Why is non-outsourced tech support so bad?

a long time ago when modems were 33k, the vga was
super and tech savy folk were concidered exotic
and were rarely seen in public places, you could
call an aol csr with a problem and the problem
would have been solved. usually with incredible
accuracy and astounding ease. it is a shame that
satirical paradigms based on arogant butheads
scoffing the questions of the culture sterile
braindead. nobody uses the phone anymore.

My husband works in a call center supporting a major shipper's software. When he started (~5 yrs ago) the emphasis was on solving the customer's problem in a polite manner. Call time wasn't a factor in employment and only a small one for review. Time was allowed to study and review procedure, regular training was given and manuals could be taken home for study in off time.

Over the last 18 months, call time has risen to the number one evaluation point, with expected times squeezing from 14 minutes a year ago down to 9.5 minutes as of ~2 months ago. (Did I mention that the requirements for the software are a minimal Windows 98 system? And that many times several reboots are needed to reset the browser, software and hardware in the steps listed?) Gone are the 15 minutes/day to review new procedures. Materials may no longer be taken from the property for study. (But don't miss a step or new procedure or you will fail one of your twice weekly reviews!) The infrequent training is brief and if on a call when it starts, oh well, you are still expected to take the test at the end. (Nevermind you missed 20 minutes of a 60 minute class and there are no handouts.) Fail the test and you may find yourself on a 'performance plan'. "Power words" and following the script/procedures are more important than if the customer issue was solved. And if you answer a question that you CAN, but the steps in the procedure say should go to the next level? Policy violation - 3 and you are out.

However, staff is reduced from over 300 techs 3 years ago to barely 50 now, so the company is saving lots of money. Isn't that just grand?

I can honestly say at my workplace, management lets the IT dept, and techs down. they would like me to upgrade and yet give me no money to upgrade (apart from the normal annual upgrade each year). We have a database in place that works realtime that the customer issues a complaint through the database, when I check it I'll fix it (they can also log password changes, printing issues and network faults). It also calculates the percentage of the faults in the school. Currently and my average is sitting on .88% (5 computers down out of 622, and 2000 users) per day. I also do a quick run around the systems, in case a staff member doesn't log a complaint into the databse. Plus do the usual update server/workstations, AV, and check backups. And I can't see why the staff or managment complain. Maybe I'm one of the good 54% But, I know other techs in the same position, they would love to improove support and upgrade but the money is not there and so as long as we do our day to day operations there shuold be no complaints.

And look at what had been causing this "crunch". All the while a corrupt center management had been abstracting themselves away from any accountability as well as response to the reason they were even in business to begin with.
Many are still perpetuating this philosophy of course. Until there is a catch up of the consciousness level to the tech level, we will have this "HICK gone tech CIO, CEO" mentality as they did in the futures and stock market of the late 1980's. Oh they will ruin it more if we can't learn how to use our intelligence to overcome our ignorance.

The money market has now enveloped the tech sector and whenever that happens (farming mentality) the public becomes abstracted away and the commodity will become more important than the purpose of the technology to it's owners.

Having stats that low I would not be on the Internet bragging about it.. The other reply to thispost I agree it would be disasterous to oursource to you.. I have a personal first time fix of 90% on average.. there is always something that needs a second look at so I don't mind saying my percentage... I don't outsource nor am I an outsourcer .. but I do repair computers onsite and by phone.. keep working at it you might get there someday... yeah I being sarcastic.. even when I worked for a company I still had at a minimum 88 - 95% rate depending on the week and types of calls I recieved still a lot better than your average..

Having worked on an IT Help Desk for 3 years, I agree with your assessment of the attitude/work ethic problem. The majority of our staff was not doing anything productive for the majority of the day. It's a bad habit which effects the entire group. I feel my productivity dropped way off just by being exposed to this day after day.

Of course I believe this problem is allowed to continue because management has no desire to discipline/possibly fire unproductive employee's. We had a staff member caught sleeping at his desk and playing games numerous times by our manager. The person was given harsh warnings but they never changed their habits and management never followed through. Other's in the group saw this and understandably did not see why they should put forth any effort either.

So yes, I agree that work ethic is a big problem. I think a bigger problem is that managers do not deal with the issue, thereby allowing it to spread throughout an organization.

Leadership is extremely important. It sounds like you have the ability to recognize/reward talent, weed out the deadbeats, and motivate the people in between. Can I come work for you?

You have hit a significant contributing factor to the poor quality of support -- that is the poor quality of the metrics chosen. Most shops measure raw counts of tickets closed within a certain time period. In other words, speed (and quantity) are of the essence. Given the fixed/shrinking budgets of most shops, the only other variable that management can adjust to compensate for the increased speed required, within a fixed budget, is reduced quality. The poor quality is not the root problem, it is a symptom of another problem -- namely, what is being measured is only part of the picture. Adding customer satisfaction as a criterion based on customer responses to a percentage of tickets (and taken a day or two later, so the customer can be sure the problem is "really" solved) would help to balance the incentives more towards the quality side of the picture and away from the quantity times speed side that is so often emphasized. 'nuff said.

We have the low quality of tech support because customers put up with it.

So long as the market continues to drive down the cost of PCs and software, the quality of manufacture tech support will continue to worsen.

Either that, or the manufactures will be forced to turn tech support into a profit center.

In the past, commercial products used to come with unlimited phone support and often a year or more of free on-site support.
No longer, in order to remain in business, manufactures of commercial equipment now charge for even phone support after the first year.
For some, software is a leased item, and you must pay an annual fee to continue to use the product.

For used commercial equipment that requires software, you are often required to purchase a software license and service contract that can cost many times what you paid for the used hardware.

Now, on the other side of the coin, it is obvious that many companies do not do a good job of testing their products over a wide range of hardware and software configurations.
When the inevitable deluge of support calls hit, they do not have enough trained staff to deal with customer problems.

The result of the above is that you have low skilled workers attempting to deal with problems beyond their skill level.

Until customers are willing to pay the real cost of products;
Companies are willing to perform complete product testing;
Shipment dates are determined by the completeness of the product;
AND, companies are willing to pay for competent support technicians;
we will continue to have poor tech support.

Chas

I spent 15 yrs in remote software support, over half that time managing support teams, with more than 1 company (I outlived the jobs - we WERE very successful).

Many good reasons as to the source of the problem have been expressed here. I only seriously differ with one - don't bash the individuals doing tech support. They are doing their best - it's human nature to do our best at any job.

I must agree that the problem is with management, and it is very easily expressed: management is doing the wrong analysis of the data! There is so much data available for real analysis, and no one seems to be aware of the possibilities.

Possible improvements (and subsequent measure of the success of the improvements) from the right sort of analsysis (each software package is different) are: improved checklists, training on quicker resolution of the most commmon problems, better software tools (to eliminate minutes lost in administrivia while documenting the call), better staffing/training for in-depth issues, and several others. An additional benefit is identification of bug fixes or enhancements for future software releases. Last but not least, management may find that their best support techs are not necessarily the ones with the best "productivity" measures from their current (naive?) measurements.

Why is this analysis not occuring now? Probably because most managers are not technically savvy - this is not the sort of analysis that can be done with a spreadsheet. For those managers who want to pursue my suggestion - ask your staff to provide input. Their gut-level responses are gold. Then get whatever tech help you need to quantify their ideas, in order to 'sell' your solutions to upper management.

Other management tasks: 1) Reward your staff. Support tasks are much more difficult, and require a wider range of skills, than development. (No need to go into how - there are plenty of management books on that.) 2) Take end-user training in problem identification back to the end-user managers. It's not impossible - I once had my teams' client base (yes, that's client base, not other departments in the same company) give me this feedback "If 90% of our calls are solved in 3 minutes or less, we are mis-using our software support!" Ah, those were the good old days!

Respectfully submitted,

Most of the first level help is in under Developed countrys that have over stressed under paid workers. These workers have to learn how to talk to people that they do not understand. We need answers about how to fix problems that they have to look up and contact others in our country to learn about problems and fixes. The second level is just as bad, they have to go through the first level to find out the problem or contact you to go through what you did with the first level! It is like a dog trying to get its tail. I tried to get help with Nortons internet security and the XP SP2 update. I Emailed with three people who could not understand the basic ideas that I was trying to tell them. I can run update and down load them but can not install them. The contact asked me to reinstall the software. That is the first thing that a novice tells you to do. I fixed it my self and I do not need a translater.

rational igorance is growing, not only on the political scene, but in every facit of life. 90% of the "problems" people have with their stuff, ie, computers, suv's, cakes, pies whatever could be adverted if they would read the directions, that come with the item. Simple things like lisning in class, studying beyound what the minimum requirements, could actually put most tech support out of business. Most tech support tecks learn more in a week than the majority of students in any school learn in a week just because they have learned to read the directions and how to access help files.

