Random Access Memories

So, who else is tired of having to deal with crappy tech support on the phone, in chat or via email?

You know, where they make you go over stupid things that you’ve already tried. “Please power-cycle the machine again sir, even tho we know you already did”.

Now i’m all in favor of going down the list of things to try since nobody is perfect, but it would be nice if support asked “So what have you already tried sir?” once in while.

Or perhaps when companies pay for support contracts they can have “levels” to them. “Oh, Hello Mr. Smith, I see your company paid for our “Guru-level” support contract, please let me know what you need. I see, you need a replacement power supply, we’ll send one out to you immediately.” rather than “Would you please try this, and this, and that”.

Admittedly sometimes the knowledgeable user is wrong about what is broken, but the extra cost of the contract could easily offset those costs.

The reason this comes to mind is because today we’re being told we have to wait 2 days to have someone in the data center call support for a product we know via remote monitor is dead and we cannot test because there is nobody at the data center where it failed. Not the best of situations.