| BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : NOVEMBER 15, 1999 ISSUE | ||||||||
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| DIGITAL DISPATCH
A Modest Proposal to End I-Way Road Rage At first, I thought I was simply in the throes of normal, infuriating software technical nonsupport. I had just purchased a utility program aimed at fixing a problem on my computer disk. I was a few minutes into my third phone call to tech support. It followed buying another product and having to return it, plus several hours of doggedly clicking through a complex online support system trying desperately to find an answer. I couldn't help but notice that several other folks had the identical problem I was suffering from, but that the nonsupport technicians kept posting notes beginning: ''Hmm, what an unusual problem.'' They would then recommend an array of nonhelpful suggestions, urging brightly that we struggling customers keep them posted. But suddenly something snapped. I believe it had to do with the nonsupport guy suggesting to me that while his company's program was working ''perfectly,'' the only way to get it to work ''perfectly'' on my computer was for me to go in and manually examine every file on my hard drive and look for something, ahem, ''strange.'' ''Strange?'' I replied. My hard drive has thousands of folders and even more file names. ''What does that mean?'' ''Good question,'' he answered. ''You'll have to take that up with Apple.'' ''Attack!'' my nerve endings screamed. ''Look, young man,'' I said, my voice quavering like Aunt Bee lecturing little Opie from the old Andy Griffith Show on TV, ''that is a ridiculous suggestion. And I don't appreciate the condescending tone in your voice.'' APOLOGY WANTED. I was truly furious. This was like having a lawn-mower repairman suggest the only way to fix a broken motor was for me to go out and pluck every blade of grass by hand. I wasted five more minutes yelling at this guy, and then went in search of some answers. I fired off a furious e-mail to the public-relations person of the company who sold me the software. The gist: How the heck do you pick and train these alleged support people? I was full of self-righteous fury, anxious to avenge the rights of the downtrodden tech user. What irked me was not just finding another example of computer-service hell. It was that the incident shows how little tech companies understand about helping customers. What I wanted was what most computer users want: common courtesy, some good old honesty, and an apology. Oh yes, and maybe just a little revenge on that arrogant young whippersnapper--''John We-don't-give-our-last-names'' in technical nonsupport. A few months ago I wrote about how the e-commerce world was hustling to recruit former Federal Express Corp. executives to start shaping up the e-business shock troops and start getting some customer service into the high-tech world. Immediately I received calls and letters from people with stories of FedEx handling some problem with remarkable alacrity, tenacity, and sincerity. However, my correspondents would then slip into an unstoppable rant about high-tech customer-service abuses. These ranged from missing part of their children's formative years withering on hold lines to incompetent consultants who would help set up systems and disappear into the night blaming unspecified ''others'' for why their setups didn't work. The most venom was reserved for bad-advice spewing, script-reading John We-don't-types. It is fairly clear that most consumers believe the high-tech world's nonsupport staff gets its advice from some fortune-telling Magic-8 ball, heavily weighted to comments like: ''Hang up and make sure all the cables are plugged in, then call us back.'' O.K. so I got a very polite call from the public-relations crowd at the company. I was instantly put in touch with the Grand Imperial Eternal Wizard of technical support, a nice man who gave me one of those explanations that prompts the reaction: ''Hey, I only asked you what time it is, not how to build a watch.'' Fine, fine, fine, I thought. But let's face it: Because of whatever Apple did, one of your key programs does not now have the ability to work on my machine because of some really complicated reason nobody without a PhD in computer science could understand. ''Yes,'' he agreed, ''we are working on it.'' WORKING SOCCER MOM. So, apparently, I don't have to take this up with Apple. They have to take this up with Apple. If someone back at the dawn of this story had simply said: ''This weird thing's come up and we're working on it,'' I might have retained my self-image as a harried, 38-year-old working soccer mom instead of a matronly Southern aunt from the 1950s. But, alas, it was not to Bee. Um, be. So why have I not named this company? First, because the nonsupport legions will swamp me in e-mails restating those clock-building principles, assuring me John We-don't was not technically wrong. More important, though, I polled a slew of computer-savvy friends who agreed that this particular outfit is usually one of the better ones. And it turns out, the head of technical support had a tape of John We-don't and went back and used it as a coaching opportunity to make him a better tech support person. I respect this. I also acknowledge that I was a jerk, too. Which leads me to this question: Why shouldn't we software customers be jerks? Software ought to work. And when you've spent money and time on a program that doesn't do precisely the thing you bought it to do, the tech support people ought to take the time to figure out why you're so upset. BACKUP DISASTER. I am going to give unabashed kudos to another outfit I dealt with a couple days later that simply handled a problem in a straightforward, decent way. I've been using a site called MyEvents.com to help coordinate some logistics for a team my husband coaches. It's a group calendar and planning site. Apparently they had a backup glitch and a bunch of folks recently lost the ability to get back into their groups. I wrote a neutral, ''Gee, what's up?'' note. Within minutes--I swear, less than five minutes--I got a note back. To summarize: We've had a problem and we're working as hard as we can to solve it, but we don't know if we can. Here are the only options we can suggest right now. We are so sorry. Send us your address, and we'll send you a T-shirt. I live in Silicon Valley, and I need another dot.com T-shirt like I need another long-distance option. And I lost a number of hours of work in that crash. But when I got this note, I actually wrote back and thanked them for being honest. Imagine someone in the tech biz just admitting: We screwed up, we're working on it, we're incredibly sorry we inconvenienced you, can we do something to show you that we mean that? Am I alone in thinking that attitude would salve the I-way road rage so many of us are experiencing these days? Just show us a little respect for our time and try to figure out the problem without insulting our intelligence, O.K.? Part and parcel of respect for our time is well-informed, decently trained tech support people who accept as a basic proposition that anyone calling for help is justifiably confused, frustrated, and not wisely treated as an imbecile. If you have any thoughts on what else we poor silly software and hardware consumers want, let me know. O.K., now you can go as long as you've finished your peas. I'll get back to my knitting. And don't let me catch you playing hooky with Opie down at fishingHole.com. Questions? Comments? E-mail Dispatch@businessweek.com or fax (650) 372-3970 By JOAN O'C. HAMILTON _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP |
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