I work in one of the those large multi-national companies and I believe BML's comments are exact.

I have seen the same company go from providing and wide recognised exceptional service to an average service with many of the same people on the ground, but through management change and company philosophy service deteriorated.

A company's structure and atmosphere needs to be conducive to making employees want to work hard and achieve. There needs to be rewards for doing so and management need to ability and strength to identify those who are not pulling their weight and do something about it.

If the structure and people are right at the tops levels, it's amazing how things can change. A manager who has a good understanding of customer service and work ethic will generally not tolerate anything else from the people under them, and so it flows down to the point where peers will pressure each other to excel.

rational igorance is growing, not only on the political scene, but in every facit of life. 90% of the "problems" people have with their stuff, ie, computers, suv's, cakes, pies whatever could be adverted if they would read the directions, that come with the item. Simple things like lisning in class, studying beyound what the minimum requirements, could actually put most tech support out of business. Most tech support tecks learn more in a week than the majority of students in any school learn in a week just because they have learned to read the directions and how to access help files.

Funny how everybody complains about tech support, But nobody wants to support the Tech's. How do you do this? Give us the proper training! Contrary to popular belief, none of us know everything about computing but we do know how to get answers, and that takes time. To all my tech support comrades, PRESS ON!

My two cents worth... Tech Support has gone down hill for years now. The only way to pull it out of the gutter that it is in is to revamp it. Now days a business hires off of the street. They may test them to see if they know where the desktop is. Plus be sure they can find their way around on the browser, and Outlook Express. But the bulk of it comes from flash cards or Rolodex and from a computer sitting beside them. You can tell if they know what you are talking about. If you ask a question that is not going along with their little cards, or their computer. You get a long sigh, or a "please hold" Or you get and please uninstall, and reinstall. Or the dreaded reformat.
This is the most neglected career that you can choose. It?s the only one that I can think of in the computer industry that doesn't require a test of your knowledge, and skill. They are also very much abused by irritant callers who think that it is the support staffs fault for the problems they are having with their computer. The whole system needs to be overhauled.
If you decrease your support staff, and test them, and pay them what they are worth, you will see a better return on calls getting results. Give the pros their money's worth, and reward those that go back to school.
If your going to keep the customer on hold, then include in the hold message a calming voice explaining how computers can have problems and not all problems will be fixed with one phone call. Then nicely (very nicely) give words of encouragement, and tips for staying calm. I practice this with my newbies and it works! A few comforting words assuring them you feel their pain, and maybe you should give the computer a time out, and then tips on what to check for after a time out will go a long way in resolving lots of issues. It's ok to sell, but the public is tired of the BS with no results. You tend to sound like just a selling machine that has no heart after a while. Bait them abandon them. If you can record ten different sell ads to sing in their ears, then you can include a couple tips in there. Plus it will help you to keep your good staff. This is one of the main reasons why support centers loose their best workers. They get tired of the cussing, and name calling, abuse, etc. Plus if you think this will make the customer run, think again. They don?t run. I never had one to run from me. The conversations some may start unpleasant, but they mellow out, if the Tech support is versed on how to handle it well.
Split up your staff... If you have someone that really knows their hardware, but you have them on the software phones. Change them to hardware!
Now for the pitfalls... Some of the Tech Support is bad because the business could care less about it. They are not making that much money. Some customers if they are charged for the service, are watching that clock, and will hang up after a given amount of time. Others only will call if the support is free. After that forget it. Which brings us back to poor tech support because the staff is not knowledgeable. Who wants to pay for a service if the advice they are given is bad? The other is the Outsourcing to Countries, with bad English. The customer can't tell you what the tech support told them to do, cause they didn't understand a word that was said. Which brings us back to the business then because they want cheap labor if the Tech support is unknowledgeable. They also or at least some will hire off the street, give them a few lessons on how to search the rolodex or the computer, and turn them loose after a couple days or less of training. Then the business gives them a quota for the day or the week. It all has to stop! If you have ever asked any Tech person how many years of training they have, I bet they say they started years ago, and they are still learning. That is who I want working for me! Pull up a chair now and lets see what you have learned so far? That is also whom they need on the phones. Now the other pitfall is the software itself. If you want less support calls, or better ones, then demand better software! Stop taking excuses for the crap ware that is being dished out to the public and business. Plus do something about the malware that is ruining business everywhere. Fixing it halfway is not acceptable. Other business establishments won?t tolerate it, neither should the Tech Support industry. Demand better.

-Management policies driving the support personnel to *higher productivity* while not offering additional incentives to those individuals with higher productivity. When i worked tech support for a global corp. I noticed that as long as i was there for my shift, it didnt matter if I did 30% more work than my co-worker. we were getting the same benefits, same pay - no additional incentive.

-Techs are asked NOT to log in even Five minutes early, even if there were customers on the wait queue, as the company will not pay them for the additional time --> Longer hold times for customers.

-Support personnel were hired at their ability to read (outdated) scripts rather than their ability to troubleshoot. Gianst like IBM EUS, CISCO, GE etc do not hire support professionals anymore, they hire contract companies. The contracted tech gets paid around 12$/hr, gets NO benefits, is riddled with outdated management policies and is offered no incentive to be more productive than he needs to be.

-Another reason for low FCR's was (moduled) support teams. Various tech support locations are specialized untis for One purpose, and everything else needs to be transferred to other teams. If a client calls in asking for support on a issue that you CAN support, but just dont have the proper rights to, you need to transfer it to another team that can --> there goes your FCR. This is becomming an issue as phone menu options are not clear enough for most clients and they end up contacting the wrong support teams.

--Outsourcing/offshoring is also an issue. I cannot count the number of clients who have called int oc omplain that (specialized) admin support teams do not respond to them for 12 hours. To explai this issue consider the following scenario
---- You call in tech support as you are having issues with say your exchange account with the company. You are in US, the support team is in US. the tech after trying for a while says that he needs to route the case to the exchange support team andthat you will be contacted. the exchange support team is located in india, and has work hours according to their 9-5 hours. So when they come to work, you are not working, and when you come to work, they are not working - resulting in a neverending cycle of emails/voicemails/offline pages in order to get the issue resolved. If you can never TALK to the person and explain what exactly is the problem, how can you expect a resolution to your issue?

*Unsupported Issues* -
I love these, seems like there is a neverending list of unsupported issues with every support team. My team was asked to do an audit of another (contacted) support team, it seemed like their new support techs were briefed more on how to find ways to code cases as unsupported and punt them than to resolve them. Couple of things i noticed was SBC Yahoo DSL techs will often tell the customers to contact their PC manufacturer or company IT support for cases that are resolved (in the end) by the pc tech/ company tech by looking up FAQ's on the SBC site. But its a vicious circle, countless number of times the PC techs\ Company IT will send the client to the ISP because they dont want to troubleshoot basic issues also.

and lastly.....
Customers and their expectations - Some clients can in with unrealistic expectations. Tech support is not magic, that a tech with punch in the magic code and everything will be working in a jiffy. I myself am guilty of being one of those customers, as i am sure all of us have been at one time or the other.

Hello All,
I have been in the technical support field for five years now. It's not the most glamorous or thankful job in the world but it certainly beats flipping burgers. In tech support you are someone's hero for about five minutes after you find their document or restore a file THEY deleted from the server. Then you're the 'bad support' person again.

