Troubleshooting tits, count me in!
On 12/4/2016 1:57 PM, Lewis Bergman wrote:
Forget canned trouble shooting tits. have one of these genius app
developers to create a robot that interprets questions and gives your
canned steps.
Oh...I am sorry your Internet isn't working. let's reboot your router
and tell me when it lights up again please.
Try the internet please.
Still not working...please unplug the ____ colored cable that leads to
the rectangular black power block labeled "CPE POWER BLOCK".
Still not working? I'm afraid I need to get tier 2 tech support on the
line. please wait.
Then send the ticket to a real person.
On Sun, Dec 4, 2016, 1:30 PM Brian Webster <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
You know all annoyances aside; there is an opportunity for a
product to be developed. Think about it:
Your customer is off line, they likely have a cell phone that they
can use
a
to get in touch with you.
They call your tech support line, this requires you to either call
them back and devote 100% of your time at the moment to talk to
them one on one, or you answer the call directly immediately, no
matter what else you might have to do and you can’t do much of
anything else.
If you can text back and forth you would not have to sit there on
the phone and wait while they do things like reboot and such.
On a dedicated phone call this only lets you service one customer
at a time.
If you had the equivalent of the on line chat support many
companies have, it could also function through the SMS system,
it’s one way the newer tech savvy customer can interact with you
and they can also do something else at the same time in between steps.
If you had a good SMS system it would start a ticket just like an
on line ticketing system would. Texting prompts back and forth for
customer name and account information if necessary. This part
would be automated and all keyed up to you prior to you getting
the first live text/email/ticket notification or on screen system
messages.
This would not have to go to YOUR cell phone but rather it would
go to your ticketing system and get handled just like any other
ticket and tech support network.
It gives the client the convenience of getting support via SMS
should they chose.
You could easily have pre-canned help files sent as basic
troubleshooting steps they can perform first without needing
direct interaction. Reboot sequence or how to request their Wi-Fi
password information come to mind here. If done right it could
prompt them to text back a response at each step, much like a
troubleshooting decision tree diagram works. Once it’s gets beyond
basic decision tree stuff it could be transferred to the live
tech. This transfer should also be smart enough to show the tech
on screen how far the automated process went and what steps are
already completed so they don’t have to re-ask all those questions
that annoy each of us when we call tech support.
With Google Voice being a free way to do web to SMS interaction,
it seems like some good programmer could build inter some
middleware to do this or a standalone system. Cost for the SMS
interface/gateway can then be free. I am sure there are other
methods to also keep the cost free as well.
This clearly would not work for most customers but I can see it
becoming popular over time, getting in front of the idea now and
working out best practices would be good before the consumer
demand for it is real high.
Thank You,
Brian Webster
www.wirelessmapping.com <http://www.wirelessmapping.com>
www.Broadband-Mapping.com <http://www.Broadband-Mapping.com>
*From:*Af [mailto:[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>] *On Behalf Of *Mike Hammett
*Sent:* Friday, December 02, 2016 7:35 AM
*To:* [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Customers texting cell phones "hey my
internet isn; t working"
Some carriers support mobile CNAM, some don't. Mine's in there,
though.
-----
Mike Hammett
Intelligent Computing Solutions <http://www.ics-il.com/>
<https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL><https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb><https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions><https://twitter.com/ICSIL>
Midwest Internet Exchange <http://www.midwest-ix.com/>
<https://www.facebook.com/mdwestix><https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-internet-exchange><https://twitter.com/mdwestix>
The Brothers WISP <http://www.thebrotherswisp.com/>
<https://www.facebook.com/thebrotherswisp>
<https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSdfxQv7SpoRQYNyLwntZg>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From: *"Ken Hohhof" <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
*To: *[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Sent: *Thursday, December 1, 2016 9:25:40 PM
*Subject: *Re: [AFMUG] Customers texting cell phones "hey my
internet isn; t working"
Awhile back I added SMS-to-email capability to our main number and
discovered people have probably been texting it forever. You
don’t need a cellphone to receive texts. The nice thing is the
service we use has the reply-to address on the email set to
properly to text the person back.
