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I’ve given thought in the past to some sort of ‘support reputation system’. After calling tech support, they’d rate your manner and how capable you seemed, and

I’ve given thought in the past to some sort of ‘support reputation system’. After calling tech support, they’d rate your manner and how capable you seemed, and this would feed through into your future calls (e.g. calling an ISP with a genuine + very technical question might mean you go straight to the highest tier of tech support next time you call). It would save time for tech support workers too; no need to vet very tech capable callers for things like ‘have you tried turning it off and on again’. So theoretically, the call wait time might even reduce for callers with simple/obvious questions. There are probably some details to iron out and problems to solve, but the basic idea seems pretty feasible to me.

flafla2 7y ago
Great idea, but realistically someone will figure out how to use it for ad-tracking.
bouk 7y ago
This is a good idea! It could also figure out if you pay your bills on time and share it with other companies so your good behavior will get you better rates in different places. And we could track if you jaywalk or perform other bad behavior, and deny you air or train travel if you’re not a good citizen.
ahofmann 7y ago
Over the years, the people who were technically capable were the ones who made the most unnecessary work for me. I trained myself to ignore everything they tried to do to solve the problem. If I have a technical problem, my colleagues should do the same with my input.
- turbinerneiter 7y ago
  I had issues before were I was 100% convinced to know the issue and gave the supporter a really hard time walking me through the script. Wasn't as pretentious of an asshole anymore after the "this won't work, it has nothing to do with my issue" actually worked. Nowadays I'm always trying to walk through the steps posted in the self help manuals before I actually call. If you tell them that you already did everything in this manual, they also move on quickly after a couple of questions to double check.
- hirsin 7y ago
  +1. Most of the support cases I get (meaning they've escalated through 2 to 3 layers of support engineering) are XY Problems (1). The customers are smart, and typically their issue is knowing too much about one aspect of the thing they're trying to solve. They used the sickle to cut their wheat, so yup, they're going to use the sickle to dry it, bale it, and tow it to market. Ignoring everything they're doing, and even their initial question, typically leads to better outcomes. (Except in the cases where it turns out they really do have to be doing it in this backwards manner). 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem
csydas 7y ago
This already happens. I would be shocked if any mature support branch for a large project __didn't__ have their CRM littered with notes about various companies and specific persons within a given company, even with Consumer Tech Support lines. Typically, skipping specific steps in common troubleshooting is not done unless the person provides some verification on a new case/call to validate that this step was indeed done, simply because even professionals make mistakes, but specific environmental factors, the person'(s) relative technical knowledge, their behavior in the past with support, common pain points in their environment, and other such things are all recorded pretty heavily. Usually though this only means that you'll skip Tier 0/1 Support though for most companies. Usually there's always a small reserve of "big guns" that are reserved only for the cases that really need them. Keep in mind though that this is mostly for companies that specifically look to work with Technology Professionals; when you're talking about generic Consumer Support, such a system is feasible but often non-sensical from any business perspective for the Companies when we're discussing Consumer Support. Comcast's monopoly is only one reason why they were able to weather "worst support ever" for so many years; the simple fact is that they got pretty good at handling vocal customers, or at least adding a public face that made most consumers not care. At best, with such supports, you'll just get X replaced regardless of what X is, and any issue that isn't solved by that tends to be over the head of most people's interests, so any outrage from highly technical persons mostly just gets ignored. I know what you want, and you can get this with Tech Companies. But if you want fast and good support from Consumer Tech (ISPs, home tech, etc), you have two routes: play the game and just move through the motions ASAP, or post on Twitter and hope that you garner enough attention to escalate your case. Both are a waste of time and energy, IMO, and I know which one would take less of my time personally.
gnufx 7y ago
Once upon a time when we'd ring up support for Sun, SGI, etc., they did know that, for instance, they could just send a new part to swap ourselves when we said it was broken. (That was after GEC, at least, no longer actually had an office on site.)
- teddyh 7y ago
  In the old days, yes we had service contracts for the machines, but it was essentially a joke. That was a way of getting parts after the expert hackers from the AI lab fixed the problem. Because if you let the field-service person fix it it would take them days, and you didn't want to do that, you wanted it to work. So, the people who knew how to do those things would just go and fix it quickly, and since they were ten times as competent as any field service person, they could do a much better job. And then they would have the ruined boards, they would just leave them there and tell the field service person “take these back and bring us some new ones”. — Richard Stallman, 30 October 1986 https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-kth.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-kth.html
jarofgreen 7y ago
Pretty sure there someone suing in Britain years ago after getting to see comments about him support agents had left on a company forum. They weren't nice comments. I thought it was Demon internet but I can't find it. Now I'm remembering accidentally seeing my customer record in a mobile phone shop. I was a "Silver customer". At that point I had been with them for 10 years or something. Silver? What does it take to get Gold??! Basically, I'm saying if you do this not everyone will be happy.