I think I get paid a decent salary (upper 50% of the nation) and that is probably why I'm very good at my job.
I've had the great pleasure of working in Germany for three out of the five years I've been a techie and now I work for a company that allows for travel to the UK several times a year all in the name of technical support.
I take extreme offense to the posing question, "Why is non-outsourced tech support so bad?" Having worked now at three different locations (two in Europe and one in the US) I have to say that perhaps it is your location where the technical support is "?so bad." Obviously you don't have me working with you or any of the past or present colleagues that I have/had the great fortune of working with. They were soldiers (active and retired), civilians (GS and contractors), young, old, fat, thin? every walk of life. I now work with all civilians, no way connected with the military. And I must say, no matter where I have worked I always had a great team and the job(s) were done efficiently and with pride. I still keep in contact with many of my users from previous jobs from the upper echelons to the admins. They all respected my work and were appreciative.
Are you interested in out-sourcing your tech support? You think it will improve things? Go ahead. That is all phone support which is a little difficult as you can imagine. Chances are the support representative will be in some other country, English skills may be up to par but the accent will be difficult to understand. The user will experience longer down-times and the frustration level will increase.
"First Call Resolution in the software publishing industry is 46%!" First call representatives are usually minimum wage personnel. They are still wet behind the ears; still learning the basics. Perhaps YOU should take some responsibility for your own machine and learn the basics. You don't get in a car without first taking driving lessons, do you? You work with that machine in front of you and you should possess some 'owner responsibility'. You back up your data to a server if possible or request a copy of a CD with your important information. You figure out that most problems can be resolved by rebooting your machine. You write down error messages when they appear. You list the applications that were open when you received such an error message or when your machine just 'stopped working'.
Answers: Training, training, training and good managers that want to shape, mold and guide their techs. Another answer is communication. That is the key in any relationship including tech support and users. Inform the user when you will be by to fix their computer and follow up.
Stress Junkie: Poor work ethic in the American culture. Are you 100% serious? I've worked overseas and in America and I must tell you... it's all relative. The UK, Germany, Italy, France? Have you been in France when they, whomever, decided to strike? Truckers, train personnel, security personnel? It's a wonder they get anything done. Have you ever tried to contact anyone in Europe at work passed 3:00 PM on a Friday? Good Luck. I'm the last person to 'get ethnocentric on you' but I really don't agree with your 'poor work ethic in the American culture' comment. There is a reason why we are a super power and it is not because we rest on our laurels. We do work? a lot. We do have a system of check and balances throughout that keep most honest. We are at our desks more than any other country in Europe. Yes, I'm aware of the caveat just because a person is at their desk for 60 hours a week doesn't mean they're working 60 hours. I realize there is good and bad in every country but just to generalize that American's have a poor work ethic is wrong.
I apologize for the lengthy e-mail as I'm sure you all have work to do. As do I.
Have a great day!

I agree with you.

I think its only natural that you are not going to have quality in the area of support when management doesn't want to invest dollars in it. Its something me and my associate (who is the "other" IT tech) were saying yesterday..."they" want top-notch service, but they don't want to pay for it. They expect fancy new databases -- but they don't want to pay for the new hardware it requires or the expertise of a well-trained developer to build it, they want all these "features" in a software package on every machine in the company but when we tell them what the costs are they balk at it.

I know this forum isn't read by many CIO level or higher folks..but just in case read this line: "HOW THE HELL WE SUPPOSED TO GIVE YOU ALL YOUR QUALITY IN SERVICE, ALL YOUR FEATURES, IF YOU EXPECT US TO DO IT WITH NOTHING IN THE WAY OF BUDGETS, SALARY INCENTIVES OR RESOURCES!!!!!!".

thanks.

later. ;)

I know good examples when outsourcing created a total mess especially when the Data Center is packed with custom Business Intelligence systems tightly integrated and running on multiple platforms to meet the business processing/analytical needs.

I want to comment on only one statement you made. We are not the most efficient country on the planet. We generate much volume, are on the leading edge of technology, and generate much revenue, but none of these equate to efficiency. As the previos poster stated, a large percentage of americans have very poor work ethics which by extension means that efficiency if adversely effected. We may be the largest contributor to the planets economy, but if we were to become the most efficient...who knows where that would lead.

When most business owners/managers pay a substandard industry wage to support personnel, it is very hard to motivate these individuals. Usually there is no incentive at this level for continuing education and this does breed contempt in the workplace. In this country, it takes more than a substandard wage to raise a family modestly and if the business climate would embrace that we would surely see an improvement.

Don Barrett
Network Administrator

I assume when you say non-outsourced tech you are talking about support here in the USA that has not been farmed out to India or some other country. Personally, I would rather deal with bad support in this country because at least you can understand the ill advice better. You can also ask to speak to their superior and expect to get someone who speaks English as a first language, not a second or third. The tech outsourcing only proves that our country?s businesses are so profit driven that they would rather lose tons of customers, than offering quality support and gaining new-satisfied customers. It?s all about saving a few bucks. Our focus isn?t on customer satisfaction anymore, it all about profits. The old saying, ?the customer is always right,? went out the door a long time ago.

Statistics lie, if you live by statistics you'll be constantly living in stress and fear.

Averages only mean something when you have a nice distribition (One curve...) You won't have a nice distribution in IT Support because you don't have multiple types of requests. A bunch resulting in 5 minute responses, some requiring more time, some requiring hours. A true look at this stats would include the average, median and mode and show that for say password resets, we get that right in 5 minutes each time. For virus fighting it takes longer, reinstalls take longer then that.

Live your life by the average of everything, you you'll never get it right.

-Rob

As a sometime user of HelpDesks (work, HP, MSoft, Symantec etc)and shops, garages, admin desks, I find nationality or culture doesn't matter. It's the working conditions people are under or the people themselves. However when I went to the US of A I found people very nice. Much "nicer" then Australian front desk/shop/call centre. So does my American spouse.

If I call a helpdesk from Australia, I can get anywhere in the World on the other end. Most are very good. If I call my work Helpdesk I usually ask for one or two people I knopw will be helpful. I think work ethic generally has slid all round- face to face or over technology links. It's a me, me and me World out there. Unfortunately the US gets the blame for it and every other thing known to humankind.

But there are still plenty of us out there, World-wide, who go an extra (paid or underpaid). and we are better for it.

It's a great read. And it also seems to provide the answer to your question, no?

If the company gets paid by calls then the tech that gets the bonus and the promotion is the tech that tells the customer - "sorry, we can't fix a computer not in its original state" and turns around to take another call with the same answer in hand.

But seriously, has anyone here ever called Dell, for example? How many times have you hear Dell say "we won't support a computer that's not in its original state and configuration"? It has never happened to me, albeit I don't have to call them all that often.

One last word about tech support - I no longer work strict tech support but I still do some desktop support and guess where the problems lay 90% of the time? It's in between the keyboard and the chair. It's a guy who now has Alexa and Gain and VX2 and Dyfuca all over his machine because he was surfing the wrong sites.

Tech support has to deal with a lot nowdays. There are millions of software packages, millions of poorly configured networks, millions of viruses, etc. Good tech support probably takes time. Perhaps it's time someone took a look at how the reinbursment system works and overhaul it in some way. No more pay per volume.

Yes, we would all like to have an issue fixed on the call, but unfortunately, we must deal with the QA of the tools we are given to fix the issues with.

No matter what you do to fix something, there are just going to be cases where something is a lemon and it's just not going to ever work as promised.

M$ has admitted that past products just weren't very good or stable (I.E. Win95, Small Business Server 4.5, IIS 4).

So the issue is that no matter how hard you try, you will NEVER be able to fix some issues on the first try (or the 20th).

A tech can only be as good as the tools that he is given. And in the case of a lot of products, no matter how well you polish a turd,it will still be a turd at the end of the day

The last time my wife called tech support she could overhear someone else in the room dealing with his caller: "OK, now that you're on top of the desk look behind it and follow the really thick cord that comes out of the back of the computer. Is it plugged into a wall socket?" I give help desk people credit for being able to maintain their sanity.

Work Ethic posted earlier on another thread:

As a sometime user of HelpDesks (work, HP, MSoft, Symantec etc)and shops, garages, admin desks, I find nationality or culture doesn't matter. It's the working conditions people are under or the people themselves. However when I went to the US of A I found people very nice. Much "nicer" then Australian front desk/shop/call centre. So does my American spouse.

If I call a helpdesk from Australia, I can get anywhere in the World on the other end. Most are very good. If I call my work Helpdesk I usually ask for one or two people I knopw will be helpful. I think work ethic generally has slid all round- face to face or over technology links. It's a me, me and me World out there. Unfortunately the US gets the blame for it and every other thing known to humankind.

But there are still plenty of us out there, World-wide, who go an extra (paid or underpaid). and we are better for it.

From: non techie Date: 09/14/04

Tech support is aware of your problem and would like to help you out. Exactly which way did you come in?

Alot of it is poor training, but in my opinion, the quality of service depends on how good of a tech the company in question can afford. You pay less, your not going to get quality applicants for the job. In turn you have techs that don't quite know how to do what is asked of them.

"How can a servive rep help someone else on an item he has little experiance with?"

After 10 years of this type of support I can tell you the way I get around it is I learn quick, keep the best resources at my finger types (IE its not what you know, but where and how quickly you can find the answers), and then I memorize anything I'm sure I'll need again. There will be delay on the first call sure, but after that the answer is quickly available.

I also offer my users simple humility in that I readily admit when I don't know or am not certain, but then fight to figure it out and let them know what I've found quickly.

