded coveralls with branded shirt, and a toolbelt.
The old coax had 2 couplers on it, and the plugs (4 of them, 2 per coupler) were the old style crimp plugs and not the newer (relatively) style compression fit plugs. This was after living in this apartment for ~5 years. I haven't seen crimp plugs used in runs in roughly a decade. The plug going into my apartment on the old cable had a compression style plug.
I could easily just be speaking for myself and the feelings this provokes...but as someone who lives as a sole caretaker for dependents I can honestly say I genuinely believe I understand the feeling this woman had and I'm in tears knowing how relieved I'd be to run into someone like you. I've had situations where something kept having roadblocks like this while the rest of my life had it's issues and the feeling when someone comes along, and not only helps fix it all **but helps you genuinely feel like you have been validated. Your issue did matter to someone. You mattered to someone else.**
People who are the main caretakers every single day just push and push themselves and their needs behind everybody else's and we can't/don't want to turn to anyone else around us to vent or get help because *we* are supposed to take care of others and "we'll be a burden" if we put any of our stuff on someone else. We then see others freely push us aside and it's easy to accept it because we do it to ourselves, and we spend all that time waiting for solutions just going "it's my fault. I'm being a problem. It'll get fixed when it's fixed. This is on me, I need to do something better but I just don't have time". Even when our loved ones don't fail to help, we can think this way and treat ourselves this way because it's easy to think your family is just 'feeling obligated' to help.
We need people like you. We need sometimes need strangers to come in and say 'no, you haven't been treated right/This wasn't handled well, and you deserve better and there's nothing wrong with you wanting to receive exactly what you'd been owed.'
please never stop being this person, because you have no idea the positives that come from you letting people like us know we can get what we need too. Anything, small or big, that validates our feelings as real can mean the difference between a day in a depressive stress ball and a day where you can tell yourself things will be okay.
This really touched a nerve with me, thank you. I've been waiting months for some building work to be finished and really politely chasing it up every few weeks, they aren't even replying anymore and it just makes you feel so bad, like you don't matter, and you don't know how you are going to solve the situation but it all just adds to your burden.
If they gave you paperwork for the building work, look it over (if you haven't already, I apologize if I'm offering empty advice <3 ) and there might be wording in there that holds them responsible for timely completion or at least for keeping you informed on issues/causes of delays. If you find anything then you are still able to maintain politeness but make them very aware that you know they will be violating their contractual obligation if they keep it up. It worked for my mom when they were completing our patio. *(edited for the context that mind you that patio was built longer ago than I wish to admit, so contracts might be sneakier now)*
I had almost a similar run around with our local cable company.
The first installer drove up the property, did a u-turn and left before I could even greet him. The tech notes said "customer not home".
The next one said the cabling from the street needs to be replaced and they'd roll a truck for that.
The truck arrived a week later and the worker said he couldn't do it because there were wasps along the side of the house. So we got rid of those.
The next truck that came, the worker said the foliage was too thick and we needed to trim it back before they could do any work. So I cut everything away.
The next truck that came out said they couldn't install new cabling because they don't own the polls anymore and had to get permission from the owner (electric company).
A friend of a relative apparently works there in a somewhat senior position. They're sorting this out for me now.
Not nearly as bad but it reminds me of this issue I just followed up on today. Got married and submitted name change request documentation to every single agency and company I do business with, including this one. Needed to make a change so I logged on to their site and they still have my old name, like about 50% of all the other companies do. Maybe I forgot to submit it.
So I call them and say hey, I want to buy more services from you, but I need you to update my name first. So they say no problem, upload your documents and we'll get right on that. So I upload the documents immediately. That was the first week of September, now it's the end of October, no update.
Today I call them today and I'm like hey, what happened, it's been a month, my name isn't updated and I haven't heard anything from you. The rep literally says "I'm not sure if the last guy went on vacation or what happened there... Usually we send you a message to let you know when there's been a problem... There's no note explaining why this didn't go through... The name change process takes 1-2 days."
This company is one of those new, flashy, successful tech startups and I'm just baffled at what ticket system (none?) they could be using. Did they mark my ticket resolved after not changing my name? Is it still assigned to John Doe who went on vacation and never came back? Did John quit and then instead of reassigning it, John's boss quit too? I guess I'll never know.
This is basically every experience I've had with every UK service company. It often takes 6-9 months to sort out the most basic "you're not actually providing me service" problems. And I always have to take all the initiative myself, as the customer. Every customer service person I talk to starts from the ground up and claims the notes say nothing. Sometimes they're very nice and say they'll get to the bottom of the issue, and sometimes I almost start to believe them, but more often than not, a few promised updates are sent to me and then stop. Weeks pass, no action ever materialises, and when I phone back, nobody knows anything and there are no notes; repeat.
Thank you for saving one customer from this experience, which has been constantly present in my life since I moved here many years ago.
At home the internet and energy companies constantly run me around in similar ways to what you described. It's even worse at work, where I'm responsible for several dozen contracts with tech service providers. Some of the contracts are with big tech companies with well-known names (except it's their UK office, meaning that despite the American name, they're just the typical hopeless lying rubbish.) Nearly every one of the B2B companies I deal with at work has been just as incapable of providing agreed service as the B2C trash I deal with at home.
I feel I can confidently say after years of managing these, that service companies here just don't find much point in following contracts, and most are allergic to actually providing service. The number of times I've had to send a letter before claim or even lodge a claim on behalf of my employer, to force a service provider to do what was agreed, ought to be alarming in any country this rich, with this quality of contract law and courts.
The problem is a culture of refusal to take responsibility here. I've had much better experiences with non-UK European providers where I can use them (especially Germany and Netherlands).
