 | Level: Introductory Peter Seebach (crankyuser@seebs.plethora.net), Writer, Freelance
03 Apr 2006 Most users know that rebooting can solve a variety of computing problems. What might come as a shock is the number of technical support departments that fail to offer a better solution when you need it.
Someone recently pointed me toward an amusing Web page that purports
to offer technical advice. At rebootyourcomputer.com, you enter a
search string and are presented with three matches, supposedly to
troubleshoot the problem. For instance, if you enter the problem
"allergic to cats" the second proposed match is "allergic to cats each
time my computer starts." When you select one of these links, you are
informed of the solution:
The solution to your problem, "allergic to cats," is to reboot your computer.
Even the most casual computer user quickly catches the idea, even if
the URL wasn't clear enough. While rebootyourcomputer.com seems like a
one-shot joke, I've actually received technical support that was worse -- much worse.
In this month's column, I address the myriad ways that
real-world technical support falls short of the rebootyourcomputer.com (RYC) standard.
Smells like time sink
One major goal that drives Web site technical support is response
time. Knowledge bases, FAQs, and other online resources are built
around the goal of quick answers to many questions. This
makes sense because response time is important: if you get the response
you need quickly, you can solve your problem quickly. Unfortunately,
speed isn't everything. Answers also count.
A fake database that tells you to reboot your computer in response
to every problem is pretty bad, but unfortunately it's not the worst
help system I've ever used. It is right some of the time. After all, if you reboot your computer, you can solve many
computer problems at least temporarily. On
the other hand, some knowledge base systems seem more like nested
chains of banner advertisements than actual technical support. Some are
just hopelessly empty. (I've encountered an alleged "knowledge base"
with less than 10 items in it.) Some offer advice of little value, or even
negative value. But, hey, at least they're fast.
If your support organization makes the user wait, you better be sure that the result is
worth it. If your staff isn't actually all that technical, and if they work with the same knowledge base that users work from, then why bother? If I wait for support, it simply must be better than what I can get instantly from a knowledge base.
Also, it's a good idea to provide a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) -- but please be sure that
the Qs actually are FA. A so-called FAQ that consists of
fake marketing buzz ("Q: Is it true that your product can suck the
chrome off a bumper? A: Why yes, yes it is!") is not only useless,
it's a waste of time. Wasted time is a common feature of bad technical support.
Who knows what you know
Accuracy is the weak spot of the RYC tech support
page: although it's right some of the time, it's not right all that
often. Unfortunately, the same is also true of much tech support that isn't
meant to generate cynical laughter.
Ideally, one hopes that technical support teams might consistently
outperform the little scripts that threaten their jobs. Well, keep
hoping. In my experience, bad as the automated support systems can be,
technical support is often substantially less accurate. I dealt with one vendor
who had apparently trained tech support staff to respond to every
query with "I understand that ..." followed by a string of words that
contained one or two of the words used in the original problem report.
I've gone up to 10 rounds just trying to get someone to correctly
understand my problem, and this was long after I'd given up hope of a
solution or found one on my own.
While poor bug reports from users certainly contribute to this problem,
many support staff seem to lack the time or inclination to
carefully read a user's problem report. The answers that come
back often read as if they were automatically generated:
like the support jockey simply typed a few words into a search engine
and grabbed the best match. I can't stress enough how absolutely
frustrating it is to wait hours for much needed information, only to
find that it's no better than what I can dig up on my own.
Inaccurate and ill-gotten information is bad enough, but outright
lying is worse. One of my computers came without a recovery DVD, but
included software to allow you to make one, should you ever need it. But
when I actually wanted to make the darned thing all I got for my effort
was (more) trouble. Every person on the support staff that II spoke to suggested a different process
to make the DVD, and none of the suggested processes
worked all the way through. I ended up with a nearly-complete recovery
DVD with undocumented omissions that I couldn't recoup (since I was only
allowed to make one DVD). None of the support staff actually knew what
they were doing and none of them would just admit it. It also didn't occur to
anyone to do their job and find someone who could help me. If I
had followed the first explanation I would have permanently lost most of
the bundled software that came with the computer. As it was, thanks to
my suspicious nature, I just ended up with a partial-recovery DVD.
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Can you spare me $25?
Accessibility is one of the foundations of good tech support, and
here it's very hard to top the quality of the RYC form. You don't have to
jump through any hoops and what you get back is fairly straightforward.
By contrast, let me quote the response I got from a major vendor when I tried
contacting it for technical support (note that I've changed the company's name to protect the guilty):
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style=": 10pt; : Arial; mso-bidi-: 12.0pt">Dear Peter:<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style=": 10pt; : Arial; mso-bidi-: 12.0pt"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style=": 10pt; : Arial; mso-bidi-: 12.0pt">Thank you for contacting Redacted Technical Support.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>My name is Jerry and I will be assisting you with your issue with the $25 fee when you call our Technical Phone Support team for a Service Repair Order.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
Kind of hard to read, right? I still have no idea why the company
went to such incredible lengths to encode this message. Other than the
just-plain-offensiveness of it (being an explanation of the fact that I
would be expected to pay $25 for a phone call to tech support) I found nothing in the message that wasn't equivalent to plain text.
Compared to Redacted Technical Support's encryption scheme (and its
$25 charge) RYC comes out pretty well. Many technical support sites
put up barriers to information access. Some require all sorts of
registration to enter their knowledge base, others charge money for
a simple phone call. A charge for technical support seems to become more
acceptable as companies get bigger. Most small companies provide free
technical support. The argument is generally that it costs too
much to provide technical support to a larger customer base. Given that
more customers implies more income, however, I find myself skeptical.
One tricky pony
The great joke of the RYC site is that its one-trick approach is
surprisingly familiar. Most technical support follows several basic
response patterns. And why not? Rote memorization of a handful of
common fixes solves enough problems to get by. This brings to mind the
story of an illiterate student who was able to solve many
so-called word problems in a math class using a simple rule; if there's a lot
of numbers, you add them. Otherwise, if they're close together, you subtract
them. If one is small, you multiply. This rule, without any hint of
comprehension of the actual problem, was good enough to pass classes that
supposedly tested reading comprehension. Many technical support groups
appear to have adopted this model for training.
It's a fact that in many cases rebooting or reinstalling does
make a computer problem go away, at least temporarily. In most cases
there's a more serious problem that ought to be debugged, but in the
meantime you can get a user up and running, and out of your hair.
Still, it seems that technical support staff ought to have some
actual problem-solving skills of their own, rather than just relying
on cookbook recipes anyone can find on the Web.
This week's action item: Got a tech problem? Try rebooting your computer.
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About the author | 
| | Peter Seebach has been using computers for years and is gradually becoming acclimated. He still doesn't know why mice need to be cleaned so often, though. |
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