The fun part is when someone calls from the other side of the world and you know immediately what's wrong from the symptom's you've seen 100 times, and management stops the process asking if you've "Triaged" or "how much work" you put into this issue. Usually after its obvious even to MSCE's that money needs to be spent....

Probably searching around on the floor for the token that must have fell out when the network cable was unplugged?

How about this one, pulled the fire alarm to avoid suffication when an ethernet cable was found unplugged?

Or Maybe they feel like men joining a woman's study course in college for how harse this discussion has been. My managers here try to do whatever their CIO tells them. They take deep breaths every time a decision comes down... Some problems start at the top and just continue on down...

Americans go too hard on themselves
Work Ethic posted earlier on another thread:

As a sometime user of HelpDesks (work, HP, MSoft, Symantec etc)and shops, garages, admin desks, I find nationality or culture doesn't matter. It's the working conditions people are under or the people themselves. However when I went to the US of A I found people very nice. Much "nicer" then Australian front desk/shop/call centre. So does my American spouse.

If I call a helpdesk from Australia, I can get anywhere in the World on the other end. Most are very good. If I call my work Helpdesk I usually ask for one or two people I knopw will be helpful. I think work ethic generally has slid all round- face to face or over technology links. It's a me, me and me World out there. Unfortunately the US gets the blame for it and every other thing known to humankind.

But there are still plenty of us out there, World-wide, who go an extra (paid or underpaid). and we are better for it.

From: non techie Date: 09/14/04

From: non techie Date: 09/15/04

I am frankly offended by many of the comments posted in this thread. We (tech support troubleshooting, solution-finding professionals) deserve more praise than criticism. Yes, many help desks are understaffed, underpaid, undertrained, and don't do a five-star quality job. But they're the minority, IMHO. Most IT pros I know try their very best to overcome obstacles like users who can't explain context, refuse to write down error messages, and fail to follow instructions to the letter.

Permit me to vetch about some other "SUPPORT" industries that suck much, much worse and are deserving of at least equal amounts of derision.

Food service: Not just drive throughs or even fast food restaurants. "There you go" has replaced "thank you" in the vernacular. I stopped counting at 1,000 the times I got cold food or the wrong order.

The electric company. These people invented circular references in their telephone-answering systems. Good luck getting these clowns to answer the phone.

Cable Television. At least in my neck of the global woods, you sit on hold for 45 MINUTES when you call the cable company, then you get some poor schmoe who can't really do more than create a work order and, oh BTW we can't get to you for two MONTHS because we have a backlog..

Auto repair shops. Need I say more? If you find an honest mechanic who doesn't make up repairs, sabotage your vehicle, and inflate prices, hold on for dear life.

Tree repair guys. Me: "Hi, I have trees that need to be cut down, can you do it?" Them: "Sure we'll come by and give you an estimate." Me: Three weeks after the first appointment missed, without a telephone call, "Are you EVER going to come and do the work and take my hard-earned money???"

Home repair guys. Same routine as the tree repair guys.

It isn't just the "help desk" industry that suffers from people who don't have the moral fiber or the mental wherewithal or the work ethic to show up and do a good job. It's about time we stop whining and give credit where it's due.

I must agree with the lack of training being at the root of the problem. Whether that is from school or on the job, an untrained tech is not going to know how to troubleshoot. I know about this because I am a tech with no formal IT education. I graduated from college with a BA in History and landed a job in PC support 9 months after obtaining said degree. I have been trained very well on the job by techs that know what they're doing, but even with all of that training, there are a lot of things I don't know because of lack of training in those areas. (I guess I have the opposite problem of the techs with the formal education and no practical training.) We're not strictly phone techs and are responsible for supporting all 200+ applications that we are running in addition to OS and hardware, so I know my case is different, but I think I still have some insight into the problem.

One of the difficulties in troubleshooting is the plethora of hardware and drivers that users are running, not to mention other software on their computer that can interfere with whatever software one is attempting to support. We have users attempting to use two programs, each requiring a different Java client. They can't use both programs, then, since the requirements for one will "break" the other. There are multiple options for installing printer drivers and some software will work with one but not the other. It is hard to troubleshoot if you don't know what else a user is running. If a tech knows those things about their software, they should be able to troubleshoot that, but those are not the most prominent of problems and probably to not receive the highest billing in whatever training a company gives its level 1 support staff.

Having worked briefly in a call center, albeit in a completely different field, I also know about the tools given to phone representatives. There are scripted responses they are trained to give and they are trained in the scenarios in which those scripted responses may be appropriate. While this may work in a majority of cases, there are many calls that cannot be effectively answered by a script. This is really a poor training system that is effective only at minimizing time from initial hire to solo flight in the call center. Having called tech support myself, I am convinced that they have been given scripts and little more.

Then there are the users. Many people might find tech support unhelpful because they are not competent enough to follow instructions or communicate even basic information about their problem. I have solved the wrong problem before because of the way someone has explained what is happening or have found that the problem with the program is a problem with their hardware. Software techs are not mindreaders. I know people who cannot follow directions that are explicitly written, accurate and detailed, complete with pictures. You can walk them through something and they will click on the wrong thing - the only way you know that is if you see it. Other users will call one company's tech support with connection problems that the user's personal firewall is blocking. That is guaranteed to be ineffective!

Great support happens when the tech knows what they are doing, has good communication skills and patience (an area in which some of us are lacking), and a user who is able to communicate the problem and follow directions. It's too bad we don't live in an ideal world!

The bottom line on poor tech support statistics is ultimately the responsibility of the infrastructure manager. The roles of a manager are to provide resources, measure individual/department performance to include correction and appraisals, trend analysis, budgeting, and report to powers that be some or all of the items above (and of course?other duties assigned). The manager with a combination of his/her duties will be able to and should be measuring the viability of their efforts and reporting it. The primary reason is of course a selfish one?job (pseudo-)stability. The first thing that needs to take place is the manager needs to have a vision of what the ?ideal? tech-support department looks like in his/her organization. Then determine the key stakeholders (this is handy not only for metrics but also when allocating resources (serverA is down, it only affects departmentZ, reducing their productivity by 15%?priority 2). Create a mission for your department (your employees will feel a part of something when they know what they are putting that server together to support a part of the mission, besides this also gives you things to measure their performance against. Next you will want to hire and train ?competent and trustworthy? employees, to include providing them with what I like to call ?guidelines for success (training req./plan and periods, performance req., ect.).? This will not only provide your new hire with the tools needed to stay on board and perform well, but it will also weed out the ?no getters (will not last beyond the 90-day trial/training period).? Again, this will benefit you because you will be able to mentor to those who want it, also relieving your workload (train your replacement). Then you must set organization wide guidelines for support (sla?s and policies). This covers your behind when those ?grey? areas are breached by enthusiastic end users, to include developers (tech support supports them as well). Then there also needs to be policies put in place for support individuals. After all, time is money! 

The tendency for infrastructure types to point to end-user training is a valid point and for the record, there needs to be again a ?manager? to ascertain the training needs of his/her department employees. The truth of the matter is that you would all be out of a job if users had all the training needed/wanted and never needed to call for support. Keep in mind, managers have to justify not only their jobs but yours as well.

I'd say poor management at all levels is the primary reason. Work ethic etc. is very influenced by poor management techniques such as failing to use positive feedback techniques, removal of incentives for good quality and quantity other than negative ones such as firings; short term budgeting, lack of training, poor work distribution, on and on it goes.

Poor management can kill good work ethic in a flash. There is nothing American management does better than killing work ethic.

I am not sure that this is correctable. Everyone knows its a problem but the only people who can change it, the management are not concerned. All they see is $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ today. Not the coming calamity.

Ultimately the problem is the people not the management. We have let ourselves drift into this situation by accepting shortcuts and unprincipled actions of our own. The change has to start with the people. It would help if we would pick good leaders who don't promise "pie in the sky".

Everybody knows what the problem is,here's how we solve the problem. First we stop the blame game and everybody accept responsbilty for thier actions. Next to repair this problem it's going to take a brain trust of experience,and educated professionals with both certified and open-source experience. Everybody and I mean everybody is going to have to get over the high school clique mentality. Stop assuming and let's work together,next management at all levels are going to have to stop justfying and crying poverty when it comes to paying for support professionals. You don't get something for nothing. This is in my humble opinion.