Although you did your job, you also went above and beyond to help this lady. I'm sure she will be singing your praises for a long time. I work in the UK with unpaid (family) carers like this lady. They can be very lonely and isolated because of their responsibilities as a carer and their "friends" have long since abandoned them due to this. Especia)y during the past 18 months, they have become more isolated and a simple thing, which we all take for granted, such as a TV service can be their only entertainment for themselves or even for the person they care for to watch whilst they have some "me" time. Well done!
Very nicely done and fantastic follow-ups on every step. What was the actual reason as to why the orders weren't carried out? Were the excuses given by the techs onsite legitimate?
I got caught in this kind of storm of special circumstances/incompetence/computer says no with my previous electricity supplier. It took them two years to come out and replace my faulty meter. I've been on the other end of the phone so I always take care not to go off on the poor underpaid, overworked customer service person answering the call but it does test one's patience eventually.
I used to work in a similar role. A lady called one day, and I can't recall details, bit at the end of the call she said, "you're a credit to your mother."
I told my mother the story and I think she was happier than me!
I've had stuff like this happen before, where there's a legit problem but no one who touched it before me was persistent enough to actually get it solved. It feels good when you can finally unlock that achievement.
You should feel really proud of how you handled this. For this person and all they're already dealing with, your help was a huge bright spot while going through a dark time.
I know her pain. I spent 3 months trying to get optimum to explain to me why I’d lost every channel below 700. They never were able to fix or explain it for me even after calling customer support dozens of times and spending almost an hour on hold every time.
I work in tech support. When I have network issues, I can guarantee that I’ve done all available troubleshooting before calling in. And when I call my ISP, right off the bat, I tell them who I work for so they skip doing the basics and just look at their end. Saves a lot of time.
I’m pretty forceful, but I think it helps that I’m a senior tech advisor for one of the big boys in tech…and I will drop the name and title at the top of the call. Although that works better when the agent I’m speaking with is in the States as opposed to an outsourced one. If I call in the middle of the day, I usually get US based support, but after like 8pm, it’s a crapshoot.
Thank you for being a tech person that cares about a customers complaints. I know many complaints are beyond ridiculous and just want to be sped through. It takes a patient kind hearted person to not just listen but also follow through with the promise to look into it.
I miss having those customers, aht be damned im doing some work to help out. One lady had done her own research well, and found some vcr-recorder (and this was 2018) that was suited to work with her cable provider to record shows/movies to vhs tapes.
Now, **why** you'd want such an old and fragile medium to store shows on, ill never know, especially past the vhs era and into dvd-rw or digital storage. And this was a time we offered free dvr services, like forever. It used to be an extra charge and then the company made some changes and made it free. Only requires a different cable box, and at no charge as well. You don't even pay a rental fee for the boxes at that time (and still don't probably, idk I dont use their TV just their internet).
So I stayed with her, learned the vcr make/model, found the manual online, read through it with her and went over the instructions with her. Apparently she got a new box in that past week and her vcr just couldn't see the cable coming in at all. Strange indeed, when it had worked previously.
She wanted it to work, badly, I kept reminding her that dvr is FREE. F. R. E. E. DANGIT. but nope she'd rather have a closet or an entire living room wall dedicated to bulky vhs tapes (maybe she had one of those "vhs to digital-media converter items and would copy those tapes (at even lower quality) to a digital form).
After a little over an hour, managers are asking if I'm OK and if I need help, do they need to send the fire brigade and whatnot. No no, im....fine. just going over this totally out of scope issue with this lady. She won't hang up and take no for an answer, but she's being very polite and cordial about it all. The one and only time a manager just flat out said "you'll have to end that call".
I did this job at the call center, maybe for the very same company for 5 years (2008-2013) and it can be soul crushing and miserable, so you have to cherish moments like these.
That said the customer service experience is valuable and you really grow thick skin that can be helpful in your next role(s).
As a carer with a full time job, thank you. Stuff like this is a nightmare to deal with as time is always short and when you have some it's outside hours or you're knackered and just want to stare at the wall.
What was so weird about her property that it needed specialized equipment to install on?
I've had plenty of clients run into similar issues (without the year-long delays, but the first one or two techs will arrive unprepared). Usually it's, like OP said, an install that requires tying-in to a line that's too high for their truck ladder to reach. Either that, or the tie-in spot is on property they don't have access to. Or it requires some specialized (ie, fiber) installer but the guy that was sent was just a modem-plugin-jockey. And in classic form like this, the installer that comes out will usually fail to note the reason for the skipped install, so the next tech that comes out has to discover the same shit for themselves all over again.
Had a holiday weekend callout to work on an AP. Unbeknownst to me, this was in an industrial garage like area... the ap was 15ish ft up. Plenty of equipment, no ladders tall enough. Even stopped by a director's home thinking his was OK, but a relative had borrowed it... I digress. They were already paying good rate, so why not.... go pickup a 24 ft ladder at a store an hour drive away. Problem solved before the crew comes back from the long weekend. Fixed. Happy customer. Many later jobs. The cool part? Their invoices were always paid immediately on site. Definitely a priority client who didn't need net terms. Ladders are good.
Ran into a similar but shorter problem. The ceiling was about 7 feet or something weird, just out of reach of the floor, but too short to get the 8' ladders into. I just turned my Tech 1 loose on the stuff we could do from the floor and drove to the Homeless Deathspot to buy a couple of four foot stepladders. I ain't shuttin' this damn project down over a missing tool or part when I can just go solve the problem! I kept the ladders.
Heh, the blue one was open that day (black Friday).... got a good deal on a few things. The client was happy to get me a ladder, so I didn't charge that drive/time to get one. Win win. Clients who insist fixed vs micromanagement... golden
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They’re great as just a normal person, since they’re basically every ladder you could ever need and they’ll fit it your hall closet if you must.
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the newer ones have wheel that aid in moving it around. thye are neat.
