Love my company's customer service
#1
Love my company's customer service
I'm a technician for a cable company. When I call in, my acct identifies me as an employee. And yet the phone jockeys act like I'm a completely clueless caller.
Me: "Hi I'm having trouble with my services. I've got tiling on the channels in the upper frequencies. And the signal / noise ratio on the DOCSIS channels are fluctuating causing my CHSI to run slow"
(Ok, this is a flag. Average customer don't know what channels are on which frequencies, don't know how to check the SNR and don't use the technical terms "Docsis" / "CHSI" / "tiling")
Them: "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. What you need to do is disconnect your cable box for 20 minutes"
Me: "Um... Are you serious?"
Them: "Yes sir. We need to clear the buffer on your box"
Me: "Oh... You are serious. That won't do anything but waste 20 minutes of my life"
Them: "Well I can't continue troubleshooting until you do"
Me: "Don't bother. Just send a technician"
Them: "I can't send a technician until you try this"
Me: "My acct should be flagged as an employee. I am a technician"
Them: "Then why are you calling?"
Me: "Because I don't have my 20' extention ladder, I'm restricted from doing work on my own line if I did and I work in a different area so I can't call maint directly"
Them: "Well did you try unplugging your box?"
Me:
I get why customers are ready to kill me the second I knock on the door. And for the record
Me: "Hi I'm having trouble with my services. I've got tiling on the channels in the upper frequencies. And the signal / noise ratio on the DOCSIS channels are fluctuating causing my CHSI to run slow"
(Ok, this is a flag. Average customer don't know what channels are on which frequencies, don't know how to check the SNR and don't use the technical terms "Docsis" / "CHSI" / "tiling")
Them: "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. What you need to do is disconnect your cable box for 20 minutes"
Me: "Um... Are you serious?"
Them: "Yes sir. We need to clear the buffer on your box"
Me: "Oh... You are serious. That won't do anything but waste 20 minutes of my life"
Them: "Well I can't continue troubleshooting until you do"
Me: "Don't bother. Just send a technician"
Them: "I can't send a technician until you try this"
Me: "My acct should be flagged as an employee. I am a technician"
Them: "Then why are you calling?"
Me: "Because I don't have my 20' extention ladder, I'm restricted from doing work on my own line if I did and I work in a different area so I can't call maint directly"
Them: "Well did you try unplugging your box?"
Me:
I get why customers are ready to kill me the second I knock on the door. And for the record
- Unplugging your box for 1 second is enough to reset it
- Unplugging the box actually only forces it to reacquire the OOB channel and refresh its config from the office
- Video and Internet use mutually exclusive frequencies so trouble with both would indicate a signal issue at / to the dmark
#4
Funny story tho: I went to a customer's house a couple days after the 1st blizzard hit Philly. She was pissed cause her services went out 3-4 days before the blizzard was predicted to hit. She called in and told the guy on the phone he had to rush someone out before the blizzard. He was in Jamaica and didn't know what a blizzard was
When I got there, it was impossible to restore her service. There were 4' - 5' snowbanks between her house and the feeder
#6
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Should try replacing the old **** copper 59 in your place with rg-6 as well as checking your aerial/burial for broken insulation, loose/crimped/ or stainless f fittings, if it's an especially long one you should consider replacing with 11. Any leakage on your sniffer when you walk the line? Checked for ingress with your dsam? What were the levels at the gnb block vs at the tap on 5 70 and 111 or whatever docsis channel your comp. uses, be sure to have it set to read 256 qam for the docsis, also lvls at the back of the cpe? Could also replace your hsi modem with a docsis 3.0 modem, they seem to tolerate snr issues better than the older 2.0's, least in some instances.
Blah blah, jk.. you already know all this, in all seriousness though, why in the world would you bother calling tech support? Tech 1's are worthless when it comes to troubleshooting and any tech they send out would prolly be annoyed at fixing another techs issues, least the ones I know, you might know a more laid back, less overworked crowd of guys than I do, heh. The fluctuating snr and tiling are likely line issues, just fix it you lazy ****, lol. It's not like they are going to bust you for fixing a line issue on your own place, just don't advertise. You don't bring your truck/van home with you?
Blah blah, jk.. you already know all this, in all seriousness though, why in the world would you bother calling tech support? Tech 1's are worthless when it comes to troubleshooting and any tech they send out would prolly be annoyed at fixing another techs issues, least the ones I know, you might know a more laid back, less overworked crowd of guys than I do, heh. The fluctuating snr and tiling are likely line issues, just fix it you lazy ****, lol. It's not like they are going to bust you for fixing a line issue on your own place, just don't advertise. You don't bring your truck/van home with you?
Last edited by Hangfire; 05-23-2010 at 11:26 PM.
#7
#8
Got tired of having the liability for the van. Got broken into twice when I had it while on call. Both times I had to go thru a useless drug test so they could be sure I wasn't a junkie faking the break-ins and selling what was stolen. Which was nothing since I carted all my major tools in the house at night and have cf ladder locks
I'm an employee. When they're dumb enough to send a contractor I either cancel the call when I open the door. Or call back in immediately after he leaves. One tried to tell me it was an inside wiring issue. I did the wiring in my apt myself, including the wall fishes
Are you guys employees or independent contractors? Paid by the hour/month or by the job? Just wondering. DirecTV always sends an independent service company and they always try to run a scam, like trying to charge for services that I was already told would be free. It never fails.
Last edited by Kuroshio; 05-23-2010 at 11:40 PM.
#10
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Posts: n/a
Heh, things must be different down south. Up north there's huge contracting firms that run hundreds of trucks and maintain large groups of employed, hourly, well trained and supplied techs for service and installs. They also do a large portion of the actual wiring of apt buildings and whatnot. The actual company techs? Feh. Don't need to go into too much detail really, just imagine the reverse of the above and paid less.
There's rejects on both sides of the fence but I'd trust a decent contractor over a decent company tech anyvday of the week, at least in this area.
There's rejects on both sides of the fence but I'd trust a decent contractor over a decent company tech anyvday of the week, at least in this area.
Last edited by Hangfire; 05-25-2010 at 06:12 PM.