flafla2 7y ago

Great idea, but realistically someone will figure out how to use it for ad-tracking.

bouk 7y ago

This is a good idea! It could also figure out if you pay your bills on time and share it with other companies so your good behavior will get you better rates in different places. And we could track if you jaywalk or perform other bad behavior, and deny you air or train travel if you’re not a good citizen.

ahofmann 7y ago

Over the years, the people who were technically capable were the ones who made the most unnecessary work for me. I trained myself to ignore everything they tried to do to solve the problem. If I have a technical problem, my colleagues should do the same with my input.

turbinerneiter 7y ago
I had issues before were I was 100% convinced to know the issue and gave the supporter a really hard time walking me through the script. Wasn't as pretentious of an asshole anymore after the "this won't work, it has nothing to do with my issue" actually worked. Nowadays I'm always trying to walk through the steps posted in the self help manuals before I actually call. If you tell them that you already did everything in this manual, they also move on quickly after a couple of questions to double check.
hirsin 7y ago
+1. Most of the support cases I get (meaning they've escalated through 2 to 3 layers of support engineering) are XY Problems (1). The customers are smart, and typically their issue is knowing too much about one aspect of the thing they're trying to solve. They used the sickle to cut their wheat, so yup, they're going to use the sickle to dry it, bale it, and tow it to market. Ignoring everything they're doing, and even their initial question, typically leads to better outcomes. (Except in the cases where it turns out they really do have to be doing it in this backwards manner). 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem

csydas 7y ago

This already happens. I would be shocked if any mature support branch for a large project __didn't__ have their CRM littered with notes about various companies and specific persons within a given company, even with Consumer Tech Support lines. Typically, skipping specific steps in common troubleshooting is not done unless the person provides some verification on a new case/call to validate that this step was indeed done, simply because even professionals make mistakes, but specific environmental factors, the person'(s) relative technical knowledge, their behavior in the past with support, common pain points in their environment, and other such things are all recorded pretty heavily. Usually though this only means that you'll skip Tier 0/1 Support though for most companies. Usually there's always a small reserve of "big guns" that are reserved only for the cases that really need them. Keep in mind though that this is mostly for companies that specifically look to work with Technology Professionals; when you're talking about generic Consumer Support, such a system is feasible but often non-sensical from any business perspective for the Companies when we're discussing Consumer Support. Comcast's monopoly is only one reason why they were able to weather "worst support ever" for so many years; the simple fact is that they got pretty good at handling vocal customers, or at least adding a public face that made most consumers not care. At best, with such supports, you'll just get X replaced regardless of what X is, and any issue that isn't solved by that tends to be over the head of most people's interests, so any outrage from highly technical persons mostly just gets ignored. I know what you want, and you can get this with Tech Companies. But if you want fast and good support from Consumer Tech (ISPs, home tech, etc), you have two routes: play the game and just move through the motions ASAP, or post on Twitter and hope that you garner enough attention to escalate your case. Both are a waste of time and energy, IMO, and I know which one would take less of my time personally.

gnufx 7y ago

Once upon a time when we'd ring up support for Sun, SGI, etc., they did know that, for instance, they could just send a new part to swap ourselves when we said it was broken. (That was after GEC, at least, no longer actually had an office on site.)

teddyh 7y ago
In the old days, yes we had service contracts for the machines, but it was essentially a joke. That was a way of getting parts after the expert hackers from the AI lab fixed the problem. Because if you let the field-service person fix it it would take them days, and you didn't want to do that, you wanted it to work. So, the people who knew how to do those things would just go and fix it quickly, and since they were ten times as competent as any field service person, they could do a much better job. And then they would have the ruined boards, they would just leave them there and tell the field service person “take these back and bring us some new ones”. — Richard Stallman, 30 October 1986 https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-kth.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-kth.html

jarofgreen 7y ago

Pretty sure there someone suing in Britain years ago after getting to see comments about him support agents had left on a company forum. They weren't nice comments. I thought it was Demon internet but I can't find it. Now I'm remembering accidentally seeing my customer record in a mobile phone shop. I was a "Silver customer". At that point I had been with them for 10 years or something. Silver? What does it take to get Gold??! Basically, I'm saying if you do this not everyone will be happy.