TheBanyanTree: A customer service story

[Roger Pye]

"Transact Technical Support, this is Mick, how can I help you?"

"Roger Pye, Canberra Environment Centre. Our internet's down, do you 
have an outage in our area?"

"What's your data line number?"

I didn't know and said so. "The voice line is 6248 0885," I suggested
helpfully.

"Well, that one's wide open. Have you called your ISP?"

"No."

"You're supposed to call them before us, do it now."


"XYZ Service Provider, Good morning, this is Theo, how can I help you?"

I knew Theo. "G'day Theo it's Roger Pye from the Environment Centre, how
ya doing?"

"OK, what's the problem?"

"Internet's down."

"Justamoment, I'll check your account, what's your login?"

"Ecoaction."

"OK, your account's fine, no worries. Call Transact."

Service with a smile, eh! He was checking the account to make sure we
were up to date with our $35 a month payment. I did as I was told.

"Technical Support, this is Stuart, how can I help you?"

Stuart went through much the same Q&A as Mick except he worked out that
the data line was actually 6247 5530, but it was carrying data, no
problem. "So it must be in your hardware and/or connections."

I did a complete recheck of everything. 30 minutes later I was back on
the Transact line again. A completely different technician didn't bother
with anything his predecessors had, just asked what lights were lit on
the switch (modem). "All including wireless and DSL except Internet." 
"OK, there's your problem. We're sending you data and the switch is 
receiving it - if it wasn't the DSL light wouldn't be on - but it isn't 
going any further. You will have to reset it." "How do I do that?" "Talk 
to your ISP."

"Good morning, this is Theo, how can I help you?"

I explained where I'd got to. OK, he said, look on the underside of the
gateway, it has the url, username and password there, log in then call 
me again.

So I did all that, called him and for the next 24 hours we went round in
circles chasing our tails because, as we eventually found out, our
conversational lines were crossed. This an example conversation: (Me)
"I've put in the username and password again, they don't work." (Him)
"They have to work, gateways (another name for modems) are all the same, 
are you sure you're doing it right?" (Me) "How difficult is typing 
'admin' twice?" (Him) Well something's wrong. You'd better call the 
manufacturer."

I went home and googled Linksys, dialled the access number.

"Good evening, how are ya?" came this female voice with rich American
accent. "This is Gloria, How may I help you?"

I explained the problem.

"OK, Honey, what you need to do is look at the bottom of the gateway,
there's a set of numbers there, a URL, and username and password.
They'll give you access to the log on script, OK? Then you call your ISP."

"Thanks. By the way Gloria, where are you?"

Phillipines! I sat in front of my computer wondering how many call
centres the manufacturer had and, also, why she had only repeated to me
what Theo had said. I went back to the Centre, booted a system, punched
in the url, went there, typed in the username and password, this brought
up the script, went down the screen line by line (which was mostly
gobbledegook to me anyway) until I reached Username again, typed it in
then the password, hit Save and . . . nothing worked. I picked up the
phone and dialled Linksys again.

"Good afternoon, this is Carl, how can I help you?"

"Hi, where are you Carl?"

"California. What's the problem?"

I went through it all again.

"OK, you in the script screen now? OK, change the first two lines to
read as follows (he reeled of the sequences) then go down to the
username and password and put them in then save it and reboot the system."

"The username and password don't work."

"They have to work!"

"They don't!"

"They're the ones your ISP gave you, right? They have to work."

"All the ISP told me was to look on the underside of the gateway and use
the ones there."

"No, they're wrong. There's another username and another password thich
the ISP assigns to you, that's how you get connected. Have a nice day!"


"Good afternoon, this is Theo, how can I help you?"

"Hi Theo, I've talked to Linksys and changed part of the script at 
168.1.1 now I need the username and password assigned to us by your outfit."

"Wait a minute, you're in the script? But you said the username and 
password didn't work, how did you get in there?"

"Not the logging in username and password, they have always worked. It's 
the ones in the actual script I've been asking you for since yesterday."

"Oh. Just a moment. They are XYX at . . . . .  and *********. Good luck."

It took just 30 seconds to reset the system and bring the internet up 
after two days of frustration and a lot of jabber.

roger






Monique Colver wrote:
> Just clearing my head today. Also here:
> http://open.salon.com/blog/moniquec/2009/09/30/astounding_customer_service
> 
> There are more pressing issues, but we'll go into those at a later
> time. Today we'll focus on a recent experience that has all the
> hallmarks of being perpetrated by Satan, if one were to believe in
> such a guy, which I don't, at least not in the traditional method.
>