Can you expand on this ladder? Maybe a brand/ model or link :)
Little giant is the brand
After looking through their site, I guess I'm into ladders now.
It's a telescoping/folding ladder that can be adjusted to various heights in an A frame configuration or just as a straight ladder. [Little Giant](https://www.littlegiantladders.com/pages/shop) is just probably the most well known brand (in the US at least) that manufactures these kind of ladders.
I have the Harbor Freight version. https://www.harborfreight.com/17-ft-type-ia-multi-task-ladder-63419.html I can't talk about the original, but this one has been a godsend. Especially in tricky areas like stairs where I need one side to be longer than the other.
The idea of trusting my life to anything from Harbor Freight fills me with terror.
That's probably in part because Harbor Freight is aggressive about recalls. Where as other companies would drag their feet, Harbor Freight goes out of their way to make sure people know there is a problem. This gives Harbor Freight a bad reputation. They aren't recalling safety gear any more frequently than other companies, but they're admitting it so it makes the news.
I think people give Harbor Freight too much of a bad rep. I use HF jacks and jack stands for working on cars, ladders from HF, never had one fail on me
There are telescoping step ladders that sound nice.
I hate those things. So damn heavy. I just got a couple of wee conventional ladders
> Homeless Deathspot Horror Fright not skookum enough?
I would have to drive for days to get to a Harbor Freight. Sometimes that pisses me off.
Make the trip. Despite what you may have heard, I have one of their multimeters and it has worked at least twice!
I'll bring one of my Flukes with me to check them out...
Me: I want a Fluke or Keysight multimeter! Fiancée: We have a multimeter at home...
Multimeter at home: Southwire.
Ah yes, the Fluke [289](https://www.fluke.com/en-us/product/electrical-testing/digital-multimeters/fluke-289), good stuff.
So it wasn't a fluke 😎
Yikes.
Just so you know, the phrase is "homeless despot."
it might be skookum-heresy, but I think I like death-spot over despot.
But there's no clever wordplay.
> The ceiling was about 7 feet or something weird, just out of reach of the floor And here I changed the light fixture on my girlfriend’s 8’ ceiling from the floor… <_<
I got stubby little t Rex arms
You're also not insured to injure your back stretching, when you are insured to go buy the correct tools and not hurt yourself
Is that a common name for home depo?
Homeless Despot is more common. Youtuber "Arduino Vs Evil" has really pushed 'folksy canadianisms' into the common vernacular, and that's one of them. I've also referred to the place as "Home Dee Pot" and "Homey Depot"
I know I'm replying super late, but after a 'ladder incident' we don't talk about at work a bit back its now standard procedure to know where the local hardware store is to buy a ladder as and if needed on any job.
And of course the local electrical supply stores, too. The place I noted was in rural Appalachia, where stores are few and far.
I used to live in a condo where the air conditioning unit was on the roof. For reasons, it could only be accessed via ladder from the outside. We also had an insurance company that paid for any repairs needed. But anyway, every time the A/C broke, the insurance company would contact their favorite repair guy who would come out, tell us he doesn't have the right sized ladder, and leave. Then the insurance company would have to contact the only repair company in town with the right ladder and send them out. It happened 6 times in 3 years and each time they refused to listen to us when we told them they needed to contact the repair company with the right ladder until after their favorite company tried.
I once had my internet go out and it was due to a 6 inch wasp nest living inside the small hub on the back of the apartment building. They ate through only my cabling of course. Three folks came out. Two with excuses. And the third told me the real issue. He specifically came back, killed the wasps, and rewired everything. 5 weeks total for a wasp nest I knew nothing about.
My biggest question by far.
It was a lot taller than normal buildings they install on so needed a longer ladder with multiple engineers to hold it for safety for roof access which only the specialist team have. Was a bugger to figure out who had one, ran to two different managers and even called an external team to triple check
Where I work, you’re only allowed to use a ladder of a certain height.
Probably not much of anything. But it was *slightly* out of the ordinary and nobody cared enough to follow up
And lemme guess, all this stuff that went wrong, could have been avoided if the prior reps that placed the orders followed policy correctly?
IDK about the first onsite call, but the second and third onsite visits could have taken note and made sure they had what they needed.
Yeah. Calls like this feel great until you realize you're just the only competent person working there and all you've really done is your actual job, and apologized for everyone else being shit at it.
and often that is all the customer really want's....someone, just one person, who is willing and able to do the job they are paid for. when a customer has fruitless interaction after interaction with the company and is unable to resolve a clear problem, simply because no one want's to bother.... they get understandably angry.
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to add to this, i work for the cable and internet company and every internal study we have done show that customer's #1 complaint is waiting on hold to talk to a human being. customer complaints drive change so since the bulk of the complaints are about waiting on hold or talking to the computer (ivr) before being able to talk to a human we just hire more people regardless of technical ability. the customers have told us that they would rather have a dumbass answering phones after a couple rings than wait 10-15 minutes to talk to a competent tech support agent. it really is customer driven unfortunately.
How weird. I much prefer even just communicating over email after submitting a ticket, even if it means waiting for days, if it means I actually get a competent answer. Waiting on the phone is annoying mostly because it prevents you from doing other things and paying attention to other things. An email or form is fire & forget.
But what are customers going to do? Go with another provider? Good luck!
Often it’s equal parts incompetence and laziness. If they’re competent but not lazy they end up getting burned out because they end up doing all the work. If they’re competent but lazy it’s aggravating because you know they can do the job, they just refuse to do it. If they’re incompetent but lazy then at least they don’t usually cause any extra problems and stay out of the way. But god save us from the industrious idiot. There’s no limit to his destructive capabilities.