Let's stop dancing around. You want a chain of cause and effect? Let's start with kids who are marginalized out of productive society, whose parents have no expectations for their present existence, just about their future earning potential. Middle class kids that get everything handed to them, and poor kids who just slouch out and hang with their peers for lack of anything better to do, or any guidance. Add schools that are deliberately dumbed down to the point that they are only juvenile day care. Don't let the Prez' "no child's left buttox" initiative fool you, there is no interest in a work force that is too smart for the menial jobs. I started learning about the physical world and troubleshooting when I was 11, and I had to keep a lawnmower running to earn a living. It shocks me that most things carry a "no user servicable parts" label these days, and most people I meet are intimidated by anything more complicated than a garden hose. These people are hired because they are cheaper than the engineers that make the hardware and software. If they were any good, they would be writing software, not answering the phone. They are well educated by modern standards, and well meaning, but they are only paid enough to talk to end users and not piss them off. They are not paid enough to be experts. Now let's add inept upper and middle management to the mix. These are people making 2-3 times the salary of the average worker bee and are taking all the credit for their team's success without even understanding the technical discussions around them. If you asked them, they would admit to being "rusty", but they would maintain that they had "paid their dues", all the while maintaining a "what have you done for me lately?" mentality when dealing with their subordinates. Gee, I can't understand why the work ethic, and incidentally, phone support should suck, can you?

We hire crappy people for a couple of reasons:

First, because the manager (not my manager, incidentally) is just as big a moron as the people he's hiring. He can't determine a good candidate and can't see the value in using anyone else to aid in the selection process. He is then too shortsighted or lazy or something . . . to train his people on the most fundamental concepts that they should have had coming in the door.

Second, because there is no such thing as a company that will give a real reference anymore. They're all so paranoid about litigation that they'll only give out name, rank and serial number, aka name, position and employment dates. Again, a management issue.

Then, again partly because of fear of litigation, we don't fire people and look for the next candidate when we should.

Pile onto that the ever-expanding array of technology to be accounted for, and we're completely screwed.

In my experience, bad service is mostly due to to lack of communcation and as such, expectation mismatch.
And that is were ITIL plays also an important role. It helps to bring structure in the processes which drive an the IT's organisation.
Not only the financial aspect, but also in handling incidents, problems, changes.. or putting up availability,capacity,Service level management.. All with 1 goal, to get IT focussed on the business, for the business. Now before you jump into the books, ITIL Service Delivery and Support will tell you what to do, not how to do it! That's why getting people on board and the willingness to adapt/adopt ITIL throughout the IT silo's, will get you the kick needed.
My 2 cts.
Ed

Non Outsourced IT have no incentive to perform, ,they turn up
sometimes for work and they get paid irrespective of the quality
of the job they do. Most internal support groups set up Tiers of
Help Desk Agents - they put the most junior on the phone so
the senior's can play doom or do something "more important"
than supporting customers. Customers are rude to the staff and
the staff are indifferent to the customers. An outsourcer is as
good as the buyer of the service -and this is a whole bag of
worms. If the buyer is well experienced, understands pay for
performance SLA's and knows why his own organisation will
never succeed then he may get a good outsourced contract. But
good contracts aren't about mean time to resolve and wrap up
times - they are about resolving on first call, about skill teams,
making front line staff feel proud of what they do, having a
carreer path for the staff so that involves progression within the
support function because most tier 1 agents have one ambition
and this is to get out into the field or away from customers -
thats because everyone else isn't looking afer the customers so
why should they - a dedicated support business has one mission
and thats where the difference lies. Of course amongst the
dearth of bad managers are a few evangilists - they believe in
the art of support and it makes no difference wether they are
insourced or not.

When was the last time you called for HELP!
Did you get a tech who talked ENGLISH???
Our calls go all the way to India, etc......
While you sit and wait.

http://www.eds.com/advertising/ads/parking_lot_ad.pdf

If you go to the link above, you will see how ingrained 'face time' or long hours are ingrained in the American working psyche.

The decision makers actually use this in a marketing campaign? How long you work makes no difference. What you get done and for what cost does. Just the fact that people have to work long hours means that either the company is running the staff levels to lean or they trying to substitute hardwork for competence.

Especially for a company like EDS where most of the work it does is Time and Materials. So as a client, whenever I see them burning the midnight oil, I see my bill going up.

GREAT INDIA!!
THE ONLY LEADER IN OUTSOURCE BUSINESS

Working in the outsourcing environment, I wonder what and how are you measuring to come up with 46% first call resolution. In our environment, we regularly achieve around the 65-70% first call resolution - but we measure on identified products and technologies. There are some of the products and technologies that have a multiplicity of areas where things could go wrong and this is escalated to the 2nd level support team who are trained specifically in those areas.

We have found that the resolution rate is reasonably well linked to the training of the personnel involved and the troubleshooting tools at their disposal.

As our first level support is provided by the helpdesk staff, the task assigned for them is primarily ensuring that the correct details are recorded at first level and that basic troubleshooting is performed (with an SLA of 65% of first level resolution on identified products). The training of these staff members is set to achieve this.

I suppose the issue for most organisations is to ensure they understand what they are trying to achieve in support and then setting in place a training plan and implementing the correct troubleshooting tools necessary to achieve their objectives. Also, it should be kept in mind that the environment being supported must have some controls to stop users from installing implementing products / technologies without proper cosideration for effects on other products. In my experience, many organisations do not have any control on their SOE (desktop) or applications.

The best form of support is to be proactive and implement a correct level of control to ensure that the business can still achieve its objectives without causing a "user revolt".

Lastly, in upgrading applications and products, a level of acceptance testing and procedures should be put in place to ensure that what is about to be put into the production environment is not going to create an avalanche of issues to be resolved by first level support.

I wouldn't be entirely blaming the support organisation for "bad stats". This may be an indicator of a more serious problem underneath.

I live and work in Australia and find great productivity correlates with mutual respect among workers for education and training. If the workplace culture promotes and rewards education, greater interest in quality outputs results.

Yes, it CAN be done. I'm in the middle of having a problem solved by Kingston Technology, regarding some sort of incompatibility between my Sony laptop and a memory chip I purchases. The people are outstanding. But, this is a rare occurrence.

I'm not in tech support, although I seem to be the person my friends call when they have problems. Although there are some truly hideous tech support people who shouldn't be working in a job that affects other people, some of the blame must go to the customers, obviously. In my experience, I find that it's the rare computer user who actually reads instructions. I'm not talking about technically oriented people who LIKE computers, but people who bought one because they need to use it. If these people had no choice but to install a new furnace themselves, they'd read the documentation from cover to cover before blowing up their house. But, for reasons I don't understand, the docs that came with their computers remain unopened for years, and they're totally (and blissfully) unaware of the F1 key or the presence of the "Help" choice on the menu.

There's another issue, too, but I can't prove it because it's based on observing just a handful of people. There are users who are so addicted to the bells and whistles (Solitaire, chat rooms, etc) that they can't shut it all off and just deal with their computer problems effectively. I mean, how fried do you have to be to say "How can I have a virus? I just bought the machine and it came some kind of Norton program?" Try explaining that the machine's been in a box for 2 months, so the antivirus signatures are outdated.

Some of this is the fault of the computer manufacturers. They sell computers like they were toasters, when, in fact, they're more like chain saws, in terms of the need to read instructions. And, they don't have what I think should be a legally required sticker on the keyboard: "Get out your credit card NOW, call this number, and buy a year's worth of antivirus data service. The AV program on your machine is only partially complete until you do this".

I believe that one reason tech-support seems so bad these days, is that for the most part people calling tech-support are better trained than they used to be. Because of this, expectations of the support folks has grown. When a professional in the computer industry calls someone else's tech-support, they hope that who they call has more expertise in the product than they do. Usually this is not the case. The norm is to reach someone who is an entry level support person who has a script they work from. This leads to a bad experience for everyone

This is American culture issue!
I see most of the qualified people became managers because we don't pay enough for the technical workers. We don't have proper channel to promote technical skills and keep them in technical field.

Regarding "complete disregard for customers", I agree. Many tech support people develop an attitude that the customer is an idiot, and therefore they think customers "don't ask the right questions", or "don't describe their problem adequately." The reason we're better at knowing how to ask and answer the questions is because IT'S OUR JOB! When I go to the doctor, he/she does not expect me to know exactly what questions to ask. Part of their job is to probe and figure out my problem because I don't have the medical knowledge or experience to articulate my issues very well. Keep in mind that the customers don't spend all day doing what we do, so we are supposed to assess their needs and make their I/T problem as inconsequential as possible. It amazes me more than ever that, with all of the outsourcing going on, there are still so many I/T workers that take their customers for granted.

