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Category 48, Topic 12
Message 116 Thu Mar 24, 1994
W.GOOSEY [Goose] at 22:22 EST
Somebody sent this to me in the company Email today. Many of you may have
seen it, but I thought it was mildly amusing so I'm posting it here....
.goose.
Here's a summary of the Wall Street Article -
"Befuddled PC Users Flood Help Lines, And No Question Seems to Be Too
Basic," by Jim Carlton - Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
Austin, TX
- Exasperated caller said she couldn't get her new Dell computer to turn
on.
Customer: "I've pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing
happens."
Dell Tech: "Foot Pedal?"
Customer: "Yes, this little white foot pedal with the on switch."
- Foot Pedal turned out to be the mouse
- PC makers discovering it's still a low-tech world out there
- having success selling PC's to households
- now have to deal with people to whom monitors and disk drives are
as foreign as another language
- 2 years ago, most calls came from techies seeking help on complex
problems
- Now, as many as 70 percent of calls come from rank novices
- Part of reason some companies are now charging for tech support
- Questions often so basic, they could be answered by opening the manual
- One woman called Dell asking how to install baterries in her new
laptop computer
- Told directions were on first page of the manual
- Woman replied angrily, "I just paid $2000.00 for this damn thing,
and I'm not going to read a book."
- These buyers rarely refer to manuals
- Would rather use the phone
- "It's a phenomenon of people wanting to talk to people."
- Craig McQuilken of AST Research
- Compaq help center in Houston indundated with 8000 calls a day
with inquiries like -
" A frustrated customer called, who said her... {PC}... would
not work. She said she had unpacked the unit, plugged it in,
opened it up and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something
to happen. When asked what happened when she pressed the power
switch, she asked, "What power switch?""
- So many people have called to ask where the "any" key is on their
keyboards when the "Press Any Key" message is displayed
- Compaq considering changing message to "Press Return Key"
- AST - one customer complained that her mouse was hard to control
with the dust cover on it
- dust cover turned out to be the plastic bag in which the mouse
was packaged
- Dell - one customer held the mouse in the air and pointed it at the
screen, all the while clicking madly
- Compaq - one customer was having diskette problems. After trouble
shooting for a while (magnets, heat, etc.), tech asked the customer
what else was being done with the diskette. Response: "I put a
label on the diskette, roll it into the typewriter..."
- AST - customer complied with tech's request to send in a copy of a
defective diskette. A few days later, tech received a letter from
the customer along with a Xerox copy of the floppy.
- Dell - tech advised customer to put his troubled floppy back in the
drive and close the door. Customer put the phone down and was heard
walking over to shut the door to his room.
- Dell - customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax
anything. After 40 minutes, tech discovered the man was trying to
fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor screen
and hitting the "send" key.
- Dell - customer needed help setting up an app. Tech referred him
to the local Egghead. Customer: "Yeah, I got me a couple of
friends." When told that Egghead was a software store, the man
replied, "Oh! I thought you meant for me to find a couple of
geeks."
- Dell - Customer called complaining his keyboard no longer worked.
Customer had cleaned his keyboard by submerging it for a day in
warm soapy water in his bathtub.
- Dell tech once calmed a man who was enraged because "his computer
had told him he was bad and an invalid." Tech patiently explained
that the computer's "bad command" and "invalid" responses shouldn't
be taken personally.
- Techs increasingly find themselves taking on role of amateur
psychologists
- Dell tech (formerly a psychiatric nurse) once defused a potential
domestic fight by soothingly talking a man through a computer
problem after the man had screamed threats at his wife and children
in the background.
- Also the lonely hearts reaching out for human contact, even if it
happens to be a computer techie.
- man from New Hampshire calls Dell every time he experiences a life
crisis. Gets a tech to walk him through a contrived computer
problem, apparently feeling uplifted by the process.
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