Now we have a discussion going here about how to talk down irate Customers/End Users but what happens when you run into the same trouble that these irate customers are complaining about?
A few months ago I got hit with a situation where I had 2 sections of the same business blaming the other party for the problem that I was experiencing.
Now this is a 2 part piece of software one side is a Medical Program that stores patient data and the like and the other side is a messaging program to allow bills to be sent to the patients Medical Insurance Company and our Medicare system here. This all occurred because a new computer was installed and I got the install CD for this program along with instructions and ran the install program. Everything installed perfectly without a problem and I transfered the Data across and the new system was up and running [i]Or So I thought.[/i]
Late that afternoon I got a phone call to tell me that the surgery couldn’t send out the bills. As it was already way to late to go there I arranged to be there first thing next morning to fix the problem [b]I should have known better.[/b]
[b]Day 1[/b] I got there rang the supplier and got told that the problem wasn’t in the medical program but in the Messenger side of things so I was given the phone number for that part of the company and told to ring them. So far so good after only a 45 minute wait I got through to their Help desk and was immediately told that the problem was with the Medical Program and not their Messaging program.
Now I don’t work Medical as a rule because of problems like this but as I was blackmailed into this one I had to get it working [b]ASAP![/b] Several phone calls latter I had got to the stage of discovering that the messenger program wasn’t installed in the correct folder apparently the default folder isn’t the correct one and you need to install it into a different folder, pity that there was no mention of this in the install documentation. So I removed the Messenger program reinstalled it into the proper directory but it still wasn’t working by this time the day had already ended so chalk up one wasted day and one even worse tempered Doctor who wasn’t able to send out bills.
[b]Day 2[/b] I arrive there early and rang the messenger side of the business and get the first tier help desk only to be told that it’s not their problem it’s the other program at fault which by this stage I was sure wasn’t the problem. The next 6 hours where spent being bounced between different departments of the same company and I couldn’t be transfered I had to ring and wait in a Que. After I was again told that the problem wasn’t with their software I got more than slightly upset but I didn’t take it out on the Help desk I just said thank you very much and [b]rang a friend.[/b] This is where things got interesting as the friend wasn’t any Joe but one of the Guys who had originally wrote this software and was now running the company and I explained what had been going on and that I needed a solution. Now this guy has known me for a very long time and knows exactly what I know and how I work so he promised to get it sorted.
[b]Day 3[/b] I get a phone call from the Senior Tech from the Medical Side of the Business and I explain what’s been going on give her remote access to the system and let her have a look see. The result is that the Medical program is working perfectly but it’s still unable to send out bills.
So she organises with me to get the senior tech from the other devision to ring me and work through the problems. When I get the phone call from this person I find out that they can not remotely access the system so I had to do the work and it’s explained to me that this person is fully informed of my abilities and knows that the problem is with the messenger side of the software. The very first question that I’m asked by this person is [b]Can I move a File?[/b] I though that this was insulting but said that I was capable of moving the necessary file/s and what did they require moving? I then set about moving every file that was requested created a new folder and so on, after 3 hours of this I was told that the problem wasn’t software related but hardware as the Dial Up Modem wasn’t working, so I just chose one of the Dial Up connections not the one that was giving problems and dialled into the bank account and got a solid connection. Scratch one theory about the problem so the answer was to delete and recreate the connection again. Easy I deleted the entire connection and recreated it and was told what modifications to make to allow it to work. Nothing so it was suggested that I must have done something wrong so lets start all over again.
I deleted the connection and recreated it again along with all the alterations that I was told to do and again nothing it would dial out but not connect which was the original problem since Monday Afternoon and by now it was Thursday and getting late. By this stage I had the Doctor screaming at me that he was going to go bankrupt the Insurance Companies ringing up wanting to know why no bills had been sent to them for 4 days and God only know who else complaining that there where no bills going out. So again I was told to recreate the connection [b]AGAIN![/b] Again nothing so I suggested deleting the connection recreating it without any changes and trying to see if it would work by this time I had realised that the person who was supposed to be helping me knew even less about this software than me so I deleted the account recreated it and rang out a direct connection was achieved without a second try it went straight in. So I logged off made one alteration and tried again, another direct solid connection without problems so I kept making changes one at a time until it stopped working at which point I found out that the setting was wrong from the so called Help end and of course it had to be the finial setting. So I again deleted the account and recreated it this time with all the alterations up to the last one and sent a test bill through the system. Wallah it worked without a problem or so it appeared, by this time it was way after 5.00 PM so all the companies had shut up shop for the day and I couldn’t confirm that the test bill had actually arrived. I got the direct phone number to the person that I was speaking to and told them that if there where any problems I would ring tomorrow.
[b]Day 4[/b] Friday mourning and here I really do mean mourning not morning. I got in there before anyone was opened and sent another test through the system and then placed a call the the receiver to confirm that they had actually received it. Unfortunately I got some underling who wasn’t much help and insisted that they would take up to 12 hours to come thought the system so I asked for the person that I had been speaking to the previous day as this account had had a Priority placed on it for any incoming bills or test bills. 2 hours latter when he got into work he rang me back with a confirmation that the 2 test bills had arrived and could I send down the last weeks bills as he was sitting at a terminal and could watch them arrive. 4 days of bills got sent down and all where received we actually worked through them all one at a time just to make sure that everything was working properly. 1 Down 5 to go so I slowly worked my way through all the Health Insurance Companies and the Workers Compensation Department and made sure that everything got through without any problems.
Now I wasted literally 4 days because someone at a [b]Help Desk[/b] didn’t know their job and what’s even worse was giving the wrong directions on software that they worked with and this was the only piece of software that they used so they should have known exactly how it worked. This is a [b]Dial Up[/b] only setup so there is no excuse for them not knowing what wasn’t happening or why it wasn’t working. Once I had got over the problem of constantly being bounced between departments of the same company it was much better but even still it took the better part of an entire day to get working and then the best part of another day to make sure that it was actually working.
Now I don’t claim to be an [b]Expert[/b] in this software and other than about 12 years ago knowing it fairly well I’ve tried very hard to forget all about it. This company got lucky as they got me to deal with but any normal person would have hit the roof after the first few hours let along the 4 days wasted because no one could be bothered to actually do their job or even knew their job well enough to give the proper support. The entire thing was a complete disaster right from the initial install with the wrong directions and no one knowing any better.
Besides not knowing who to actually bill for all my wasted time not to mention all the unnecessary frustration so I just forgot about that wasted week. I didn’t need any extra frustration in deciding who to bill for all the wasted time.
[b]How would anyone else have dealt with this situation?[/b]
Col
