4 ms·

I'm almost certain that you were not talking to a real Microsoft employee. Most Fortune 500s have their helpdesks and customer service outsourced to the Tatas a

I'm almost certain that you were not talking to a real Microsoft employee. Most Fortune 500s have their helpdesks and customer service outsourced to the Tatas and Wipros, Cognizants and HCLs of the world, who may or may not further subcontract the actual bodies filling the roles. Quite frankly, first-level support is useless and ignorant; at best they have scripts for common issues, but to do anything you need to defeat their efforts to no-op and close the ticket, and instead get escalated to a real person with some agency and authority.

withaplomb 7y ago
Even people who are bad at their jobs are real people. We can’t assume that everyone of low intelligence or motivation is sub human. Just say agency and authority, that made your point.
- thrower123 7y ago
  In the context of their jobs, they are a meat-based chatbot. This is no reflection on them personally, this is by design of their job role. They have metrics hanging over them to close calls as quickly as possible, without escalating. They are expected to handle dozens or hundreds of calls a day. There is no slack to actually try to resolve the user's problems in any way that requires more creativity than sticking to the SOP script, and moreover, they are usually mandated to stick to a very standardized procedure, with defined suggestions and language that they have to use, in a specific order. A good first-level support person would spoon-feed you the right incantations to get escalated, in a way that their cutthroat metrics aren't negatively impacted. It's a fucked up system, but this is how call-centers work.
yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
If you contact a company through their official channels and they connect to a third party, they get to keep the blame.
minedwiz 7y ago
Forget customer service, not even Microsoft's internal IT helpdesk is staffed by FTEs.

withaplomb 7y ago

Even people who are bad at their jobs are real people. We can’t assume that everyone of low intelligence or motivation is sub human. Just say agency and authority, that made your point.

thrower123 7y ago
In the context of their jobs, they are a meat-based chatbot. This is no reflection on them personally, this is by design of their job role. They have metrics hanging over them to close calls as quickly as possible, without escalating. They are expected to handle dozens or hundreds of calls a day. There is no slack to actually try to resolve the user's problems in any way that requires more creativity than sticking to the SOP script, and moreover, they are usually mandated to stick to a very standardized procedure, with defined suggestions and language that they have to use, in a specific order. A good first-level support person would spoon-feed you the right incantations to get escalated, in a way that their cutthroat metrics aren't negatively impacted. It's a fucked up system, but this is how call-centers work.

yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago

If you contact a company through their official channels and they connect to a third party, they get to keep the blame.

minedwiz 7y ago

Forget customer service, not even Microsoft's internal IT helpdesk is staffed by FTEs.