4 ms·

> Most common support calls where for things that were explained in the manual, the out of box experience, tutorial documents, FAQ pages, and so on and so forth

> Most common support calls where for things that were explained in the manual, the out of box experience, tutorial documents, FAQ pages, and so on and so forth. My brother used to work at tech support for XBox Live. He said that 80% of his calls were for password resets, something users can easily self-service. There's literally an option on the login form for "Forgot Password", and people would rather spend time calling up support, waiting on hold, and verifying their identity to a support agent than click a button. And it's not like the password reset flow was any easier going through support. He'd just trigger a password reset e-mail to be sent, exactly like the user hitting Forgot Password. And this is after the phone tree tells them "If you forgot your password, click the Forgot Password link". I always think about this when people demand they should be able to talk to a human. The overwhelming number of callers to tech support don't need a human. Giving everybody the ability to speak to a human just isn't feasible. I have an uncle that works tech support for XFinity. Half his calls are resolved by just power cycling the modem/router. People shouldn't need a human to tell them to do that.

wtallis 8mo ago
> Half his calls are resolved by just power cycling the modem/router. People shouldn't need a human to tell them to do that. Comcast deserves every penny of customer service expenses they're incurring if their own purpose-built modem/routers are so flaky they're responsible for half the problems people experience with their service. Customers should not be expected to endure shitty products without even seeking help from the service provider that owes them better. By contrast, I've seen Google Fiber proactively issue a partial refund in response to a service outage that was so short I didn't even notice it.
- Terr_ 8mo ago
  > their own purpose-built modem/routers Which, last I knew, were leased-out with their line-item on the monthly bill. So it's not as if they aren't choosing (and charging-for) the situation. My own modem and router paid for themselves very quickly.
redox99 8mo ago
Power cycling is not a solution. It's a crappy workaround, and you still had downtime because of it. The device should never get stuck in the first place, and the solution for that is fixing whatever bug is in the firmware. If they want to reduce support calls, then have more reliable gear.
- chimeracoder 8mo ago
  > Power cycling is not a solution. It's a crappy workaround, and you still had downtime because of it. The device should never get stuck in the first place, and the solution for that is fixing whatever bug is in the firmware. I'm sympathetic to the argument that companies should make support calls less necessary by providing better products and services, but "just write bug-free software" is not a solution.
  - wtallis 8mo ago
    Giving the device enough RAM to survive memory leaks during heavy usage would also be a valid option, as is automatic rebooting to get the device back into a clean state before the user experiences a persistent loss of connectivity. There are a wealth of available workarounds when you control everything about the device's hardware and software and almost everything about the network environments it'll be operating in. Fixing all the tricky, subtle software bugs is not necessary.
    - esyir 8mo ago
      For a community full of engineers, I'm always surprised that people always take absolutionist views on minor technical decisions, rather than thinking of the tradeoffs made that got there.
      - andrew_lettuce 8mo ago
        The obvious trade off here is engineering effort vs. development cost, and when the tech support solution is "have you tried turning it off, then on again?" We know which path was chosen
pydry 8mo ago
I had a friend who worked for a company that built AI call centres. I naively thought that customers would use it to do "password reset" type workflows and have an escape hatch for customers to talk to a human if the AI couldnt handle what they needed. Surprisingly few of them wanted that. If the AI couldnt handle their issue they mostly wanted customers to just fuck off.
- bluefirebrand 8mo ago
  > If the AI couldnt handle their issue they mostly wanted customers to just fuck off. Witness the future of business and society
andrew_lettuce 8mo ago
The thing is a YOU don't get to decide this. Maybe the PW reset flow is significantly more complex for some people who don't have an actual human walk them though it; maybe Xfinity routers shouldn't need to be power cycled to fix problems. Maybe corporations should make their products better to avoid do many support calls or price that into the purchase price. At least let's be honest that the entire exercise is an attempt to externalize costs on their customers.
- ocdtrekkie 8mo ago
  The problem is consumers are the ones who decided this. I used to only buy web hosting from companies with 24/7 US based phone tech support. Today this basically doesn't exist, because cheaper options not offering it ate their lunch.
- godelski 8mo ago
  I've called for password resets before. Sometimes the email doesn't come in or can take like an hour (fuck "Magic links" and email OTPs...). I've even had support reset it and a day later get the half dozen reset requests I made. Just because something appears simple and obvious doesn't mean it is. There's a lot of ways for those systems to fail. Might be the user's connection or might be the server the user is connecting to and the customer support is sending through a different one. Big lesson I've learned is that if a lot of people are struggling with something that seems obvious then it probably isn't.
  - Mikhail_Edoshin 8mo ago
    I just remembered my password reset battle with an online store. Yes, the email or the SMS took too long to arrive and when the code came, it was already expired. And I knew the password, by the way; it was just a "new browser" and they wanted a second authentication. Marvelous.
    - godelski 8mo ago
      I once had a credit card company not let me add my card to my Google wallet because I didn't have the physical card, even though they sent me the virtual one... it had been 3 weeks and for their rewards I needed to spend X amount in 3 months. I had to call to verify my identity. Though I think that friction was on purpose
TZubiri 8mo ago
This mentality is how you get "Hi, thank you for your message, please take a look at our following FAQ guides: - I forgot my password Was this answer useful to you, or would you like more links to our FAQ? Before we give you a link to what used to be a talk to a human line, but which has been replaced by another chatbot in a sort of Matryoshka"
- Sohcahtoa82 8mo ago
  And that's fine. If a user forgot their password, they shouldn't be calling support unless the reset password flow is breaking somehow.
  - xigoi 8mo ago
    The point is that in this scenario, the user did not forget their password; they have a different problem.
onetokeoverthe 8mo ago
[dead]
foxglacier 8mo ago
It takes less brainpower to talk to a person. I often just call companies instead of trying to fight through their stupid FAQs and websites and all that crap. No I'm not going to install your stupid app just to do one thing once ever. I don't want to learn anything or remember anything. We're at a stage in technology where there's no excuse for crap software in simple devices. Recently the ventilation fan in my house wasn't measuring temperature correctly so I called the company. Their tech came round, got me to enter my wifi password, updated the firmware, and viola - it started working properly. I'm sure they had a FAQ or manual explaining that but I'm not wasting my mental energy on such rubbish.
- bakje 8mo ago
  This seems like an AI chatbot would work just as well for you then, since it achieves the same end goal of not having to personally wade through FAQs and such. I find LLMs are excellent at finding relevant documentation and giving advice, as long as the issue isn’t overly niche, but humans tend to fail there as well.
  - foxglacier 8mo ago
    Yes, I use AI all the time to work out how to operate complicated things. But not the chatbot provided by the company because that will be so crippled, it's no more used than a FAQ. For the ventilation fan, I wasn't even going to try working it out myself with AI. The company sold be a defective product, then they fixed it, as is their obligation.
boplicity 8mo ago
Password reset emails are a real bane. Because email is unreliable, they often don't work, so I end up with customers contacting me wondering why it's not working for them. One of our software suppliers has particularly bad software for password resets, so there's a steady stream of people needing help for one reason or another. This company seems unable to fix these problems, unfortunately. Ughh.

