[humorix] The New Mantra Of Tech Support: Tell It Like It Is

[James Baughn <jbaughn@ldd.net>]

The New Mantra Of Tech Support: Tell It Like It Is
by Ann Oneemuss, Humorix Unpaid Intern Reporter
November 11, 2002

Since the days of the first shrinkwrap licenses, software
vendors have faced a troubling dilemma. If they produce
high-quality software, then nobody will want to buy
upgrades in the future.  But if they produce crap, then
their technical support lines will be flooded by calls from
irate customers bitching about some trivial show-stopping
bug, along with calls from newbies wondering if they will
go to jail because their computer performed an "illegal
operation".

In an effort to stem the tide of calls, but without
resorting to improving their software's quality (a move
that would prove disastrous for their profit margin), many
companies are now training their tech support workers to
"tell it like it is."

Microsoft's customer service reps, for instance, are now
given permission to admit that their software "sucks".  If
somebody calls about a bug, they are told, "That bug is on
the list of the 1,500 bugs we intentionally inserted into
Excel to maximize future upgrade sales.  Our programmers
could fix that particular bug by inserting one additional
line of code, but they may or may not be allowed to do that
in the next version, to keep you guessing..."

To those readers who think we are unfairly singling out
Microsoft so we can bash them yet again, well, you're
right.  (See, Humorix tells it like it is, too).  But other
companies are also adopting the same mentality in order to
keep customers from calling back.

If a caller to Eboda, to name an example, complains about
gaping bugs that, in any other industry would lead to an
immediate product recall, the customer service weasel will
now respond, "Well, tough. This ain't the automotive
industry -- we've convinced enough government regulators
that any attempt to regulate software will cause the entire
economy to implode, producing the Great Depression 2.0.  We
advertise our software's features... we don't advertise
whether they work or not. We don't have to.  Numerous court
precedents have sided with our argument that we are above
Product Liability Law.  If you don't like it, throw away
your computer and become Amish."

Callers to the Bank of North Haverbrook that demand that
their online banking website stop using gratuitous Flash
and ActiveX applets receive a curt response that goes like,
"95% of our customers use Windows.  If we ignore the rest,
our bottom line will stay the same.  Our developers spent
thousands of dollars taking courses on Flash development
from a prestigious correspondence school and we're going to
take full advantage of their skills.  We're not going to
waste money so they can take more classes on CSS, Java,
usability, or other worthless skills that only a few Jakob
Nielsen-wannabes care about."

The new attitude is a refreshing change from the old system
in which the representative would answer based on the
display from their Customer Satisfaction Matrix (i.e., a
Magic 8 ball).  Callers would receive random and
content-free responses such as "Please reboot your
machine", "re-install Windows", "upgrade your device
drivers", "buy the newest version", or "download the latest
Service Pack from our website".  While this system had the
advantage that tech support workers could be pulled off
from the street without any computer knowledge, the big
disadvantage is that callers, unsatisfied with the vague
answers, would call back numerous times and become more
irate each time.

"If we dish out plain English responses to callers, they'll
get angry.  But they won't have any reason to call back. 
Eventually, they'll become resigned to the fact that they
can't fight the software industry and they'll become nice,
docile little lemmings that will play along with whatever
we do.  This way, we can have our crappy software and eat
the profits too," explained one industry veteran who wasn't
available for comment and whose quote we just made up.

--
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