What I find annoying is they never include their name, somehow
they think their cellphone number is all we need. So 123-456-7890
wants to know “Is the tower down?”
I’d rather they use the contact form on our mobile website. It’s
not a “responsive” site, it’s a separate mdot site so the contact
form is easy to use on a phone.
One of the other great mysteries of life is why calls from
cellphones don’t have CNAM. 95% of the calls we get are from
“Wireless Caller”. There are apps for everything, but they can’t
do this one simple thing, show me the name of the mobile caller,
without having them in my address book.
*From:*Af [mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Brandon Yuchasz
*Sent:* Thursday, December 1, 2016 8:40 PM
*To:* [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Customers texting cell phones "hey my
internet isn; t working"
I expected more Sarcasm. But thanks for the reply anyway. We are
small still by most standards and I still go on every install so
generally customers feel they know me a little. That relationship
is of course a good thing. Some texts of course I don’t mind
like “ hey the internet has been dropping off today but comes
back” it’s the shitty attitudes that they would never give me in a
phone call that generally piss me off..
*From:*Af [mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *That One
Guy /sarcasm
*Sent:* Thursday, December 01, 2016 8:31 PM
*To:* [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Customers texting cell phones "hey my
internet isn; t working"
We call into the office and call the customers from there DID or
something to avoid it. But it happens.
When a customer has my cell, ive given it to them on occasion for
troubleshooting and most of my contract service have my work and
personal.
As long as they dont abuse it, I handle their business (facebook
is becoming popular for customers to contact me, which is odd
because my face book is private and highly offensive)
Once they abuse it, they get a couple "call the office"s then they
get ignored.
Like right now there is a voicemail from a contract services
customer i haven't even listened to from two days ago.
I do prefer all communications voice or digital go through work
channels, or phones are recorded and all the digital stuff is
logged on company owned assets. Better in the long term for liability.
On Thu, Dec 1, 2016 at 8:25 PM, Jim Bouse [Brazos WiFi]
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I respond with “The support number is: 979-985-5912
<tel:%28979%29%20985-5912>”
Short and sweet (maybe not sweet). Often, I am on call in the
evenings so I end up answering the support call but It is customer
training. I don’t want people calling/texting my personal
cellphone and then getting pissed off that I don’t respond in a
timely manner (vacation or whatnot) when I have paid support staff
at the office. Additionally, if they call my cellphone, I tell
them the same thing. The sales and support number is: X. I will
be happy to help you there.
We record 100% of the business calls due to some he-said/she-said
incidents. I don’t talk business on the personal cellphone unless
the call is routed through the PBX.
Jim Bouse
Owner
Mobile IT Pro - Brazos WiFi
979-985-5912 <tel:%28979%29%20985-5912>
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*From:*Af [mailto:[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>] *On Behalf Of *Brandon Yuchasz
*Sent:* Thursday, December 01, 2016 8:19 PM
*To:* [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* [AFMUG] Customers texting cell phones "hey my internet
isn; t working"
Wondering if anyone else has dealt with this and if so what they
used as a solution.
I am getting more and more texts from customers as time goes on.
They get my cell phone number at some point when I call them or
from a friend or who knows but they hold onto it.
Instead of emailing the tech support or calling in they send me a
text to my cell phone. “hey my internet isn’t working” . I don’t
know who the hell they are of course since its just some random
number with no context. So Then I am faced with ignoring the text
or replying. “ I’m sorry but I don’t know who this is from can you
please give me additional information. “
Text back and forth over the next 15 minutes reveal they have the
wireless turned off on their computer or the router took a shit or
they are off line. Regardless it’s annoying, I have considered
asking them not to text my cell phone and instead call or email
but half the time they are still going to get me. That’s not
ideal. Please don’t text my cell phone instead use our online
contact option or call us at…. 5 minutes later I get a call that
forwards to my cell phone not ideal. although that is changing
and hopefully in the next 6 months I won’t be doing any tech
support calls anymore.
How do you guys deal with this from a company standpoint.
Just so everyone realizes it… this is at least 65% rant so sarcasm
and honest real feedback are both welcome.
--
If you only see yourself as part of the team but you don't see
your team as part of yourself you have already failed as part of
the team.