wtallis 8mo ago

> Half his calls are resolved by just power cycling the modem/router. People shouldn't need a human to tell them to do that. Comcast deserves every penny of customer service expenses they're incurring if their own purpose-built modem/routers are so flaky they're responsible for half the problems people experience with their service. Customers should not be expected to endure shitty products without even seeking help from the service provider that owes them better. By contrast, I've seen Google Fiber proactively issue a partial refund in response to a service outage that was so short I didn't even notice it.

Terr_ 8mo ago
> their own purpose-built modem/routers Which, last I knew, were leased-out with their line-item on the monthly bill. So it's not as if they aren't choosing (and charging-for) the situation. My own modem and router paid for themselves very quickly.

redox99 8mo ago

Power cycling is not a solution. It's a crappy workaround, and you still had downtime because of it. The device should never get stuck in the first place, and the solution for that is fixing whatever bug is in the firmware. If they want to reduce support calls, then have more reliable gear.

chimeracoder 8mo ago
> Power cycling is not a solution. It's a crappy workaround, and you still had downtime because of it. The device should never get stuck in the first place, and the solution for that is fixing whatever bug is in the firmware. I'm sympathetic to the argument that companies should make support calls less necessary by providing better products and services, but "just write bug-free software" is not a solution.
- wtallis 8mo ago
  Giving the device enough RAM to survive memory leaks during heavy usage would also be a valid option, as is automatic rebooting to get the device back into a clean state before the user experiences a persistent loss of connectivity. There are a wealth of available workarounds when you control everything about the device's hardware and software and almost everything about the network environments it'll be operating in. Fixing all the tricky, subtle software bugs is not necessary.
  - esyir 8mo ago
    For a community full of engineers, I'm always surprised that people always take absolutionist views on minor technical decisions, rather than thinking of the tradeoffs made that got there.
    - andrew_lettuce 8mo ago
      The obvious trade off here is engineering effort vs. development cost, and when the tech support solution is "have you tried turning it off, then on again?" We know which path was chosen

pydry 8mo ago

I had a friend who worked for a company that built AI call centres. I naively thought that customers would use it to do "password reset" type workflows and have an escape hatch for customers to talk to a human if the AI couldnt handle what they needed. Surprisingly few of them wanted that. If the AI couldnt handle their issue they mostly wanted customers to just fuck off.