The blame lies in multiple places with this issue from my own experience:

1.) Systems rolled out without adequate documentation, without adequate training, without adequate involvement of support personnel.

2.) Insufficient end-user knowledge of system coupled with insufficient support-user knowledge of how the system is used (this assumes that support personnel have at least some level of knowledge of the system in the first place - this is not always the case, as our support personnel receive calls on systems which have never been documented and must learn "on the fly").

3.) Corporate mind-frame that "support will just know" - techs are paid to know systems, so they're expected to support them with minimal exposure or training, and often without documentation or access to resources.

The list goes on.

Having worked in a senior position for a major PC and memory manufacturer in the US, I was heavily involved when our internal phone support was outsourced (to an American company in another state). This was done as a cost saving measure; I was in charge of training on our products, as well as acting as chief liaison for our medium business customers( up to 500 PC's)escalations. What I saw from the company who we contacted with was deplorable. The bottom line was on volume, not quality. This firm was paid by the call, so there was tremendous stress to have very low call times. This was one major factor in our very quick and serious decline in customer satisfaction, and poor first call solutions. If someone had to talk an individual into replacing an motherboard, the call time could take hours; this would lead to multiple dropped calls, or quick-in, quick-out non-resolution resolutions. Another factor tor that kept the quality of people very low was pay. These people were paid rather low, and if they had great customer service and technical skills, there was no reason for said person not to be out making better money in the field. The last major factor in this was stress. Dealing with neophytes all day long who didn't understand that the issue was software, and therefore not covered. Customers lacked an appreciation that technical issues do arise, and were often very reticent, and slow going in working with phone support for problem determination; and honestly, most people who called had a system they had spent thousands on that was not working (so often an issue instigated by the user in software, but that is a whole other rant), they have been on hold for sometime, often poorly treated on other tech support calls (see above), and therefore have a very bad attitude when they do speak with support. For the support tech, day in and day out abuse from customers, poor internal support from the company who farmed out the labor, high demand by management to lower the call time while improving customer relations, and poor pay all add up to horrible support. I have seen very little shift away from this business model, and until that happens, these issues will continue to plague the industry.

Having been on both sides of the tech support equation (Including managing a support call center)I see three prime causes for poor tech support:
1) Money. Most businesses regard tech support as a cost center, few give more than lip service to the idea that good, solid support is a product enhancement. So, the money is given grudgingly and usually in the lowest possible amounts.
2)Most companies that run support call centers tend to set numerical goals (Number of calls taken per shift) and techs are judged by the number of calls that they handle rather than the number of successful resolutions they accomplish.
Counting calls is done automatically, tracking resolutions takes research and follow-up and it costs money.
Most of the techs with whom I worked were thoughtful people who wanted to deliver quality service. Unfortunately, they were often precluded from doing so by the need to get through X nnumber of calls per shift - or else.
3) Tech Support is not seen as a career by most of the techs involved in it. It is usually low paying and perceived as low-status. Because of this, the techs tend to see it as a stepping stone to something else rather than an end in itself.

I have to put the majority of the blame on the technician. Most "Help Desk" positions are starting positions and don't pay a livable wage. Barely above minimum wage. Most techs I've seen don't understand how computers work. All they know is "swap parts" troubleshooting. For a qualified tech that's great but for a beginner? I don't think so.

As if that isn't enough throw in companies with no loyalty to customer, or employee and you have the combination for poor service. The company doesn't care about the techs upward mobility. The max he(or she)will be there is 3 years. Then they'll take a job somewhere else. Where they may, or may not, be appreciated until the newness wears off and then the cycle repeats itself.

I have always believed that if the companies, i.e. the management took a personal interest in their employees and their professional development the paybacks would be enormous. That means you have to develop your employees from day 1. Plan for where you want them to be in 5 to 10 years. Share the corporate, and professional, knowledge. Send them to school to hone their skills and treat them like living human beings, not some piece of equipment with a shelf life of 3 years.

I know that as an IT person that supports many applications, I get complaints that I'm "uncooperative" or that I won't fix XYZ issue. The problem that I run across is that the user expects the system to do things it was not designed to do. The people asking were on the implementation team, and I've explained many times that what they want to do is outside the scope of the system, and is in fact against all applicable federal regulations, so it would be illegal to do, but still, I seem to be the problem. This is only one case, but I find that in many cases, the expectation is that IT can fix any and all issues, even to the point of re-programming a 3rd party application to violate federal laws and regulations!

I agree with Synthetic. I worked call support for a few months right after college and it was so bad I thought I may have gotten into the wrong field.

I started in a new tech support center, we had no tracking software or history database. We were told to keep all calls to 10 minutes or less, preferably less than 5 minutes. We were not allowed to escalate calls to a more knowledgeable person. We were given no training at all.

We had to physically keep track of all our time. What time it was when we went to the restroom and what time it was when returned from the restroom, as well as break and lunchtimes.

Then there was the physical workspace we had to work in. Shared cubicles, no windows, warehouse atmosphere, it was so cold most of the tech people wore coats or sweaters and some even wore gloves, really! And we were not allowed to take or make personal phone calls even on our breaks.

I was there for nine months and things never did get better.

I've put in 2 tours of duty at 2 different helpdesks, 2 different corporations.

I was a grunt in the ditch.

I found something which GREATLY impacts productivity on the helpdesk, and I'd like to say the helpdesk environment has DEGENERATED into nothing more than a numbers game.

Training. None. Sure, there's the 2 week crash course on how to fillout your helpdesk ticket into Remedy or how to log in & out of the phone to account for every single second of your day.

Where was the TECHNICAL TRAINING to prepare the Helpdesk analysts to properly troubleshoot the problem? There was none. You winged it. You brought your own knowledge with you. And for those that didn't know it, I'd wince at the stupid/OUTLANDISH "solutions" I'd hear on the phone.

I remember my IBM days as a supplemental employee in the Help Center working in the Mobile Support group (Thinkpad, PS/Note, etc.). There was originally training, but thru a managment switcheroo, training stopped. The call "Q" continued to get bigger and bigger. At one point, they started to hire people off of the street with ZERO computer experience, as in, didn't even know how to format a floppy disk! (this is soo true, I'm NOT making this up) And these same people were supposed to be giving technical support to computer dealers and end-users alike. RIDICULOUS!!

My philosophy was simple: TRAIN the call takers. CERTIFY them! Get expert, trained people on the phone to provide expert CORRECT answers! One fone call, one correct answer, one happy customer.

But no. I was shooed out of the office. I'm just a call taker, I didn't know what I was talking about, it was only my job.

Managements solution? Call monitoring. And giving out your first and last name. First and last name positively impacts customer satisfaction.

Funny, I thought solving a customers issue/concern etc. is what they were calling for, not warm fuzzies over a friendly voice giving you a name.

In a nutshell over my rant: TRAINING. ONE PHONE CALL, ONE CORRECT ANSWER, ONE HAPPY CUSTOMER!

Play the numbers games later. Fix the customer FIRST!

I agree with all your points with the exception of: "poor work ethic in the American culture". This a overly general statement that you couldn't possibly have researched in any meaningful way. You state that in many cases the person calling for support doesn't really know how to even state with any degree of precision, what the problem is that they are experiencing. Having done many years of support for Lotus Domino/Notes, I know this to be true. Too many end users (especially in the corporate world) are given very little training on the software products they will be using. Add to this the high levels of stress that all employees in the corporate arena face these days, and you have a bad situation. Add in unreasonable SLAs cooked up by management people interested mainly in making themselves look good to senior managment and you have a bad situation made worse. Then add in a reluctance on the part of management to invest wisely in infrastructure or to short change infrastrucuture maintenenace and upgrading, and you get bad results all the way around. Are there tech support people who don't have a good work ethic? Of course there are. But, in my experience that is a minor reason as to why tech support is not what it should be. The vast majority of tech support people I have worked with have a good work ethic. They may not be trained properly for what they are expected to do, but again, this is a management issue. For not hiring the right person for the job. Or, more likely, trying to skimp on labor compensation to make the bottom line look better. That is my two cents worth on the subject.

I expect to get flamed big time for this remark, but please keep in mind this is just my experience. I find that the majority of poor service attitude comes from young people. They almost never say ?Thank You? at fast-food places, or when cashiering in a grocery or department store. I?m lucky if I get a ?Your Welcome? if I say thank you. But the ones who are really at fault for this are the older people. The managers and others in ?High Places? don?t teach the younger ones the way of politeness and courtesy. I have been in fast-food places where the service was terrible and the manager apologized for the behavior of the workers and excused it by saying, ?What can you expect? They?re just kids.? What I expect is a ??May I help you? a smile and a ?Thank you??.

