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

[Daniel V]

Tony,
Thank you for clarifying help desk support in general,
you  did a great job of explaining... I commend you
for your efforts and it would be great if I had more
teammates with your knowledge, drive, and dedication
to really providing service to the customer.

--- Tony E - Jaraeth <jaraeth at phoenixwing.com> wrote:

>   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
> 
=== message truncated ===




       
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