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Four Things You Should Know About Technical Support
Calling technical support usually means conversing at length with technicians who are 'middle men.' They act as a bridge between you and the company they represent. Knowing what it's like to be a technical support agent, as well as how things work on their side of the phone line, will very likely help you get your issue resolved quickly, with minimal speed bumps along the way.
1. Most technical support is outsourced.
Outsourcing is a business strategy in which a company that provides a product or service, like AT&T or HP, makes a deal with an outsourcing company. For a price, the outsourcing company trains its employees to work, on the telephone, as representatives of the original client company, managing customers' subscription services and technical issues.
Technology companies don't simply outsource overseas, outside North America to India or Pakistan. They outsource all over the world, even right next door to their headquarters, sometimes. This means that when you call a company's support line, even if the person on the other end doesn't sound foreign, she is still very likely not a direct employee of the company she represents: she is outsourced.
All this outsourcing of work means that the person you speak to on the phone, despite working as a representative, does not have any means of contacting anyone directly employed by AT&T, or HP, or the maker of your broken cell phone. As an outsourced agent, she has probably represented several different client companies since taking up employment with the outsourcing company, and feels no personal allegiance to any of them.
Airing complaints on the line, then, about the product or service you have paid for, will not be effective -- while it may be therapeutic for you to rant if you are dissatisfied, remember that the agent on the line very likely has no means of passing on your general complaint to the people who could actually do something about it. She has no control over pricing, manufacture, design, or programming, and is unable to contact those who do.
2. The agent you're speaking to has not received a lot of training.
Usually, an outsourcing company is paid by its clients (like HP or AT&T) by the number of employees working per hour, or sometimes, the actual time spent taking calls. The goal of an outsourcing company, then, is to get as many employees as are required by the stipulations of its contracts onto the phone lines as quickly as possible.
This leaves little time for training. Yes, all outsourced employees are trained on the basics of the device or service they will be supporting -- for a week or two. This is the case even for those who have been employed off the street and can't tell the difference between a Macintosh computer and a PC.
When training is complete, often without final testing to prove retention of training information, employees are shuffled to their cubicles, with access to a computer, a phone, a headset, and a search engine. Because training is so basic, and because so many different things can go wrong with a piece of technology, it's very likely that any given issue you present to your technical support agent is brand new to that agent. Some issues are common, but many are not. Thus, your support agent will very likely need to look up the solution to your issue and read about it before he can help you.
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Further, because outsourced technical support agents really do want to help customers resolve their issues simply to lower their own stress levels, they will often turn to workplace rumour and search engines -- especially Google -- to help solve your issue. That's right: many of the resources used by technical support agents are available to you directly. All you need to do is perform a simple Internet search.
3. You can't get your technician in trouble.
If you are dissatisfied with the service your technician is providing, you may be tempted to ask to speak to a supervisor. If you ask for a supervisor, the technician is obligated to get up and find you one, and this may help smooth the support process for you. However, keep in mind that your complaints to the supervisor about the previous agent will meet silent eye-rolls, and if lengthy will simply frustrate the supervisor.
A supervisor is not a boss. A supervisor is a floor-walker, and the one you're speaking to is guaranteed to like the agent you're complaining about more than he likes you, especially if you focus more on the issue you have with technical support services than on the issue you have with your product -- that is, the issue that the supervisor is actually able to help you resolve.
Once you have finished speaking with technical support, you may be emailed a customer satisfaction survey. Sometimes, your answers on this survey affect your support agent's training -- that is, if you give a negative review of the agent's performance, the agent may be given extra training, and if you give a positive review, your words may be put up on a bulletin board somewhere. Often, the review you give of the agent's performance means nothing, and is simply used as means for your agent to self-reflect.
No matter what, your response to the customer service satisfaction survey only reflects upon the technical support agent, or agents, to whom you have spoken. Complaining about the product or the company will at best be completely ineffective, and at worst will reflect unfairly upon a few technical support agents. If you had a good experience with technical support and merely dislike the company your agent represents or the products offered, do not return a negative customer satisfaction survey. Instead, look around the Internet for customer complaint contacts or ask your technician for the appropriate contact information before you end your call.
4. Most technicians are underpaid.
Outsourced technical support agents usually work for minimum wage. They are expected to deal with angry customers, difficult technical puzzles, and high stress levels for eight to twelve hours a day, five days a week, for about ten US dollars an hour -- if they're lucky. In some countries, the wage is far lower than that.
Your technician is very likely not doing this job just because he likes it -- he either hopes to move up in the company, or is in need of work that allows him to sit, or is in need of work, period. The strategy of outsourcing companies is this: they take up residence in areas with poor economies, and take advantage of high unemployment rates. Most technical support agents, if given an opportunity to work somewhere else, would take it.
This doesn't mean the agent doesn't care about his job, however -- he wants to your issue to be resolved just like you do, because he's being tracked and rewarded or reprimanded based on how long it takes him to resolve your issue whilst closely heeding meticulous documentation processes, reciting scripts and phone numbers, and making you think he knows exactly what he's doing -- even when he doesn't.
Technical support is a high-stress job, and successfully resolving an issue lowers stress. Your agent will very likely do whatever he can to help you, especially if you are friendly, attentive, patient, and willing to heed instructions. Any caller to demonstrate awareness of a technical support agent's stress will almost invariably receive the most thorough, generous support possible.
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