[nflug] ISP troubleshooting from a TW employee's point of view

[Tony E - Jaraeth]

  I've worked for two ISP's in the Buffalo area, and now I work for a
global webhosting / Tier 1 bandwidth/circuit provider.  It doesn't
change much.

  The problem is, there are a few "technically minded" people, which I
consider myself, that can be taken for their word when they say "Yes,
I've rebooted by (cable/dsl/isdn) router", "Yes, I've rebooted my
computer", "Yes, I've checked my settings & nothing has changed since
the last time your service *did* work", etc.  I have Cox Cable where I
live now, and their tech's also get frustrated with me for trying to
make them skip steps that their Consumer Support HelpDesk Software
(whatever that software may be).  I also applied to work for my local
cable company, and though in the end I was "over qualified", I did get a
sneak peak at their help desk routine.

  The issue with the above is, sometimes "Cable Company" requires it's
employees to follow a step-by-step procedure.  If they skip something,
the software alerts the Tier 2 tech's (or supervisors/managers) that
Employee "Joe" did not follow all the guidelines and therefor did not
properly help Customer "Sam".

  Thus, when we call in for support, we, as technically minded people,
need to take a step back and grudgingly try to let the tech do their
job.  I'm not saying "be quiet" or such, DO let the tech know that you
have done this with Tech "Julie" before talking to Tech "Joe"... oh
yeah, DO get their names, or ID # if available.  Many companies I have
and do work for do not let us say our last name, except for our initial.
 Sometimes, if we let the tech get thru the boring same ol' same ol'
routine, we'll get to something that works, like Tier 2 or Tier 3 support.

  As another note, sometimes they won't support you because you stated
you have Linux (that's a bad thing in some cases, and I too suggest a
second computer, or perhaps dual boot, just to humor the idiotic
companies that only support Mac/Win).  However, the tech support rep
also needs to let the customer rant, and explain themselves fully.  I
usually have WordPad or Notepad open on my desktop at work (even in a
Linux/BSD/OpenSource shop... our corporate workstations are.. *cough*
winblowz) and in that, I write down everything they tell me.  Another
thing, as a tech, try to encourage those around you to learn Linux,
and/or encourage your supervisors to bring up Linux support at their
next Operations Meeting, or whatever it may be called.

  At my last job in Fredonia NY, they supported 'pppd' for linux, but it
was so old and outdated, that no one knew how to really support the GUI
configurations for pppd, dhcpd, and all the other goodies needed for
todays modern networking.  Instead of trying to get coworkers to learn
it from scratch, I made the documentation & took screenshots from home,
gave it to my supervisor and said "I want to distribute this, and put a
digital copy up on our support website/knowledge base for our tech's
use".  It was given the OK, and I like to think I helped make the
company a little bit better...

Sorry for making this a long book... but this is really a two lane
street.  Tech-Savvy customers need to have patience and try to help
those techs with less knowledge, or perhaps less-lenient troubleshooting
guidelines they must follow.  Tech Support Reps need to have the ability
to skip steps and check "This has been done" even if skipped, as well as
making those they work with more savvy, and capable of helping those few
customers that do not use Mac/Win systems.

</rant>

Cheers,

 ~ Tony E



Daniel V wrote:
> I work at Time Warner Cable.
> 
> This is my own opinion and is not offical Time Warner
> opinion.
> 
> Sometimes "customers" mention that they are "MCSE's"
> or something "special" like a network engineer, and
> then, for whatever reason, don't like to hear it when
> I tell them that we need to do troubleshooting, or
> they don't like the results of the troubleshooting.
> When I do try to do troubleshooting, it is the
> so-called "special" people that are most likely to not
> cooperate. 
> 
> I can't do anything about the waiting times, that's
> beyond my pay grade, but I can help customers better
> if they are cooperative and try to be nice.
> 
> I don't know how many "grunts" there are at Time
> Warner, manning the help desk line, that have a clue
> about GNU/Linux, but no matter what the average
> technical ability of the average teammate of mine is,
> it's more practical for a GNU/Linux geek to be
> flexible and be able to either fire up a MS
> Win2k/XP/Vista machine (you admin types make the big
> bucks and can afford multiple computers with the
> latest technology, unlike me) for tech support
> purposes, or learn to give help desk the information
> they need, and be able to do what is required. It's
> not hard to renew the IP address in GNU/Linux, neither
> is it hard to do a traceroute and give us the results.
> I'm dealing with general variables here, these are
> issues with affect any ISP.
> 
> There's the chemistry of the representative and the
> customer to consider, and if there's at least
> cooperation, and if you, the customer, can anticipate
> what is needed, you'll have a much more productive
> call. I can't tell you how many people call and can't
> be bothered to have pencil/pen and paper handy.
> 
> Daniel
> 
> 
> --- anthonyriga <torrodimerda at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>> Does anyone live near Hertel ave main st area
>> experiencing problems with there TW internet
>> connections. Mine has been intermittent for the last
>> week and cant depend on it. After calling TW 4 times
>> because they told me tier2 support  were too busy
>> and
>> 45 minute average was the hold time. Going through
>> the
>> reboot modem computer with tier 1, then getting tier
>> 2
>> to do the same then asked me to reinstall my nic
>> card
>> by trying to run me through some start>run procedure
>> windows of course. When I told him I was using Linux
>> he said "we dont support Linux". I finally got
>> someone
>> to come out and look at the cable lines and test
>> signals the wens 5-7pm. I tried telling the 2nd
>> level
>> that the traceroutes had some drops when hitting TW
>> routers. Im no expert in networking and was not
>> telling him how to do his job just trying to make
>> both
>> our lives simpler specially mine by seeing if there
>> was a routing issue or a configuration provision.
>> Seems sometimes their blame is either the OS or the
>> nic card. Just frustrated with TW. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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