The answer is very simple.
IT personnel is treated badly in almost all companies by everybody, lack of knowledge or lack of will to learn and laziness is replaced by blaming the IT personnel for everything.
Personal experience; the user was unhappy with the workplace change and for the all day refused to log on to the network to do the job. The excuse was that the password is not working, on that day I changed the password six times and I assisted the user on logging to the network with no avail.
Final move was to call users supervisor and explain the situation and live it up to the supervisor to resolve the situation.

I don't see that it was non-outsourced. I see it that the tech support sux.

Here is what I find:

People calling helpdesks are getting people they can't understand.

People calling and explaining the problem, and still having to start from the ABC's and 123's.

People calling and the solution is for format the hard drive before ensuring it is a problem with hardware.

People calling and are limited to a 10 minute troubleshooting service call before being hung up on.

---- snap ----

So if a call is limited to 10 minutes, you get a 46% call completion time? I think that you have to look at why, and not just the numbers.

It's just like going to a restaurant. The odds that you will get good service by a competent waitor/waitress is hit or miss. Sometimes you get a server who refills your drink, always seems to be there when you need them, and makes sure your food gets out in a timely fashion. They understand their job and do it well.

I've been on the phone with some tech support that's been really good and I've been on the phone with tech support that's been really bad. It's hit or miss. Just like getting a cold burger or going thirsty in a restaurant.

I read the post and I see a dollar amount for cost. I check the website and I see dollar amounts for costs, and estimates of cost savings, but nowhere do I see anything that says a first-call resolution of 52%. What are you two (alan@diggitydan.com and Carl@reddragoncm.com) basing the percentage statement on?

The problem isn't "always" any one thing. I cannot count the number of users who think they have told me everything that I need to know when they say "I got an error message". Nothing about what it says, or what app they were using, just that they got an error message. How does that mean that I didn't read or hear their entire complaint?

More than ten years ago, I and others in the company I worked for recognized that the nature of tech support was changing. The complexity of computers, networks, communications and applications was growing at a rapid pace. Looking back, I estimate that our previous understanding about the rate of increase was on the low side.
In the late 80s, we reorganized our support to better cope with the complexity. By the early 90s, we bagan to see from many different experiences with clients that inhouse support was always going to be limited. This is when we turned to the idea of outsourcing - not to reduce costs, but to improve support.
We launched a whole new company and immediately found ourselves partnered with the major service providers. These partners helped us to land numerous multi-million-dollar engagements, but we paid a price that we are paying now more than before.
High-quality support requires commitment to serving customers of the support. Inhouse operatios rarely get the support they need because execs tend to view it only as a cost center. Many outsourcers are driven to reduce costs, especially in the last three years with the rapid growth of offshoring. Many of these outsourcers do not, and maybe never did, understand that higher quality support is needed to even adequately support technology users.

Given the same level of commitment, an outsourcer has a greater opportunity to deliver better service. Why? First, real commitment to providing service. Second, an organization focused on providing support has more resources and can better organize to deliver better service. We were able to prove this contention, but our partners frequently dragged us down with their sometimes minimal level of support.

Inhouse support is never likely to develop the kind of organization and networking with other support centers and vendors that can be accomplished by outsourcers. The key is finding outsourcers who are really committed to providing high-quality service. This service costs more, but the measurable payback is much better and the intangible payback is still greater with satisfied customers/staff.

I have personally consulted with more than one hundred contact centers to assist with improving support. This is only a small percentage of the total, but it has given me some special insights on what does and doesn't work both technically and managerially. I feel for the tech support staffs who are usually inclined to offer the best service, but are rarely supported by management.

The book, "Total Customer Service / The Ultimate Weapon / A six-Point Plan for Giving Your BUsiness the Competitive Edge in the 1990s" by Davidow and Uttal was the bible for all those gurus espousing greater attention to customers. This was the precursor to Customer Relationship Management tools. What has been the result after ten years of hyping customer service? Greatly decreased levels of service have been measured in numerous studies in almost every industry.

Many executives talk about the value of high-quality customer service, but not really understanding its value, they do not put their money where there mouth is. Outsourcers promote it, but seldom deliver. In the end, customer service has reached its greatest low in fifty years and is spiralling downward.

Thousands of hard-working service providers will continue to be needed and will be personally commited to providing the best of service, but most management is headed in the other direction.

I agree with you completely! Well written too! And out-sourcing American jobs is not the answer either! Better education, benefits, and pay will help, and managers with phone support experience will help a lot to promote job satisfaction, which will help with retention. I hear people's comments everyday that they are very happy to be speaking to an English speaking person, and am sometimes surprised to find out we're in the US! My team is one of the best phone support teams I have ever known, and I jump right on the phones with them sometimes, so I understand all that is required in this line of work. It takes a special kind of person to be successful in phone tech support; patience, strong technical knowledge, warm soothing voice, excellent customer service skills, etc. Training, benefits, better pay for proven people, that is what we need to do, not send the jobs to foreign counties! That's a no-brainer!

Because the pay for a support tech stinks, therfore we get "less qualified" (read "unqualifed") applicants and entry-level applicants looking to get "a foot in the door" into the IT world that just don't have the experience. Too many IT pros with better qualifications go into networking or sys admin.

I am the assistant manager for a Tech Support department and I can tell you that a good support tech is very hard to find.

What I see in most companies is let's do it all with little or no employees, just came off a project with 25 sites and 5000 computers, and they were attempting to take care of everything with 4 desk top techs and 1 network admin, companies that want computers and the support for them should get real, less is not better, with the best staff in the world continual over work leads to burn out and turn over.

I respond as a skilled user who supports a number of users. I use Microsoft products and I do not load software that the hardware or OS cannot accept eg abberent games.
My experience is that Microsoft causes absolutely minimal problems, yes there are holes for attacking the OS, but if you adopt the appropriate defences there is nolittle to be concerned about. Re. external support I have found many ISP support people to be inadequate. They are often wrong, poor at problem solving and often the first reaction is to blame the user.
I can understand the latter, some users make no effort and are intolerant. However I am sure that many support (help desk) people are not well paid and lack experience and training in many fundamentals.

Too many people over the years have blamed Microsoft. My experience had has shown that faulty hardware, incorrect drivers and the lack of reading instruction or basic training by users are the main problem areas. User competency is usually a major issue with skill to handle this situation also up there.

Tech are usually judged by management on how many calls they take, not on customer satisfaction. Customers are often better off researching the question on the Internet first, becuase many of the questions techs recieve are a waste of time. Often the answer is in the Readme.txt file or the manual. Some customers are unable to follow simple directions, others have unrealistic expectations. Retail technical support is a vast wasteland.
In the long run, a tech must support commercial customers to be gainfully employed. Retail tech support is primarly for newly hired techs

The only answer for this is to teach everyone involved properly.

Most places DO NOT have enough training/documentation for either the support personnel or the users.

The ID10T problem ... people who do not "think" about what theyre doing and need to be handheld through every step of the process, how many times do you hear something like "err...it doesn't work??" only to have to ask "OK, you are Left Clicking aren't you" and then the answer "err .. no ... is that what I'm supposed to do??" If someone is employed in a job that requires the use of a computer, basic understanding is really necessary. If they do not have this ... they need training and documentation.
Although I must say that I have seen quite a few support staff who really shouldn't be supporting customers at all, and are well, basically, rude, arrogant and patronising.

With proper management appraisals and correct techniques you can weed out people who are not suitable for customer facing roles.

So, the support staff can get annoyed with these kind of inane questions and it can really hit morale.

What ends up happening is that the initial person who answers the phone is given little or no training to be able to cope with any sort of difficult question .. difficult questions would be passed onto a "team leader"/2nd/3rd level support.

These calls are quite often continuous, you hardly get a few seconds break between the calls. How many times do you have to wait on the phone listening to a recorded piece.

Now, any "techie" is generally interested in their development in the IT world .... but generally the management does not train them (oh, they promise they will .. but then it never happens).

What then happens is this:

Techie gets frustrated.

Techie realises that they're going nowhere.

Management don't care (there's so many techies out there looking for jobs we'll just get another).

Techie leaves (they will have had quite a bit of experience with the company now and may be able to do their job quite well, but all this is lost to the comany now).

Management hires another (and doesn't train them proplerly).

Do you see a pattern emerging??

People are SURPRISED when they start talking to someone who knows "not a lot" or just tries to fob them off!!

