On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:08:38 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> Actually, wait - any half-decent manager should still be able to spot
> this one. OK, you win the point.

Well, not really; the boss I had who got sacked (who I mentioned earlier 
today) was hired by the guy who hired me.  Randall (not his real name - 
but I need to call the boss who was fired something) was quite the 
salesman; he could've sold snowballs to eskimos.

Jim

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Warp wrote:
> 
>   Why would they do that? Who does it benefit? Why would a company
> actively *forbid* a tech support person from giving an answer he
> knows fits the question best and instead *force* him to give an
> irrelevant answer? What for?
> 

I suppose that it helps ensure a uniform quality of service, although 
more to the point I think it means that they don't believe that their 
support people are good enough to answer questions on their own.  For 
instance, let's say you'd outsourced your support to a third party which 
was very cheap, but you have doubts as to their ability.  In such a case 
it might make sense to force the use of templated answers so as to 
replace an embarrassing shoddy chaos of customer support with a mere 
soul-crushing bureaucracy.

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"Kevin Wampler" <wam### [at] uwashingtonedu> wrote in message
news:4b68b653$1@news.povray.org...
> Warp wrote:
> >   Why would they do that? Who does it benefit? Why would
a company
>
> In such a case
> it might make sense to force the use of templated answers
so as to
> replace an embarrassing shoddy chaos of customer support
with a mere
> soul-crushing bureaucracy.

It sounds like maybe a customer brought legal action on them
because help desker offered incorrect advice outside of
their area of expertise and/or outside the company's
responsibility. Bad joo-joo...

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DungBeatle wrote:
> 
> It sounds like maybe a customer brought legal action on them
> because help desker offered incorrect advice outside of
> their area of expertise and/or outside the company's
> responsibility. Bad joo-joo...
> 

Yeah, I guess that also fits with the general theme: If you worry enough 
much about mistakes you'll have to inhibit your ability to do anything 
useful in order to avoid them.  I'm sure this same theme plays out in 
many varied ways in most large companies.

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DungBeatle <dun### [at] moscowcom> wrote:
> "Kevin Wampler" <wam### [at] uwashingtonedu> wrote in message
> news:4b68b653$1@news.povray.org...
> > Warp wrote:
> > >   Why would they do that? Who does it benefit? Why would
> a company
> >
> > In such a case
> > it might make sense to force the use of templated answers
> so as to
> > replace an embarrassing shoddy chaos of customer support
> with a mere
> > soul-crushing bureaucracy.

> It sounds like maybe a customer brought legal action on them
> because help desker offered incorrect advice outside of
> their area of expertise and/or outside the company's
> responsibility. Bad joo-joo...

  How can you sue a company on the grounds that the tech support didn't
give a template answer and instead the guy gave an answer based on his
own expertise? If the template answer would have been unhelpful, then
there's no grounds for a lawsuit, but if the answer was not a ready-made
one, then there is?

  Which law codifies this?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:4b68bdbe@news.povray.org...
>   How can you sue a company on the grounds that the tech
support didn't
> give a template answer and instead the guy gave an answer
based on his
> own expertise? If the template answer would have been
unhelpful, then
> there's no grounds for a lawsuit, but if the answer was
not a ready-made
> one, then there is?
>
>   Which law codifies this?

Ya got me, I just figure it took some serious pressure to
cause the help desk to have to work under such restrictions.
That usually indicates a legal battle. So I was just
guessing. I figure if some help desk person provides a
solution that results in the loss of data or devices, I can
see an end user trying legal action... Just for example, I
received instructions from a help desk person who told me
how to plug in the cables to my router. He had me hook them
up backwards and it blew the router. I would have sued them
in small claims if they hadn't replaced the router... And
they did.

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DungBeatle wrote:
> By the time I'm calling for support, I coubt some list
> of stock answers is going to help me. 

You, perhaps, yes. But I read a statistic somewhere that something like 60% 
of the help desk phone calls for major appliances (washers, driers, fridges, 
etc) could have been avoided had the caller read that checklist at the back 
with "is it plugged in? Is it turned on? Is the fuse outside blown?" kind of 
questions.

And that's 60% of the people who *did* call. No telling how many people used 
the checklist first.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
   I get "focus follows gaze"?

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Warp wrote:
> the guy gave an answer based on his
> own expertise? 

If he gave a *wrong* answer based on his own expertise in the name of the 
company, I can see that.

Someone calls up, says they deleted a file by mistakae, helpdesk says "run 
this undelete program" and it screws their entire filesystem, perhaps.

In the USA (for reasons I won't get into here) there's what's called "strict 
liability" for products. If something happens that your product caused, 
you're responsible for it. If the toaster burns down your house, it's the 
fault of the toaster maufacturer.  So I can see this being more of a problem 
here than in countries where common sense works.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
   I get "focus follows gaze"?

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> I'm sure there's a hole in his wall where he has been hitting his head 
> repeatedly the past couple of months.

My favorite was

"Your email server is down.  It's not my computer, because when I telnet to 
port 25, I get no connection. Is your server down?"

"I can't help you with that, but I can help you reinstall your email client."

"That has nothing to do with it if your server is down. Can *you* get to the 
server?"

"No, but that might be due to any number of r easons."

D'oh!

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
   I get "focus follows gaze"?

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
news:4b68c2e7$1@news.povray.org...
> DungBeatle wrote:
> > By the time I'm calling for support, I doubt some list
> > of stock answers is going to help me.
>
> You, perhaps, yes. But I read a statistic somewhere that
something like 60%
> of the help desk phone calls for major appliances
(washers, driers, fridges,
> etc) could have been avoided had the caller read that
checklist at the back
> with "is it plugged in? Is it turned on? Is the fuse
outside blown?" kind of
> questions.
>
> And that's 60% of the people who *did* call. No telling
how many people used
> the checklist first.

You're probably right, and I'm also the one who reads ALL
the instructions! :) Yes, I would go through the checklist
before I'd call... Too bad they almost always figure you
haven't...

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