r/talesfromtechsupport • u/SilentDis Professional Asshat Breaker • Jul 06 '12
Angry, Clueless... you have met your match.
EDIT: Thanks, all, for the comments. I've been meaning to get these down for a while. Part 2 is now available. The finale is in part 3 :)
This happened many, many moons ago. If I had to guess, it was sometime between 2003 and 2005.
At the time, I was working helpdesk for an ISP that was growing from the 'local provider' level to a 'regional provider'. They'd buy up ISPs here and there, and roll them into our service. In all honesty, they were a very, very decent company; good tools access for all the techs, our 'Tier2' at the time was all of 20' away in the cubicle farm and very affable to talk to. Tours of our main datacenter were always available, and the kit they were using was top-notch. On top of that, it was all very, very well documented.
We had a caller whom I'll call Phil. Phil had a DSL line through us (with a backup/on the road dial-up account), with a couple e-mail addresses, we managed a domain and small (exceptionally simple) webhosting account (little, if any scripting support). It was rolled into a 'business-class' billing structure, of course; meaning that he paid a bit more and his webhost was on a slightly higher-end server from the "5MiB Free" server, and they gave an uptime guarntee on his DSL. Pretty basic stuff.
Phil, though, was anything but 'basic'. He was horribly mean, nasty, and clueless in all things tech. He'd also call for anything, multiple times. I remember seeing a few items in the call logs for stuff like problems with various office equipment. A good example was when he bought himself a flatbed scanner, and called us to help him with it. I luckally didn't get one of those calls (somehow), but there was a good week straight where he'd call multiple times a day trying to get it to work; the ticket log would have "Scanner Won't Work" listed a good 100+ times, spanning a solid 10 days.
He was horribly abusive to other techs; women especially, as you may have guessed. I herd stories of others leaving the floor in tears after, and during, calls with Phil.
I took a few calls from Phil, and I personally didn't have too much trouble with him. The thing was, I was, and still am, an extreme stickler for process flow of calls, staying inside support boundries, being exceptionally clear (and hitting the 'call record' button) when I stepped outside them that people wouldn't get this help here ever again. Phil, of course, tried every opportunity to yell, bluster, cajole, blame, and be rude to anyone who attempted to show him the slightest hint of leniency or kindness concerning linear tech support.
My first call with Phil was a model for all further calls I personally had with him.
Me: Good afternoon, XYZ tech support, my name's SilentDis. May I have your name, please?
Phil: This is Phil.
Me: Alrighty Phil, how can I help you today?
(Side note: I learned, long long ago, to just get a name and let the customer vent. If I can't find their contact info from the Caller ID, I'll get it soon enough. This makes callers feel that you're a human, and on their side.)
Phil: I am trying to get the page you are hosting to connect to my printer and it won't connect! What is wrong with your company, are you behind the times? This is a new printer, why don't you support it! I swear I'll take my service somewhere else if you people don't wise up and fix this mess and get it working!
(I'm paraphrasing a bit here, but this was the tone, tenor, and reason for his call to a tee. I pressed the call record button at this point, which will backtrack and record the entire conversation)
Me: Ok, so you're having problems printing a website, is this correct? (Always get that verbal contract)
Phil: I just told you what the problem is! Weren't you listening? What's wrong with you? (and on, and on, and on...)
Me: I just like to be sure I'm helping you out as best I can. You are having problems printing a webpage, is this correct?
Phil: Yes! I can't print the webpage you are hosting on my new printer! (Verbal contract established)
Me: Ok. We're not really able to help out with printer problems, but...
Phil: Why can't you help me, what's wrong with you? You're not good at your job, are you?
Me: Sir, do not insult me. As I was saying, We're not able to help out with printer problems, but I can help you make sure everything we do help with is working properly. I've pulled up your account from Caller ID. I see everything's in good standing, and I see no reported outages for your area. Can you hold one moment while I verify the connections from my side?
Phil: Fine.
Me: Thank you, be right back.
Welcome to the penalty box, Phil, population: you. I telnet into the various switches and routers he's attached to, and see his modem as attached; physical layer is good. Send a ping on the Data layer, fine. Send a ping on network layer and don't get a response. That's fine, firewall is in place. I ask for the stats on that line, wait a minute, and ask again; they've gone up. He's sending data over the line without any issue whatsoever; Golden.
I check his website; a Geocities-esque site selling various bric-a-brac. Whatever, it comes up. SSH into the server, and it shows a nice 200+ uptime. Ping his site from the switch he's attached to, no problems there.
Phil's been in the penalty box for a good 5 minutes now, lets see how that's changed his attitude.
Me: Sorry about that, sir. I list off all the tests I performed above, non-stop without break, throwing in a few technical terms here and there.
Phil: Uhh... (perfect. I've gooed his little brain, exactly my intent.)
Me: Since everything's working on this side, let's make sure everything's working on your side.
I walk him through opening up a webpage, opening up his webpage, and checking his e-mail. All work without problem.
Me: Now, that's what we support; your Internet connection is working, your website is working, your e-mail is working. You stated, though, you're having problems printing; which is not something we support. Who makes your printer?
Phil: Umm... Hewlett Packard? (he sounds unsure, that's fine, I don't really care anymore, my job is done)
Me: Then, it would probably be best to call them. If you want, I can give you their phone number.
Phil: Yes, please.
I gave him the phone number, and away he went. He, of course, attempted to call a few more times concerning the same issue, with varying degrees of illiciting the argument he wanted, but most techs were savvy enough to just pull his call record and ask him if it's the same issue; then why he's calling again about it, and off they went.
My boss later told me I was the only one who could 'stop' Phil when he called.
This went on for a few more weeks, before Phil got to another tech, and got them to cry. It was decided, at that point, to just give Phil my extension, and deny him service if he called on any other line. If I wasn't in, he got my voicemail.
TL;DR: I will break you, asshat caller.
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u/Antarioo In the land of the blind, one eye is king Jul 06 '12
seeing as this guy strains your service line so much and he's being such an utter asshat
is there no possibility to terminate him as a customer?