Re: Please hold... Please hold... Please hold...

["John O" <johno@#no^spam&heathkit.com>]

>> The problem is all the idiot installers and there companys who will not
>> train them properly calling up and tying up tech support with common
>> questions that they should know the answer for. How many times when i
>> call
>> tech support the person answering the questions is glad to talk to some
> one
>> who has a legitamte programing or other quastion not bullshit how do i
> wire
>> in a door contact.and other stupid stuff
>
> Nick, that is part of the problem, and it compounds another problem.
> Quite
> often tech support people assume you don't know anything and make you go
> through a lot of ancillary bullshit before addressing your real problem.

There's definitely a trick to getting at the ability of the caller. I used
to do phone tech support for Heathkit, and I developed a way to get to their
knowledge level fairly quickly. Sometimes they'll tell you what they know,
but sometimes you have to judge the silence on the other end when you ask a
test question like: 'is that RMS or peak?'  But yeah, smart customers are
either great or major trouble. They either overlooked something easy,
something is busted, or the problem is impossible to solve.

These days, some companies figger idiots with a script will do the job.

-John O