Art Machine
Just another former infatuation junkie

Back when I worked tech suppor—err, “customer service,” one of the things we were told not to mess with was peoples’ sports. It didn’t matter if we were Steelers fans and the person on the line was a Packers fanatic, if we felt the Dodgers hadn’t been any good since they left Brooklyn and our customer was from L.A., or if we felt it was ridiculous to subscribe to the 15-channel Cricket Network. We did not comment on their sports choices.

I also learned very quickly that the most outraged and violently-inclined customers were the ones who – because of a problem with our product – would not be able to watch the sporting event they had been looking forward to. Thankfully, I only ever had to deal with regular season games – I quit the day before a massive Oscar De La Hoya pay-per-view, and people I went through training with told me later that I dodged a bullet by doing so.

So what is the MLB thinking – beyond “Here’s a way we can make greedy little fistfuls of extra cash” – when they tell their fans the games they bought from the MLB’s website can no longer be played? And furthermore, what are they thinking when they tell their customers that they can’t have their money back? [link via Boing Boing]

Just got off the phone with a MLB customer service supervisor.

“MLB no longer supports the DDS system” that it once used and so any CDs with downloaded games on them “are no good. They will not work with the current system.”

Great. Just effing great. ... As I told the supervisor, this is right in line with how wrong-headed and stupid and ass backwards MLB does everything.

I was told there is absolutely nothing MLB can do about these lost games. Plus, they said my purchases were all “one-time sales” and thus “there are no refunds”.

ahem.

<soapbox>DRM does not add value. DRM does not enhance the viewing experience. DRM cripples content. DRM cheats the consumer of money, time, and property. DRM is a crooked business practice that allows corporations to withdraw a product they have sold to the consumer at any time without warning or restitution. DRM also serves as a gatekeeper to major online publishing outlets, keeping out poorer content providers. Until all companies are DRM-free, the consumer and the independent publisher will have no rights in the intellectual marketplace.</soapbox>

And on a further note – don’t mess with peoples’ sports. They’ll kill you.

Over at The Consumerist, you’ll find a consumer complaint from a man who called tech support to get Qwest Wireless connected to his Macintosh. He was told at least one time out of several different calls that they could not help him with his problem because “Qwest should not have to train its employees in a practically obsolete system.”

I know what it seems like I’m about to do. In the past, I have flown off the handle about companies not offering support for Macintosh. Usually this brings admonishments of “You’re not handicapped. It was your choice to get this operating system.” That’s actually not my complaint this time around.

My complaint comes from the comments section for this article.

First off, I admit I didn’t read the whole thing because it was WAY to long. People need to learn to be concise with their complaints if they want people to read them. Second, on the Mac issue. Let me preface this by saying I own an iBook, that’s what I am typing this comment on. However, when I bought it, I understood what I was getting into. Apple only has about 10% of the market (maybe less, depending on the figures you read). I do believe it is unreasonable to expect every company to cross-train their employees in Mac OS. When you buy a computer that is very much a minority as a whole, you cannot and should not expect the same level of support.

First off, if you had bothered to read the whole thing you would have seen that it was more than just a “boo-hoo, they insulted my computer” complaint, but rather a long list of grievances to do with billing and rude customer support in general that continued even after the initial problem had been resolved. In other words – it was not a complaint about a single event, but rather a complaint illustrating what the consumer felt was a systemic problem that manifested itself through a prolonged series of infractions that simply would not end.

Second, let me let you in on a dirty little secret of tech support. Now, when I say this I know that I am not indicative of the entire tech support community and that other companies may not operate the same way the one I worked at did – but I’ve heard enough from other former tech supporters to suggest that it’s a fairly standard industry practice.

Our hands-on training consisted of almost thirty-minutes with the equipment in which only one of the trainees actually got to handle the equipment, and the rest of us stood around and watched.

Our factual knowledge tested before we could work on the phones consisted almost entirely of being able to name the different parts of the system and what each individual component did. Not how they interacted, not how they connected to each other, and not what potential problems we might encounter – just names and basic descriptions of their functions.

How could we possibly troubleshoot a system given this minimalist training?

Because what we were trained on – almost exclusively – was how to use the company’s internal computer system. The system allowed us to troubleshoot by reading a script off the screen and following steps given to us – not by actually having to know how the system works.

Another friend of mine worked setting up students’ internet connections in the days of ethernet – before wi-fi was even a buzzword. Her managers focused their training almost exclusively on how to interact with students and be friendly.

How could she set up the computers without being trained on every single system?

Because they armed her with a 3-ring binder. In that binder were three dividers for three different sets of thorough set-up instructions – one for Windows, one for Mac, one for Linux.

Welcome to the new world, folks. Your tech support does not necessarily know what they’re talking about, and it no longer costs the company a fortune to train their employees on a given system. The benefit the companies reap is that they only have to pay one person to create the monkey sheet for any given technical issue. The downside?

Have you ever been told to unplug your cable box, wait five seconds, then plug it back in by a customer service rep who then disconnected? Only to have it fail to fix your problem and send you right back through an automated voice mail system again?

Have you ever been told that no troubleshooting was necessary, it was another company’s fault, only to have that other company tell you there’s nothing wrong with their hardware?

Have you ever spent an hour on hold for a customer service representative, an hour following troubleshooting steps over the phone, and then two hours just begging to have a trained technician sent to your home only to be told that it will cost you an arm and a leg for that to happen?