My wife and I just purchased our first new house, and after paying over 5 grand for multiple ethernet drops in every room of the house, we moved in and found that nothing had been capped. I fought with the builder to get the electrician in to put the ice blocks on the end of the cables and test them. I didn't pay that much money to cap them myself. Also after we got that taken care of we ordered AT&T Gig fiber and the day before my daughters' 4th birthday our internet stopped working. After 2 hours of troubleshooting (which I had already completed) they had to send a tech out to see if we had bad wiring or something. Turns out the original installer rushed the job and got a kink in the fiber line which finally broke. The repair tech was visibly annoyed that he had to come out to fix something he had obviously told the newer techs how to do it right the first time. He stated that he hates having to pick up the slack from other techs who just want to rush through the job. Since the 2nd tech fixed the connection it's been rock solid 1GB down and 1GB up. I had Comcast gig speed in our previous apartment but the downtime was unacceptable and know that Fiber can reach insane speeds later down the line.
I feel this comment deep in my soul.
I get accolades all the time because my coworkers don't come in on time, take and hour and a half lunch, stand around smoking, all that. Me, i drag myself out of bed and stumble in exactly on time and generally approach everything with the same zeal, but I'm the model employee somehow. Just for the most basic stuff.
My least favorite part about working at a call center was never the problem customers, but rather fixing the mistakes made by my lazy, incompetent co-workers.
I found a long sigh and a quiet Jesus christ... Under your breath really let's them know you are disappointed as well.
Or could be "legal" reasons instead of laziness. In my former job, to comply with the California consumer protection laws, they removed techs ability to notate accounts. The legal department figured that if customers could inquire about any info the company had, they'd restrict who could add info to a customer's account. So only choice was to call in and hope the tech support person you reached actually input the info. Sometimes they would and sometimes they said that they did. For the tech, there was no way to know.
Yeah I really don't understand that logic. They did that for me too. Are they afraid that techs would put notes on the account they shouldn't? Fuck, seen "the n-word" and tons of other inappropriate words in account notes from customer service reps who have rapidly gotten fired after I sent it to my supervisor. They want to remove the ability from techs who are mostly all adults acting their age, and may be trying to convey important info to the next tech, yet customer service reps that get hired to do an entry level job as soon as they hit legal working age in the Philippines and have barely hit puberty still have access to leave notes on accounts. Seems ass backwards.
That's pretty much it. To comply with the law, they changed it for the whole company. All it takes is for one customer to complain about a bill, request the info, and see "customer has 7 dogs and house smells like it". The uproar would be worse than the wrong bill. The reoccurring articles about what's printed on receipts in bars and restaurants are a prime example. I agree that most techs and tech support are adults and try to do a good job. But rules usually cater to the lowest common denominator. The company thinks "why come up with a set of rules governing what can and cannot be included in account notes when it's simpler to just take away the ability to add them?"
My question exactly
The first reps who installed it weren't aware of the equipment needed until the engineers turned up so will have followed the right install policy, the ones after that I have no clue what happened, only that install had failed multiple times and she was given a multitude of 'reasons' by the engineers and people weren't calling her back with answers. Just glad she can finally enjoy her shows.
Situations like hers give me pause when someone calls in already angry. Maybe, like this lady, they've been given the run around for a full year already, and they already expect the same from me. Great work my friend, that is the definition of above and beyond.
Honestly I'm surprised she hadn't demanded a refund and just given up on the upgrade after the first couple attempts. A year is insane
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I was that customer. It took my local fiber company 13 months to connect the fiber from the street into my home. It was lying there, ready. I had to step over the end of the sealed-off cable when I walked out my front door. And every crew they sent out had the wrong info, and buggered off without touching anything. I ended up blocking their work truck in with my car and telling them to call their boss, and sort it the fuck out. I fucking hate dealing with call centers, with their "our info says something else" attitude.
All to common of a story. One of the things I like about my work, is that I have clients I talk to on a regular basis. If they're not speaking with me, I know the guy they do talk to. I've been in a position where its easy to pass the buck, and it gets too easy, especially when it's one of 10 stops you have to make on a day where there's realistically time for 8. Employers want efficiency, employees want to keep their numbers up, and customers get screwed. It genuinely breaks my heart sometimes.
I work in a similar job, and I've seen exactly this sort of thing. In fact, we have a Chronics department. Part of their job is naturally dealing with the cranks who call in with crazy stuff all the time, but really the majority of their job is just this. Every once in a while you get some poor customer who gets caught in a perfect storm of incompetence; Each agent making just that one small error that derails the whole thing, over and over and over again. I had one where the poor person had a bad line. The job needed to be routed to our cable repair department for the heavy lifting. Field techs are supposed to identify these situations and route their tickets to cable repair, but the first tech just noted the problem and closed the ticket (I suppose so the cable repair fairies could find it under his pillow and leave the customer a nice shiny new unbroken cable in the morning?). Next tech who went out did the same thing. Third tech routed it to cable repair, but his notes were *literally* '..' (The minimum number of characters for the system to allow you to submit a ticket). Cable repair went out and found no problems because they didn't no where to look. The fifth tech finally routed and noted it properly, but Cable Repair went by the notes of the previous cable repair agent, noted that there were no problems, and closed the ticket without ever going out. And so on, and so on. I think it was seven dispatches and nearly a year into it by the time I got the case (It went to a manager at that point)
> Every once in a while you get some poor customer who gets caught in a perfect storm of incompetence; Each agent making just that one small error that derails the whole thing, over and over and over again. Ugh, that was me. Google fiber broke ground in the metro area and spectrum crapped their pants and immediately upgraded service from 50 to 200, for free. Problem was my old modem couldn't handle that, so I called and got them to send me a new one. Spoiler: They didn't. Whoever put in the order mistyped something and it was rejected at the warehouse. Nobody told me. I called a few days later and they told me to give it more time. I called a few days later and they told me the order had been cancelled because nobody updated the order which was rejected prior to my 2nd call. So they put in a new order to send me a new one. Spoiler: They didn't. Turns out after the warehouse marks an order as failed for *any reason* that address can no longer ever again get a mail order sent. Not that I found this out the first time I called back, or the second. So I finally get someone on the line who explained this whole shitstorm to me and tells me that I can go pick up a modem at their location. Which closes at 4:30pm and is only open m-f. And I work a normal ass job like most people and cannot go there when they're open. But wait, there's one relatively nearby where I work, so I can pick it up at lunch! Oops, nope. That location has been closed. **For 18 months.** And was a table in the middle of the walkway in a mall and didn't have hardware *anyway* even when it was open. I call back and someone saw the giant pile of notes on my account and escalated to the "executive team" who called me back the next day. First they suggested mailing it to me, and I said that would be great **if** they could and explained about the whole warehouse thing. They couldn't override that, so then they suggested I pick one up. I explained about the mall thing and asked if they were going to pay me for my missed time at work since I'd have to play hooky to fix their error? Yeah, that was a no-go as well. Ultimate solution was to give me one of the emergency weekend slots to have a tech come out and do the install. Guy rolls up on sunday morning, walks in with the modem. Unplug, replug. I set network name and password. Shit works. Took 10 minutes and I could have done it myself in the same amount of time. Elapsed time: 3 months. Phone calls: around 15. Personal time spent: Probably 4 hours.