bluefirebrand 8mo ago
> If the AI couldnt handle their issue they mostly wanted customers to just fuck off. Witness the future of business and society

andrew_lettuce 8mo ago

The thing is a YOU don't get to decide this. Maybe the PW reset flow is significantly more complex for some people who don't have an actual human walk them though it; maybe Xfinity routers shouldn't need to be power cycled to fix problems. Maybe corporations should make their products better to avoid do many support calls or price that into the purchase price. At least let's be honest that the entire exercise is an attempt to externalize costs on their customers.

ocdtrekkie 8mo ago
The problem is consumers are the ones who decided this. I used to only buy web hosting from companies with 24/7 US based phone tech support. Today this basically doesn't exist, because cheaper options not offering it ate their lunch.
godelski 8mo ago
I've called for password resets before. Sometimes the email doesn't come in or can take like an hour (fuck "Magic links" and email OTPs...). I've even had support reset it and a day later get the half dozen reset requests I made. Just because something appears simple and obvious doesn't mean it is. There's a lot of ways for those systems to fail. Might be the user's connection or might be the server the user is connecting to and the customer support is sending through a different one. Big lesson I've learned is that if a lot of people are struggling with something that seems obvious then it probably isn't.
- Mikhail_Edoshin 8mo ago
  I just remembered my password reset battle with an online store. Yes, the email or the SMS took too long to arrive and when the code came, it was already expired. And I knew the password, by the way; it was just a "new browser" and they wanted a second authentication. Marvelous.
  - godelski 8mo ago
    I once had a credit card company not let me add my card to my Google wallet because I didn't have the physical card, even though they sent me the virtual one... it had been 3 weeks and for their rewards I needed to spend X amount in 3 months. I had to call to verify my identity. Though I think that friction was on purpose

TZubiri 8mo ago

This mentality is how you get "Hi, thank you for your message, please take a look at our following FAQ guides: - I forgot my password Was this answer useful to you, or would you like more links to our FAQ? Before we give you a link to what used to be a talk to a human line, but which has been replaced by another chatbot in a sort of Matryoshka"

Sohcahtoa82 8mo ago
And that's fine. If a user forgot their password, they shouldn't be calling support unless the reset password flow is breaking somehow.
- xigoi 8mo ago
  The point is that in this scenario, the user did not forget their password; they have a different problem.

onetokeoverthe 8mo ago

[dead]

foxglacier 8mo ago

It takes less brainpower to talk to a person. I often just call companies instead of trying to fight through their stupid FAQs and websites and all that crap. No I'm not going to install your stupid app just to do one thing once ever. I don't want to learn anything or remember anything. We're at a stage in technology where there's no excuse for crap software in simple devices. Recently the ventilation fan in my house wasn't measuring temperature correctly so I called the company. Their tech came round, got me to enter my wifi password, updated the firmware, and viola - it started working properly. I'm sure they had a FAQ or manual explaining that but I'm not wasting my mental energy on such rubbish.

bakje 8mo ago
This seems like an AI chatbot would work just as well for you then, since it achieves the same end goal of not having to personally wade through FAQs and such. I find LLMs are excellent at finding relevant documentation and giving advice, as long as the issue isn’t overly niche, but humans tend to fail there as well.
- foxglacier 8mo ago
  Yes, I use AI all the time to work out how to operate complicated things. But not the chatbot provided by the company because that will be so crippled, it's no more used than a FAQ. For the ventilation fan, I wasn't even going to try working it out myself with AI. The company sold be a defective product, then they fixed it, as is their obligation.

boplicity 8mo ago

Password reset emails are a real bane. Because email is unreliable, they often don't work, so I end up with customers contacting me wondering why it's not working for them. One of our software suppliers has particularly bad software for password resets, so there's a steady stream of people needing help for one reason or another. This company seems unable to fix these problems, unfortunately. Ughh.