SOLUTION: Management needs to invest PROPERLY in their employees .... making sure that they are capable of doing the job properly.

sorry ... double post

reasons for this include:

(1) low pay of staff, once they are experienced enough the good ones will leave for greener pastures

(2) inadequate training before being put on the front line.

(3) inadequate documentation for the front line people to help them resolve problems

(4) flawed scripts for especially the new staff to follow

(5) bad attitudes towards the clients they are supporting - i.e. assuming all end users are idiots, etc.

(6) focus on closing the call vs actually resolving the call. seen this both internally and with outsourced call centres.

(7) not all people have the nack for doing front line telephone support. I'm one of the ones who is good at it but seen far too many who are not.

I remember waiting for seeral weks for a rech Lumber company to deliver a load of plywood to my uncle's home in the south of France.

He would call ad the boss would say " No problem, it should get there today"

At 4:00 a second call would end in "Well, if they didn' make it by now they are at the pub. Maybe tomorrow, fingers crossed!"

It was truly hilarious, unless you are trying to get something built. :p

Maybe all of you work for the wrong outfit. I've worked in several government in-house Tech Support situations, and the current one is phenomenal. The metrics are posted for the taxpayers to see, and I'm proud to say we consistently close the vast majority of tickets on the first call, and in less than 12 hours.

In an aside, the folks at the desk are human beings, and the callers who are pleasant to work with get the best service. If you're having trouble with the help desk, you might look in the mirror.

Check out our metrics--they are publicly disclosed.
http://www1.co.snohomish.wa.us/County_Services/SnoStat/

I ran a help desk for niche industry, our first level resolution was about 92%. Our folks were salaried and had previous industry experience. Most of the first tier jobs I see in my area start at 9.00 per hour, that isn't enough to attract motivated workers to apply. Those workers are less likely to stay on the job for any length of time, waiting for any oppotunity to get out of the phone room/sweatshop.

Think of it like this: A person can drown in an average depth of 6 inches of water. Pretty scary! Some are better than others in tech support. If you really know what you are doing you can make a decent living in business for yourself or in a higher paying environment and will do so. Remember, those who can, do, those who can't... well they are still learning.
I will also go on to say that users are more often the problem because of a lack of skill sets needed to use the software.They don't learn the terminology or they just want some one to do it for them and it pretty much requires training in phone counseling/problem solving. Phone tech support will burn a tech out very quickly.
I will also go on to say that outsourced tech support like Dell Computer has done is so bad that I would say 1st call resolution is about 2%, having dealt with them.

I worked the Help Desk at both IBM and at Platinum.
Although Platinum was a touch better in attitude, both places relied on measuring the employee by statistics alone. The emphasis was placed on how many calls were handled in a day. Under those conditions, workers very quickly learned every trick in the book to close a call, whether or not the customer was helped. I had many civil arguments with my manager over this practice and found my own ways to circumvent the system. My customers were treated with respect and I assumed that they had a right to an answer. I know that it worked becuase I had customers that would specifically ask for me and refuse to deal with others in the department. I heard the thank you words over and over because they had gotten an answer, even when I had to do research, they knew they would get a call back as quickly as I could.

Get rid of the statistics, work on "the customer is number one" attitude and put high emphasis on training the worker on the topic they are supporting. THEN there will be good cusotmer support being given.

Turn the question upside down and you might find the answer. Internal Helpdesks are a form of torture, as you explain for the millionth time how to insert a picture in Word to the same person, that you ensured went on that 2 day Word course followed by another 3 day Advanced Word course, a couple months later. Users can be ridiculously lazy. They look at you funny, when you say "But you have been using this system for 7 years." They expect to come along and sort all the world's problems for them. I actually had some people, albeit jokingly, saying could I come along and input all of their data for them, as well.

We are in the fourth year of the 21st century and I still get "I don't like computers very much". If you gave a joiner/carpenter a saw, you would hope he knew how to use it, hopefully well. If not, you would hire a different one. Imagine you got a plumber who said "I don't like these boilers very much"! Upgrade the caliber of people using the tools. Don't blame the people trying to fix the tools.

Which leads to another whinge. Perhaps internal support are worn down by the constant drip-drip-dripping of the incessant "how do I save an attachment" calls. Frequently abused and ignored, the value of this cannot be quantified, until they leave, of course.

Which takes me to yet another comment. Do you think that out-sourced IT would bother to deal with issues that are clearly user-based? Is the computer working? Y. Is the software working? Y. Go to Windows. go to Help, Goodbye. It does happen that companies dump their internal helpdesks in preference of an outsourced support solution, thinking they will get some quantifible difference in quality, (and of course they are also looking at the bottom line), only to have to reverse their decision a year or less later, when they realise that "the computer guy" was actually very handy to have around.

Sorry for all the ranting, but there is your answer. Frequently it is perceived as so bad, because they are expected to be a godsend with the ability to alter the amount of time in a day and the ability to psychically know what your problem is, how to solve it, and to assist in that irritating bottom wiping issue, as well. Maybe they need to define expectations from the outset, as would an external helpdesk.

Right, I have to go write a project paper for a new client contract, check the mail on all the Unix servers, the backups and event logs on all the NT servers, and build up 3 notebooks, before all the user calls start.

Thanks for letting me vent.

I think people are getting a little mixed up between COMPUTER SUPPORT and CUSTOMER SUPPORT. I suppose Technical Support can mean one or other or both!!

In some ways I do like the "car" examples, and I'm sure you've heard many of these:

If you buy a car from a garage you don't expect them to teach you HOW to drive ... or change your tyres etc.

Imagine, you call up Ford/Renault etc .... if you have run out of petrol/oil/don't know how to change tyres etc, do you CALL them for help - NO. You fix it yourself or take it to a garage for someone who knows how to fix it ... errr ... to fix it!!

So in a sense you get what you pay for ... but some people just don't understand this.

It depends whether you are providing user/customer support OR computer support, and to what extent.

Obviously management wants to stretch their departments dollar and show the greatest value spent in order to justify their budget, not to mention existence.

It is not the IT dpearment managers that are the problem. I suggest that it is the bean counters looking at the bottom line. They listen to the CEO who is saying 'we must cut costs'. What does a CEO know about quality IT work? They know when they call IT they get service under some 'Executive Support' process. But this is NOT what the general employee population receives. So it is easy to cut costs and quality of service, they still receive the same service regardless and are oblivious.

Now, to the real point I wanted to make. The fact is that those of us in the IT field need to pick up the pace and do more work if we want to stay employed. Competition from outsourcing both domestic and foreign mandate it. We have to do more with less staff which equates to higher workloads. Such is life in IT.

I work on 2 helpdesk in NZ
One of the helpdesk is out source and the other is not, and I can tell you from experience they are complete different. The out source one is all about numbers and not solutions. We want you to take this many call and so only have so many minutes, we are not interested in your excuses. The management is also very different in both companies. The out source company is we are not interested, we do not give a shit. The non-out source company attudie is if you don’t know, we will help you find out and if needed we will give you the training. The non-out source companies have said they want the job done right. The out source helpdesk has a high staff turnover(1 person leaves a week and if you have been there 6 months you are consider a old hand), low morale,low pay, no training and poor leadership from the top. The non out source company Give you higher pay, better training and very low staff turnover(No One has left in the 6 months, I have been here and I could only get a part time job here, hoping it will turn into a full time job).

Before you ask yes my attudie to both companies is different. I cannot wait to leave the out source company at the end of the day(due to the stress etc) and I will not do overtime for them as I know they are going to screw up my pay. The non-out Source Company, I am lot more flexible with and quite often stay behind 10-30 minutes just to help and don't even worry about the pay because I know they make it up in other ways. Don't get me wrong the non-out Source Company is not prefect but is 100% better than the out source company.

hear, hear!

"For the support tech, day in and day out abuse from customers, poor internal support from the company who farmed out the labor, high demand by management to lower the call time while improving customer relations, and poor pay all add up to horrible support. I have seen very little shift away from this business model, and until that happens, these issues will continue to plague the industry."

First let's stop the bashing of contiuing education of certified professionals. Yes, thier are always going to be amateurs out there who use braindumps and shortcuts to look like a professional. Also to bash a company for its products (and let's face it they all do it)&
Too many people over the years have blamed Microsoft. My experience had has shown that faulty hardware, incorrect drivers and the lack of reading instruction or basic training by users are the main problem areas. User competency is usually a major issue with skill to handle this situation also up there.

Also a profesional attitude is needed. The attitude of the conforming to a set of standards and rules is appalling. The mindset of most expericenced IT people is also appalling. How are we going to pass along needed skills and experience for up and comers. The website Tipsforsuccess.com offers a code for professionals.