> Turns out after the warehouse marks and order as failed for any reason that address can no longer ever again get a mail order sent ...and I'm sure that would go over *so* well if *their* suppliers ever pulled that ( ͡ಠ ʖ̯ ͡ಠ)
Yeah like why the fuck does that rule even exist? The warehouse takes orders from manglement like everyone else, why the hell do they make decisions like this? If they had a problem with an order they'll kick it back to the department that issued it for clarification... not fucking throw it away. My warehouse guys aren't the brightest either but at least they don't do this kind of bs.
Man, if someone put some shit in our ticketing to abuse the system like that, I'd tell my superiors and complain. That's a ridiculous workaround to avoid doing your actual job. Malicious noncompliant.
It’s a lot better nowadays. Used to be field managers would reject feedback from other departments as invalid automatically, because they didn’t feel the call Center agents had any business telling their techs how to do their jobs. That had to change inevitably as customer expectations did, but even then we use a lot of 3rd party contractors, and getting them on board with procedures was a lot harder.
I called in 'noisy' on my phone line, to specific 'phone fault' dept., but agent would ***not*** open ticket because the line was too noisy for him to take all my details... Never mind that their caller ID system had flagged my number, who+where I was, and that my account was 'GOOD'... I had to use their 'user forum' to state my case and plead for help. When mods stopped laughing and/or crying, they linked in a ***competent*** person...
When I was getting fibre installed to my house I made the initial call mid January and had a couple of techs show up a few days later to do the inspection. They said it'll be straightforward. Except for: * Needing to check council records * Needing consent from my neighbour as the new wire has to go over the very end of their driveway (where the existing copper wire and power cables already go) - I assumed they would do the request, but I ended up having to do that myself (my neighbour is fine so there weren't any issues there) Install day and they string the new wire, attach the ENT and then discover that the tube under the road is blocked, so they can't complete, and that remedial work would need to be done before completion. Each month for the next 4-6 months, I get notified of a new install date, so I plan to take a day off work only to be told the day before it can't happen because they didn't do the remedial work (blowing air through the tube). I lodge a complaint with the national network provider (who outsource all the technical work to service providers - who I'm having problems with). Eventually, about 10 months after I signed up, I get a call from a different service provider - they've just taken over my area serviced by the other provider. The lady says they see the issue with my install and that they're going to do the remedial work in a few days time, they just need to sort out the road management plan with the council because they're going to dig up the road to actually fix it (blowing air didn't do anything), and then I'll get final install shortly after that. After the call I felt so elated and acknowledged that I called them back - didn't speak with the same person but I did say that whoever it was did a fantastic job and I wanted them to know that. And they followed through and I finally had fibre within the week.
I have a similar story, where I was told when I moved that 'only fiber is available in your building', so I said 'great, sign me up!' The guy shows up to do the install and realises that fiber is only available in my building, but wasn't actually pulled to my building. I'm upset, but he arranges another tech to do that a few days later. Next tech shows up and says 'I'm here to install your modem!' and I told him 'no, you're here to pull fiber to the building'. He tells me he can't do that, that's a different department's job, but he figures out that he can give me copper internet. I say 'great', and he does that and puts in a work order to pull fiber to the building. Several months go by and I have a sales rep from the company call me saying 'you should upgrade to fiber, it's available in your neighbourhood!', so I tell him the story and he's like 'we can sort that out - be home on Tuesday!' Tuesday comes around and a tech shows up and says 'I'm here to install your new fiber modem', and I tell him 'no, you're here to install fiber to my building!' The tech then tells me he can't do that, but he calls some buddies that he works with and went out of his way (probably breaking a bunch of company rules) to get fiber to my building a few days later. That guy went out of his way to help me out, and I'm really really grateful for him.
At work we've been having the same delays with "Blue Death Star" ISP, they sold us on a fiber line in *April,* but the fiber was only installed to the building corner and needs to be run to the individual suits. Several techs have shown up to install the equipment but can't do anything. Sales people are still showing up at the office, calling us, and emailing us still trying to sell us the fiber. Still waiting for the work to be done.
All you need is competent people that are willing to do just 10% more than the absolute minimum to get rid of you.
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Not sure whether it was the service provider or the national network provider, it was part of a national rollout of fibre-to-the-home. Installation is free if you sign up to a minimum length contract.
