4 ms·

(not difficult) Detect that a customer's modem is next to a fish tank or a microwave from a picture the customer sends via the company app. This is a common cau

(not difficult) Detect that a customer's modem is next to a fish tank or a microwave from a picture the customer sends via the company app. This is a common cause for wifi problems so it helps to sort these cases out before they connect to an operator

rantwasp 5y ago
Is your modem next to a microwave oven? you ask them directly and you don't invade their privacy by making them take pictures.
- refulgentis 5y ago
  Privacy discourse is broken if "sharing a photo with support" is "making them [let support] invade their privacy" There's no reason to assume it's mandatory, and it discounts individual discretion to 0
  - rantwasp 5y ago
    from my neck of the woods, making me take a picture of a device and using machine learning to figure out things that are not the device itself are an invasion of privacy
    - collaborative 5y ago
      The picture is optional and specifically requests to include the area around the router to detect problems related to the environment blablabla
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  Have you ever met users? They'll confidently answer No! And then 6months later when you're actually there they will explain that "it isn't next to the microwave, the microwave is next to it you silly man!"
kinkrtyavimoodh 5y ago
Just... wow. The jokes write themselves at this point. So instead of posing a simple question to the customer that even the most tech-illiterate customer can understand and answer reliably (Is your router next to a microwave oven or aquarium by any chance?), you make them download an app (which would ask for god knows how many permissions), ask them to take a photo, which may or may not even have the necessary information you need and could be in terrible lighting, blurred, or a hundred other failure modes, then run image processing on it which has its own precision and recall issues. All of this, instead of asking a simple question. If this is not technology fetishization I don't know what is.
- collaborative 5y ago
  This only happens when a customer requests support via the app. You would be amazed at the number of customers that not only put their router in such places but then also deny their ever being there. The picture doesn't lie. Support tickets that arise from such cases can take months to close. Usually after a technician visits and sees the router's position
  - bierjunge 5y ago
    First and most important rule of technical support I've learned: "All users lie, there are no exceptions"
thorin 5y ago
I'm probably behind the times, but this really seems like using a "cool technology" to solve a non existent problem. It would be pretty easy to have this in a list of FAQS on your site or via a support bot or something. If they lie with their answer they probably can't be bothered to send you a photo to analyze either.

rantwasp 5y ago

Is your modem next to a microwave oven? you ask them directly and you don't invade their privacy by making them take pictures.

refulgentis 5y ago
Privacy discourse is broken if "sharing a photo with support" is "making them [let support] invade their privacy" There's no reason to assume it's mandatory, and it discounts individual discretion to 0
- rantwasp 5y ago
  from my neck of the woods, making me take a picture of a device and using machine learning to figure out things that are not the device itself are an invasion of privacy
  - collaborative 5y ago
    The picture is optional and specifically requests to include the area around the router to detect problems related to the environment blablabla
LatteLazy 5y ago
Have you ever met users? They'll confidently answer No! And then 6months later when you're actually there they will explain that "it isn't next to the microwave, the microwave is next to it you silly man!"

kinkrtyavimoodh 5y ago

Just... wow. The jokes write themselves at this point. So instead of posing a simple question to the customer that even the most tech-illiterate customer can understand and answer reliably (Is your router next to a microwave oven or aquarium by any chance?), you make them download an app (which would ask for god knows how many permissions), ask them to take a photo, which may or may not even have the necessary information you need and could be in terrible lighting, blurred, or a hundred other failure modes, then run image processing on it which has its own precision and recall issues. All of this, instead of asking a simple question. If this is not technology fetishization I don't know what is.

collaborative 5y ago
This only happens when a customer requests support via the app. You would be amazed at the number of customers that not only put their router in such places but then also deny their ever being there. The picture doesn't lie. Support tickets that arise from such cases can take months to close. Usually after a technician visits and sees the router's position
- bierjunge 5y ago
  First and most important rule of technical support I've learned: "All users lie, there are no exceptions"

thorin 5y ago

I'm probably behind the times, but this really seems like using a "cool technology" to solve a non existent problem. It would be pretty easy to have this in a list of FAQS on your site or via a support bot or something. If they lie with their answer they probably can't be bothered to send you a photo to analyze either.