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At PCHandyMan of New Jersey, our primary services are provided in person, since this is the best way for any technician to truly diagnose and repair your computer's problems. However, sometimes a problem can be handled by phone, and PCHandyMan's technicians are always available to offer you advice and instructions on how to solve a problem.
But not all phone support is created equally. Below, I reveal "the truth" about the phone support...
Here' the truth about phone support - it's a huge waist of time, effort and money!
Have you ever wondered who you're talking to when you call Dell or Microsoft? It may come as a shock to most people who use a company's phone support service, but you are not speaking with anyone who can help you. You'd be better off getting computer advice from the cashier at the supermarket!
Here's how phone support works (and not just for some companies, but for the vast majority of companies that offer phone support). The operator on the other end of the phone is a Customer Service Representative, or CSR. Now it doesn't matter whether you're speaking to a CSR in New Delhi, India or Tempe, Arizona, the truth is that CSR's are poorly paid, poorly trained (if they're trained at all) phone operators who have no special knowledge of computers. In other words, if you think the person on the other end of the phone is some sort of computer expert, you're greatly mistaken.
CSR's are generally college students or the recently retired or unemployed looking to earn a few bucks (very few - CSR's overseas generally earn less than $5.00 per hour) while they're looking for another job. There are no technical requirements for becoming a CSR. All you have to be able to do is speak on the phone, be understood on the phone (and we all know that this requirement is, at best, flexible!) and be able to type. Now, this last requirement, the ability to type and read from a computer screen, is THE key job requirement. Since CSR's are only phone operators and have little or no computer experience, they depend solely on their company's Knowledge Base, or KB, for the answers they provide to you
The KB is a searchable database, maintained by the company to answer questions you ask the CSR. The CSR types your question into the KB (just like you would type a question into Google) and the KB spits out an answer that the CSR reads to you over the phone. That's all there is to it. The CSR is not so much answering your questions as they are regurgitating an answer that someone further up the food chain, and with considerably more computer knowledge, has prepared and entered into the KB.
And Knowledge Bases are not secure, top-secret things. You can go to http://support.microsft.com right now and ask Microsoft's KB a question and get the same answer you would get had you called Microsoft's phone support line and spent an hour on hold.
The CSR is not a new phenomenon. Anyone who has watched late-night TV and heard the commercial for the new and improved, super-duper what-cha-ma-call-it has heard the phrase 'operators are standing by'. That operator is a CSR who will answer your questions and take your order. What's relatively new is the KB. With the invention and simplification of the database, companies began to realize that they no longer had to pay experienced, qualified computer specialists a high wage to sit and answer phones for 8 hours a day. Instead, companies could hire the rejects from the local McDonald's, sit them down in front of a computer and a phone, and give them one clear instruction: Type in the caller's question and read what we tell you to read. That's all.
(Just a side note about CSR outsourcing: Much has been said recently about phone support being moved to India. People have complained that the CSR's there were not able to help them, or that the Indians could not be understood. As for the first part, the KB being used is the same whether the CSR is in the US or India or anywhere else on the planet (the internet is, after all, the 'world-wide web'), so the answer is always going to be the same. Of course, on the flip side of that coin, if the answer you get is wrong, it will be just as wrong coming from India as from anywhere else in the world.
(As for not being understood over the phone, yes, it's true that many of the CSR's I've spoken to in India have had very strong local accents and took some effort to understand. But having lived in the Northeast US for most of my life, I would have the same problem if the phone support was located in Tuscaloosa. And there is something a bit distasteful about requiring a bright, energetic college student whose name is Puragra Guhathakurta to answer the phone "Hi, my name is Bob. How can I assist you." It is wrong to question a CSR's abilities just because they're located overseas. Just remember - all CSR's are created equal - equally untrained and unskilled - no matter where they're from!)
And what about the experienced support professionals that used to be on the other end of the phone? Are they all out on the unemployment line? Well, unfortunately, many are. But most of them have been moved up to 2nd level support. These are the people you speak to when you've stumped the KB. Since the CSR's have very limited knowledge of how computers work and how to troubleshoot them when they don't, they will very politely put you on hold and go and ask their supervisor's permission to send you up to Level 2 support. Then the CSR dumps you into yet another endless phone queue and you get to spend another half hour on hold until a Level 2 support tech can get to you.
So, there it is. Computer phone support demystified. And if there is a moral to my story, it is this: Don't call a stranger for help, because what's really important is not the answer you receive, but the quality of that answer. If you don't know the source of the answer, how can you trust that the answer is correct? Only take computer advice form someone you know and can trust, like the experts at PCHandyMan-NJ.com. It will save you time and money in the long run, and it will protect and extend the life of that expensive asset you depend so heavily upon - your computer. |
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