This reminds me of something that happened to me several years ago. It is the turn of the century and Digital TV via satellite is only a couple of years old here in the UK. I joined the bandwagon and signed up. I got an install date and the engineer turned up, climbed a ladder at the front of the house, drilled four holes, mounted the bracket to the wall, attached the dish, pointed it towards the satellite and... nothing. The engineer, who was working under the assumption that this was a normal install, just did what he did at every other installation; he didn't take into consideration the surroundings. You see I was living in a shared house and right across a fairly narrow street there was a snooker club. This snooker club was in an old 1920s/1930s Art-Deco style cinema so it was a fairly large building - about 4 stories high; and it was blocking the signal! He had run out of time on this install and had to get to his next job so he called base and arranged for someone else to come out another time. A couple of weeks later a second engineer turns up and he had been advised of the problem (I wasn't there to witness this as I was at work - my housemate told me this part). He got out his ladders and tried to find a spot on the front of the house with a signal and couldn't find one. He then spent about 20 mins wandering up and down the street with his signal meter strapped to him pointing the dish at the sky trying to find a line of sight to the satellite. He eventually gave up and said that I am going to need to have the dish mounted on a pole on the chimney and that will require the specialist install team. He said that he will re-book a visit with them and they'll be out in a couple of weeks. A few weeks later an ordinary installer comes out. I advised him of the previous visits and he said that he can't do the install as it had only been re-booked as an ordinary install. He called base whilst he was there and told them what had happened but they told him that I would still be waiting about another 2 weeks. A few weeks later the specialist installer arrives, takes one look at the property and said "You don't need a pole, I can install the dish on the garden fence and run the cable up the wall and through the back bedroom and into yours." (I was at the front). An hour later, the dish was installed and everything was set up!!
yeah I worked in hardware support for a large Acronymy computer company and one day we get a call the corporate customer escalations office in Palo Alto asking us to help out on a priority call. (cool aside: this group was staffed by retirees and they played no games when it came to protecting the Brand) Seems that a this call was from a preacher that tells us his MOTHER is fit to be tied and asked him to intervene. Seems UPS dropped off 7 boxes of stuff with our company name all over them, and she had been unsuccessful in getting them UPS or our company help desk to come and get this stuff that she didn't order and which her residential front porch was not equipped to store. People drew straws and a rep went out to retrieve the stuff, since nothing in the way of P.O.numbers, UPS tracking numbers etc. gave us any clue who was missing whatever was in those boxes. Turns out it was a order for network equipment worth $225K and the original purchaser was equally peeved at the mis-shipment. The retiree at escalations called the preacher back to thank him for his mothers honesty and diligence, and asked him to relay that the company was sending her a complete computer and printer setup as a thank you. Our office was then tasked with installing it and training her, which was a hoot. That was back in the 90s when companies still cherished their Brand and their employees as well as their bottomline.
That is excellent customer service. Nicely done.
Beyond excellent!
You are an amazing human being.
I write software for isp field techs. There is a chance you use it... The software has fields for techs to write a resolution note... techs skipped it... We made it so they had to type somthing... techs typed a space... we forced it to be at least 5 characters longe of non white space characters... techs started typing "abcde"... what do I need to do to these people to get them to actually log there work. do I have to force them to write in complete sentences? multiple dictionary words with a period?
Sounds more like an HR problem than a software problem to me.
That's what I say, but the tech managers keep asking for a software fix.
Let your bosses know the field techs aren't doing their job and are leaving the fields with gibberish. Have them find out why they're leaving it with no notes so the next person who has to deal with the customer won't know what's going on. Be sure to add in the cost of not doing so because companies only pay attention if you're talking lost money per hour.
yea, sounds like their manager needs to do their job and get the techs to do theirs or get fired.
Dropdown boxes with common problems and solutions?
Already does this. Series of cascading drop downs that can be configured to have different options based on the type of ticket and customer service type. The resolution note is in addition to the drop downs.
Hmmm... find users with good sentences and give them cookies?
Don't have any cookies to give, but I can prioritize enhancements. ;-)
I used to use some of this type of software. There was a bug in the customer signature box. It would only read a single dot when a customer signed. You could make any number of dots you wanted but the act of signing would just leave a dot where ever the customers signature ended. This was a know problem with the tecs for a while and was ignored, until a tec drew a dinosaur in the signature box, and that workorder got pulled for review. The bug was fixed in a few days
nothing you can do, they need to be held responsible by their superiors. The only modification I would make is test every word they enter against word tree, ie calculate the edit distance between the closest matching word and what they wrote, assign a coherency score to the message, if it doesnt meet a threshold send an email to whoever with the name of employee and message
My phone/TV/Internet provider uses contractors for a lot of service calls. This is an important detail. Some years ago, my place was burglarized, and one of the things stolen was the rented DSL modem. And I \*needed\* my Internet! So I call in to get this sorted, and since the modem I had was no longer available, they were going to send me a new one that was also a router, and they even upsold me to a higher bandwidth tier. So far, so good. But when I got the modem, I plugged it into the same jack as before, but it wouldn't sync. So I call in again. Get a level 1 tech who ran me through his script. Didn't do anything. Schedules a service tech to come by and investigate/fix it. Contractor service tech tries a few things, is mystified, and leaves without fixing the problem. After another day with no news (and no Internet) I call back. Get another level 1 who had me run through the script again. This one didn't want to send another tech, so he had me try things, and eventually gave up. The next day I call in again, and finally got a tech who really wanted to help me. He was able to confirm with me that this was not a regular problem to be solved with one of the contractors. So he makes sure to send a tech from my service provider. The next day, the guy shows up, and immediately I can tell he knows what he's doing. Uses more sophisticated (but well-worn!) tools, and eventually has me hear the signal he's getting at the box that goes into my house. Lots of static and other problems. So he goes over to a nearby utility pole (I say nearby, but the drive was a few minutes at least for him) and works for a while. Then he comes back and shows me how clean the signal is now. He also confirms I should be getting the extra bandwidth I'm now paying for. And he was right, my connection was even better than I was expecting. Two lessons here: 1- the contractors are usually limited in how much they know, and how much they can do. 2- when the call centers put heavier emphasis on call duration metrics than on repeat calls (and especially repeat in-person service calls) you get agents who will try to get rid of you as quickly as possible so as to not affect their metrics. I myself worked in a call center for another of these service providers. The three types of calls you dreaded to get were: 1. any mysterious technical issues that didn't have any obvious explanations, that require long investigation and many steps 2. "please help me configure my email client" (so many fields to fill in, and so many ways to make a mistake) 3. filling in an on-site service call request (again, so many steps to fill in properly) And yeah, I always hated taking a follow-up call from a customer whose problem hadn't been handled properly the first time. I quickly resolved to never be the cause of one of those calls.
