Dealing with over-the-phone Tech Support

Posted on: October 13th, 2008

Being worked in a call center for Verizon DSL support I have some insight into how the over-the-phone tech support works and I’d like to give you some tips on how to handle the situation when you need to call the tech support.

First of all I’d like to give a reality on how most of the tech support for big companies work. They are mostly out-sourced to India, Phillipines, etc where the wages are lot lower than in the US. The tech support agents (I’ll refer them to just as agents) are usually in a big room with hunderds of small booths. They have supervisors whose job is to make sure that the agents follow the company’s protocoll (call you at least three times by your last name, apologize many times, etc).

The turnover amongst agents is usually very high, new ones are being trained constantly while the old ones either find a better job with less stress, or just burn out; rarely they move up to Level 2 (Tier 2) tech support or become a supervisor. The constant need to train new people was solved by some companies employing so-called script readers. What it means basically is that instead of teaching the new people how to troubleshoot a particular product, they create a troubleshooting script for them that they must follow with, or most likely, without understanding. They can get thrown off very easily if a scenario is not included in their script. This is what usually creates very frustrated people because each case is different but they try to fit the same ’shoe’ on everyone.

Level 2 (it could be called in many different names), is the place where the more experienced troubleshooters are. They help the agents if they run into technical difficulties. Usually callers are not handled by Level 2 techs because they are scarce (10:1 or worse ratio between agents and Level 2 techs).

Agents are trained to make all efforts to keep you at their level and not to go to a supervisor, or Level 2 technician. Agents are also pressured to keep calls as short as possible and the main score on their performance evaluation is the avarage time spent on the phone + the administration time connected with it. This is another rather unfortunate consequence of the effort of the companies to keep tech support costs down.

Based on the above here are my tips on dealing with over-the-phone tech support agents:

First of all be calm and not nervous or angry when you call. Your chances of succeeding are much higher if you stay calm. If you need to calm your nerves take a walk, drink a coffee, smoke a cigarette – or do whatever works for you.
Get all the necessary papers together, make sure you have the model numbers of your equipments, any passwords you might need, any account informationm, etc that might be requested by the agent. Also have a couple pieces of papers and at least two pens or pencils ready in case something needs to be written down.
If you can use a speaker phone, or headset for making the call. The latter is more preferable because of the sound quality. The call might be long and regular phones can be hard on your muscles.
Most likely the agent you’ll be dealing with is not a native English speaking person. Prepare to be attentive and patient with them. Try not to call when there’s considerable noise around you, or the phone line itself is noisy. That makes it even harder to understand each other. Speak slow and clear so they can more easily understand you. Try using only the most simple English words so they don’t get thrown off.
If you get someone who is particularly hard to understand, or hard to deal with then just hang up, cool down and call back. 99% of the time you will get a different agent on the phone. There could be a huge difference between the helpfulness and technical knowledge of agents.
If you are really getting nowhere then ask for the supervisor but be prepared that you’ll have to be insistent because agents are discouraged from ‘escalating’ the call as much as possible. Don’t get angry but be assertive that you need to talk to a supervisor – if you are insistent enough you’ll get him/her on the phone.
Anger and hostility will not help and it will just make the agent hate his/her job even more. Agents are the front line and they take most of the heat of the irate customers. Try putting yourself in their places and treat them the way you’d like to be treated. Agents have very limited power of choice and vast majority of them will do whatever they can to help you – but their hands are almost completely tied and they won’t be able to do more even if you get angry at them. They are the wrong target.

Summary: The cost cutting measures of companies made most of the over-the-phone tech support really low quality but with understanding, patience and applying the tips above you can get the help you need. Being a tech support agent is a stressful job. The pictures of smiling, happy girls or guys with headsets is quite a misrepresentation. If you are nice to them they will appreciate that and help you as much as they can.