As you will recall my router gave up the ghost last weekend and I was back to the standby machine. Well all was sorted with the provider and I had high hopes of returning home to a new router this Friday and who would have thought those hopes would have been rewarded? but they were and I had said new router connected within minutes.
Now here it gets complicated because it wanted my username and password, not the account ones or my email ones but the ones that were established 8 years ago and are only ever used when I get a new router. Obviously this is the sort of thing that a sensible operator would put in the box, needless to say my operator is not in that class. At this point I entered into a whole world of pain known as ‘customer service’, most of you will be familiar with this experience so I can’t think that you will find this enlightening but a combination of anger and despair led me to recount the experience.
To set the scene, I dialled and made something in the region of 6 choices to get to the correct department, I then had to enter my full home telephone number so that they could identify me. Having passed the first hurdles I reached a human being although, as you will see, I am not convinced he was actually human. Pleasantries were exchanged and then I confirmed my telephone number, my address (in full) and my date of birth to a man that struggled to understand English. I can see why they did this after the first security check Mr(s) Smith could have chloroformed me and then would have been free to discuss my router details without further challenge, I must commend the high security.
I explained that I needed my user name and password, he explained what I had explained and we had the same basic idea of the request. In order to give me these details he needed to confirm some security details with me, at this point I pulled the curtains unsure if he had spotted a laser scope drawing a bead on me, can’t be too careful apparently. Having confirmed just about everything I was just measuring my inside leg in preparation for proving who I was but they were ahead of me and the last few digits from my payment card sufficed, just as well really as I fell over trying to measure my own inside leg with the un cooperative wrists. Several minutes passed as my user name and password were recited painfully slowly in the phonetic alphabet, although I must say this is quite something to experience in broken English. I entered the requisite details and …… nothing happened, I had connection PC – Router but nothing from the router a fact that I was quick to point out to my colonial chum.
“Can you tell me what the lights are doing?”
“ADSL is flashing, power is steady on and Lan 1 is lit, all of the others are off”
“OK can you tell me what the internet light is doing?”
“Is the clue not in the statement that all of the others are off?”
“Is the internet light flashing?”
“Hello are you there? Its off the same as all of the others apart from ADSL, Power and Lan 1”
“Thank you, so what you are telling me is that the internet light is off”
“Is your name Sherlock?”
“Is there more than one phone socket in your house?”
“No just the one”
“Is your router connected to the primary socket?”
“There is only one”
“Is this the primary one?”
“No I only have one and its the secondary one”
“Please plug the router into the primary socket”
“It is”
“Is this the socket with the BT logo on?”
“I only have one”
“So what you are telling me is that the router is connected to the primary socket?”
“You should be a detective”
“Is there a filter plugged into the socket”
“Yes”
“Is there one in every socket in your hone?”
“I only have ONE”
“Do you need more filters?”
“I have one socket, one filter, one router and they are all installed together”
“The filter is a small white box the size of a matchbox”
“I am sorry I thought that it was pink and made of cheese , let me dig out the correct one”
“There will be one in the box”
“Listen I am an Engineer, I have a filter installed, the leads are installed, the power is on, this is not rocket science after all”
“Thank you so what you are telling me is that everything is connected to the primary circuit but it does not work, I will run a diagnostic”
After some time “There are no faults on your line”
“OK so why does it not work?”
“Is your computer turned on?”
“Shit! that was it all along, of course it is bloody well turned on”
“Is the PC connected to the router? You will need the yellow cable”
“I can’t use wet string? of course it is connected with the wire”
“Is it the yellow cable?”
“I am looking at the router details on my PC, if the cable is yellow,red,green or orange is irrelevant it IS connected”
“Is the cable yellow?”
“YES”
“What I see is that it is working”
“No it is not that’s why I am on the phone to you, it’s not a social call!”
“But have you tried to use a browser window?”
At this point I turned around to see that it was indeed now working, opened a browser window and all was well. “OK so now its working but why wasnt it before?”
“Can you open a browser window?”
“Yes I have and it works but why wasnt it working before”
“The browser is normally a blue e if you are using windows”
“It works OK? its fine, problem solved, but what was the problem?”
“Sometimes a test fixes a fault”
“Why is it called a test then? Oh well its good thanks”
“Can I ask were you happy with this call?”
“No it was rubbish, you are rubbish and your entire organisation is rubbish”
“So would you like to talk to a manager?”
“No because he is as rubbish as you”
“So what you are saying is…..” at this point I killed the call. In case you are wondering this was a real conversation, my sarcasm had no affect on the operative he just took it in his stride and I guess has been trained not to engage with frustrated callers and that made it worse! at least my mate Andrew managed to get a wind up out of the telesales that pestered him, although how he managed to get the guy to phone back with donkey sex allegations is still beyond me.
Why do companies think that getting Indian call centre staff to read from a script that presumes all callers are imbeciles will pass for good customer service? I am trained to repeat back messages to the emergency services in an emergency situation, when a call centre does it then its akin to the grocery store doing it! “Could I have a bottle of that wine please?” “what you are telling me is that you would like a bottle of this wine” its beyond silly its extremely frustrating and drives you insane because your request is repeated by someone who struggles to understand your language!