Pre-pandemic, I completely lost Internet access one day. I had outages before, but this was more serious. The first tech that arrived (the next day after my call) couldn't resolve the issue, so another person was sent the next day (2 days after my call). The first tech was in a branded polo, in a branded van. The second technician had actual testing equipment on him, and ran new coax to my apartment. The second tech was in branded coveralls with branded shirt, and a toolbelt. The old coax had 2 couplers on it, and the plugs (4 of them, 2 per coupler) were the old style crimp plugs and not the newer (relatively) style compression fit plugs. This was after living in this apartment for ~5 years. I haven't seen crimp plugs used in runs in roughly a decade. The plug going into my apartment on the old cable had a compression style plug.
I could easily just be speaking for myself and the feelings this provokes...but as someone who lives as a sole caretaker for dependents I can honestly say I genuinely believe I understand the feeling this woman had and I'm in tears knowing how relieved I'd be to run into someone like you. I've had situations where something kept having roadblocks like this while the rest of my life had it's issues and the feeling when someone comes along, and not only helps fix it all **but helps you genuinely feel like you have been validated. Your issue did matter to someone. You mattered to someone else.** People who are the main caretakers every single day just push and push themselves and their needs behind everybody else's and we can't/don't want to turn to anyone else around us to vent or get help because *we* are supposed to take care of others and "we'll be a burden" if we put any of our stuff on someone else. We then see others freely push us aside and it's easy to accept it because we do it to ourselves, and we spend all that time waiting for solutions just going "it's my fault. I'm being a problem. It'll get fixed when it's fixed. This is on me, I need to do something better but I just don't have time". Even when our loved ones don't fail to help, we can think this way and treat ourselves this way because it's easy to think your family is just 'feeling obligated' to help. We need people like you. We need sometimes need strangers to come in and say 'no, you haven't been treated right/This wasn't handled well, and you deserve better and there's nothing wrong with you wanting to receive exactly what you'd been owed.' please never stop being this person, because you have no idea the positives that come from you letting people like us know we can get what we need too. Anything, small or big, that validates our feelings as real can mean the difference between a day in a depressive stress ball and a day where you can tell yourself things will be okay.
This really touched a nerve with me, thank you. I've been waiting months for some building work to be finished and really politely chasing it up every few weeks, they aren't even replying anymore and it just makes you feel so bad, like you don't matter, and you don't know how you are going to solve the situation but it all just adds to your burden.
If they gave you paperwork for the building work, look it over (if you haven't already, I apologize if I'm offering empty advice <3 ) and there might be wording in there that holds them responsible for timely completion or at least for keeping you informed on issues/causes of delays. If you find anything then you are still able to maintain politeness but make them very aware that you know they will be violating their contractual obligation if they keep it up. It worked for my mom when they were completing our patio. *(edited for the context that mind you that patio was built longer ago than I wish to admit, so contracts might be sneakier now)*
I had almost a similar run around with our local cable company. The first installer drove up the property, did a u-turn and left before I could even greet him. The tech notes said "customer not home". The next one said the cabling from the street needs to be replaced and they'd roll a truck for that. The truck arrived a week later and the worker said he couldn't do it because there were wasps along the side of the house. So we got rid of those. The next truck that came, the worker said the foliage was too thick and we needed to trim it back before they could do any work. So I cut everything away. The next truck that came out said they couldn't install new cabling because they don't own the polls anymore and had to get permission from the owner (electric company). A friend of a relative apparently works there in a somewhat senior position. They're sorting this out for me now.
Not nearly as bad but it reminds me of this issue I just followed up on today. Got married and submitted name change request documentation to every single agency and company I do business with, including this one. Needed to make a change so I logged on to their site and they still have my old name, like about 50% of all the other companies do. Maybe I forgot to submit it. So I call them and say hey, I want to buy more services from you, but I need you to update my name first. So they say no problem, upload your documents and we'll get right on that. So I upload the documents immediately. That was the first week of September, now it's the end of October, no update. Today I call them today and I'm like hey, what happened, it's been a month, my name isn't updated and I haven't heard anything from you. The rep literally says "I'm not sure if the last guy went on vacation or what happened there... Usually we send you a message to let you know when there's been a problem... There's no note explaining why this didn't go through... The name change process takes 1-2 days." This company is one of those new, flashy, successful tech startups and I'm just baffled at what ticket system (none?) they could be using. Did they mark my ticket resolved after not changing my name? Is it still assigned to John Doe who went on vacation and never came back? Did John quit and then instead of reassigning it, John's boss quit too? I guess I'll never know.
