Thank you for being descriptive...

[draggar]

I had a ticket pop into my bucket the other day I knew it was trouble when I saw the "brief" description:

"Computer does not work"

How super. So, I open the ticket and check the notes:

Troubleshooting Performed: Client has been having issues with this Laptop for the past 6 months its not been fixed completely, she is using Aircard to work on the computer and the problem has not been resolved as yet

Oh, great. Issues for six months and the issue hasn't been resolved yet. Gee, maybe it would help if they told me WHAT the issue is.

OK, fine, if she's been having these issues for so long then there should be previous tickets, right?

I look up, sure enough, 3 other tickets. The first two are identical to this one, a bunch of complaining but no hint at what her issue is.

One had this note:

I guess we don’t need anyone to do any troubleshooting, just give it to the techs in the field!

With not a single hint of what was done for troubleshooting, if any.

Another ticket had this:
]quote]Description: Displaying a blue screen and laptop won't turn off. When turning on, it comes up with "click on F1 or F2). Need to keep on powering on and off about six times until it works[/quote]

Something like this would have had to have Windows and all of the company applications reloaded. Sure enough, if she's having the same issue, then she's doing something to make it not work.

Then, I hit gold with the first ticket logged:

Unable to connect to intra-inter-net

Oh, we have a winner. This was also a web submitted ticket so the client entered this. What the hell is the "intra-inter-net"?

I later find out this is the same person who cursed me out because I couldn't have a battery shipped to her in the 45 minutes before she went on vacation (even though she was having the issue for months, never bothered to see us about it).

I called both numbers listed as a contact number. One was a wrong number and the other is an inactive number. I sent her an email on Wed of last week with no response.

I wonder what the policy is on closing tickets whn the person won't get back to us?

[Shangri-laschild]

Sucky of the other techs who didn't feel the need to be descriptive. On the other hand, she couldn't be easy to work with either. Too bad you got stuck with her.

[Gerrinson]

The lab boys (prior to the buyout and me leaving) were told to make 3 contact attempts in a week. No response at that point = ticket closed. I used to be generous and make 5 attempts, but most of my tickets were new installs and it would take about 3 days for their phone to get sorted out and working properly. That and I couldn't email them because they didn't have a PC.

[earl colby pottinger]

Response time

We would call multiple times in the first week, but because we knew people may be on a one or two week vacation we would call at-least once a week for the next month.


After a month, case closed. And yes, we kept a written recorded all calls that would show not only did we call on different days but also the morning and evening.

[Arm]

At my most recent contract, we did 3 business days and then close. But we were also there to solve a specific set of issues, so your mileage may vary.

I always loved the users who are "URGENT!! CAN NOT USE EMAIL!", high priority, and blah blah, and oh... no, they're out of the office. For the next two weeks. Or on vacation, have been on vacation, and so on.

'urgent'... I do not think that word means what you think it means...

[technical.angel]

One week with at least 2 separate attempts at communication (voicemail or email). I heart my dept head.

My favorite calls are like this "Hi! I'm halfway across the country and my laptop's [enter in confusing problem we couldn't even BEGIN to figure out over the phone]."

[Naaman]

My favorite calls are like this "Hi! I'm halfway across the country and my laptop's [enter in confusing problem we couldn't even BEGIN to figure out over the phone]."

My favourite was always "Kid's at Uni and parent phones up".

[technical.angel]

I do love those. Especially when the parent starts in that Jr or Missy's had the problem for MONTHS! and we haven't done a THING about it. And you get to say, "Well, ma'am, (cause it's almost always Mom calling) if your child doesn't tell us there's a problem, we can't fix it. Please have THEM call, and we'll get it resolved."

The last time was followed with a "NO! She's had this problem for MONTHS! YOU CALL HER!"

So, I called the student, and told her WHY I was calling... and I heard a faint "Oh, god.."

My favorite was when a student called was the biggest SC known on this website (the only caller I've had in my three years here that got escalated to bossman, and THEN to dept head), and then later that week, her mom sends an email apologizing.

[myswtghst]

I constantly do repair requests, and since usually the techs can't be bothered to call it in, instead passing it off to a secretary, the poor girls on the phone usually can't give me a problem description beyond: "unit is dead" or "unit failed." That'll be great when our depot tries to verify that the issue is resolved - as long as the unit turns on with no fail lights, we did our jobs.

[draggar]

Well, I finally got a hold of her yesterday after I sent (yet another email) and CC'd her boss on it. Amazing at how quickly people respond when I do that and from what she said, she's been in her office all week.

OK, fine. Here's the point I hate. She spent 20-30 minutes not only chewing my ear out about how much her computer sucks and it hasn't been fixed etc.. she also comments at how come it took me so long to get back to her. I tell her that I have sent her several emails, each one was a "reply to all" (so I'd get it too) from a previous one and she can see how long I've been trying to reach her.

Since she is in a different office I have to pass it to another tech who is in that office (as opposed to me driving an hour and a half each way). I do feel sorry for the other tech, though.

[Polenicus]

I used to get ticket descriptions like that when I worked in Tier 2.

Most techs would put something in their tickets, usually just the copy & pasted steps from the troubleshooting article they used, plus a link to said article. Others were more in-depth, and had their own systems, and these tickets were the best because they tended to make it easy to figure out what was going on. Others wrote rambling novels that, while they took a bit to read through, at the very least covered the problem and their steps in detail.

Then we had these:

"Customer Had an issue."

That was all we'd get. Occasionally we'd have more detailed ones, like this:

"Customer has a connectivity issue."

And we'd get DOZENS of techs doing this. What was better was at the end, they'd often tag on:

"Resolved"

Then we'd get the customer calling back with the same issue, being auto-escalated because it was the second call on the same issue, and the customer confused as to why we don't just do what the last person did to fix it, since that seemed to work so well?

[SongsOfDragons]

I had a huge set of problems with my Nintendo DS earlier this year. I HAD to get my dad to deal with it, as a. he bought it on his company account (???) and b. I just couldn't get through on the Nintendo line. Do phones have block lists or firewalls? I don't know, but I couldn't contact them at all...so unfortunatly I joined those folk who get their parents to do everything.

Luckily everything turned out okay. They sent me a nice shiny one that had 1. no cracked hinge, 2. no bust and flickering topscreen and 3. no dodgy touch screen. Thanks, Nintendo!!

[protege]

My favorites have to be the "important" types who complain that their machine doesn't work...don't want to tell me anything else, and then bitch about how it's "taking too long." Well, maybe if you'd taken the time to give me a *bit* more info, I wouldn't have to "waste time" by troubleshooting

[Imogene]

Luckily everything turned out okay. They sent me a nice shiny one that had 1. no cracked hinge,

I had a call while working for GameStop from some mother frantic about little Billy's broken DS. What was broken? "The button on top."
*blink, blink* "What button on top? The shoulder buttons? L and R?"
"No, the button on top!"
*think, think* "The power button?"
"No, the button on top!"
"Ma'am, I admit, I'm new to the DS scene, but I do own one, and I cannot for the life of me figure out what button you're talking about. There are no other buttons on top of the DS."
"Don't take that tone with me!"
"I can't help you if you won't help yourself."
"You suck at customer service."
*click*

[crashhelmet]

If I had seen the note that said "Give it to the techs" I would've kicked it back for insufficient troubleshooting. Unless, of course, it had an executive's name on it somewhere. I get tickets now that say "No Signal" for the problem and for troubleshooting it says "Basic Troubleshooting steps." Most of these I kick back and make them troubleshoot again. I hate lazy techs.

CH