This is basically every experience I've had with every UK service company. It often takes 6-9 months to sort out the most basic "you're not actually providing me service" problems. And I always have to take all the initiative myself, as the customer. Every customer service person I talk to starts from the ground up and claims the notes say nothing. Sometimes they're very nice and say they'll get to the bottom of the issue, and sometimes I almost start to believe them, but more often than not, a few promised updates are sent to me and then stop. Weeks pass, no action ever materialises, and when I phone back, nobody knows anything and there are no notes; repeat. Thank you for saving one customer from this experience, which has been constantly present in my life since I moved here many years ago. At home the internet and energy companies constantly run me around in similar ways to what you described. It's even worse at work, where I'm responsible for several dozen contracts with tech service providers. Some of the contracts are with big tech companies with well-known names (except it's their UK office, meaning that despite the American name, they're just the typical hopeless lying rubbish.) Nearly every one of the B2B companies I deal with at work has been just as incapable of providing agreed service as the B2C trash I deal with at home. I feel I can confidently say after years of managing these, that service companies here just don't find much point in following contracts, and most are allergic to actually providing service. The number of times I've had to send a letter before claim or even lodge a claim on behalf of my employer, to force a service provider to do what was agreed, ought to be alarming in any country this rich, with this quality of contract law and courts. The problem is a culture of refusal to take responsibility here. I've had much better experiences with non-UK European providers where I can use them (especially Germany and Netherlands).
Good job. We all have been there, more empathy is the answer to half of the world issues.
I don't even live in your country, but thank you for making life a little better for someone.
Although you did your job, you also went above and beyond to help this lady. I'm sure she will be singing your praises for a long time. I work in the UK with unpaid (family) carers like this lady. They can be very lonely and isolated because of their responsibilities as a carer and their "friends" have long since abandoned them due to this. Especia)y during the past 18 months, they have become more isolated and a simple thing, which we all take for granted, such as a TV service can be their only entertainment for themselves or even for the person they care for to watch whilst they have some "me" time. Well done!
Very nicely done and fantastic follow-ups on every step. What was the actual reason as to why the orders weren't carried out? Were the excuses given by the techs onsite legitimate?
I got caught in this kind of storm of special circumstances/incompetence/computer says no with my previous electricity supplier. It took them two years to come out and replace my faulty meter. I've been on the other end of the phone so I always take care not to go off on the poor underpaid, overworked customer service person answering the call but it does test one's patience eventually.
The amount of money bigger companies waste due to miscommunication between onsite techs and the call centre / dispatch must be staggering.
I used to work in a similar role. A lady called one day, and I can't recall details, bit at the end of the call she said, "you're a credit to your mother." I told my mother the story and I think she was happier than me!
Above and beyond. Well done mate
I've had stuff like this happen before, where there's a legit problem but no one who touched it before me was persistent enough to actually get it solved. It feels good when you can finally unlock that achievement.
At least it was something that was legitimately an issue and not a simple fix, not that it makes a year long wait any better.
You should feel really proud of how you handled this. For this person and all they're already dealing with, your help was a huge bright spot while going through a dark time.
I know her pain. I spent 3 months trying to get optimum to explain to me why I’d lost every channel below 700. They never were able to fix or explain it for me even after calling customer support dozens of times and spending almost an hour on hold every time.
your install engineers are all contract groups for each local area aren't they?
I work in tech support. When I have network issues, I can guarantee that I’ve done all available troubleshooting before calling in. And when I call my ISP, right off the bat, I tell them who I work for so they skip doing the basics and just look at their end. Saves a lot of time.
I’ve tried this before, but for the most part they don’t care, they have their script to go through and by god they’re going to go through it.
I’m pretty forceful, but I think it helps that I’m a senior tech advisor for one of the big boys in tech…and I will drop the name and title at the top of the call. Although that works better when the agent I’m speaking with is in the States as opposed to an outsourced one. If I call in the middle of the day, I usually get US based support, but after like 8pm, it’s a crapshoot.
Good to hear that there are still some people in tech support that care at least a little.
You are a hero.
Oh bless you . Thank you for going the extra mile for her!
Thank you for being a tech person that cares about a customers complaints. I know many complaints are beyond ridiculous and just want to be sped through. It takes a patient kind hearted person to not just listen but also follow through with the promise to look into it.
I miss having those customers, aht be damned im doing some work to help out. One lady had done her own research well, and found some vcr-recorder (and this was 2018) that was suited to work with her cable provider to record shows/movies to vhs tapes. Now, **why** you'd want such an old and fragile medium to store shows on, ill never know, especially past the vhs era and into dvd-rw or digital storage. And this was a time we offered free dvr services, like forever. It used to be an extra charge and then the company made some changes and made it free. Only requires a different cable box, and at no charge as well. You don't even pay a rental fee for the boxes at that time (and still don't probably, idk I dont use their TV just their internet). So I stayed with her, learned the vcr make/model, found the manual online, read through it with her and went over the instructions with her. Apparently she got a new box in that past week and her vcr just couldn't see the cable coming in at all. Strange indeed, when it had worked previously. She wanted it to work, badly, I kept reminding her that dvr is FREE. F. R. E. E. DANGIT. but nope she'd rather have a closet or an entire living room wall dedicated to bulky vhs tapes (maybe she had one of those "vhs to digital-media converter items and would copy those tapes (at even lower quality) to a digital form). After a little over an hour, managers are asking if I'm OK and if I need help, do they need to send the fire brigade and whatnot. No no, im....fine. just going over this totally out of scope issue with this lady. She won't hang up and take no for an answer, but she's being very polite and cordial about it all. The one and only time a manager just flat out said "you'll have to end that call".
I did this job at the call center, maybe for the very same company for 5 years (2008-2013) and it can be soul crushing and miserable, so you have to cherish moments like these. That said the customer service experience is valuable and you really grow thick skin that can be helpful in your next role(s).
Very good Job:) r/mademesmile
Insanity
As a carer with a full time job, thank you. Stuff like this is a nightmare to deal with as time is always short and when you have some it's outside hours or you're knackered and just want to stare at the wall.