Technical Support Horror Story of the Day

It's been a while since I made one of these postings. When there is work to be done at my job it could be one of a myriad of tasks: training, sales, installations, testing, and technical support. Of everything I do the most frustrating in general is probably technical support for one of our software systems.

I spent a lot of time with a client the last few days and a supposed "data" issue. I forgot the first rule of technical support. Without going into too much detail I was helping this poor woman track down some data loss in a medical software program. About half the time we would get in to the call she would have to bail on me as they would start seeing patients. This lady was absolutely convinced that patients were randomly dropping out of the system. While this isn't usually a known problem I humored her and worked the problem to the best of my ability. We verified that she was indeed searching for the correct patients. We ran a utility routine on the program in order to clean up any corrupted data (this took forever). We also hunted through an audit trail to make sure no users had deleted the data. No luck. Finally on the third day working this call she had enough time for me to log into her system and look around. I found one of the missing patients on the first search. The dear, sweet lady who assured me our system was going crazy and deleting data without cause didn't know how to spell the name she was looking up! In her defense it was a difficult name, Smith. I hate people.

Oh, the first rule of technical support: the customer is always lying...

Mr. David

There is an office in Georgia that I provide technical support for which seems to be a predominately Hispanic office. I spoke with the receptionist today who placed me on hold while she tried to connect me with my contact, the office manager. When she came back on the line she said the following: "Mr. David? Can you hold for a moment, please?" I immediately thought of the clip from Framily Guy below.

Technical Support Horror Story of the Day

Everything bad comes in threes. Much like celebrity deaths, the same happens when working technical support. I'm not exactly sure what the hell is going on at work this week and why I'm even involved! I guess computer systems across the country had too much turkey to eat over the long weekend.

1. So your server dies over the weekend and somehow it's my responsibility to "fix" your system? Medical software is what you pay us to support, not your crappy Snap Server. Basically I spent most of the day Monday walking a medical office receptionist, over the phone, through getting her network up and running. Good times.

2. Another office upgrades their system with all new computers. On this occasion I'm dealing with their hardware tech. Should be a breeze. Everything I've told him to do has been done but they are unable to open our software program through the network. Permission issues I say. Couldn't be he says. He has done everything I've told him to do and like Santa Claus he's checked his list twice. So I bang my head against the wall for most of yesterday afternoon and I'm stumped. This morning I call the client and log into their server and look over their set up. The permissions on the shared directory for our software was not set up correctly after I had been assured yesterday they had checked and rechecked it. I forgot the number one rule of technical support: the customer lies. In this case I was too naive to believe a hardware professional was telling me the truth.

3. Today I'm expected to be Medicare. I have no clue why you can't download your electronic EOB's (explanation of benefits). Again, I do not work for Medicare and the information you're wanting is completely independent of the software I support! I guess it's easier for me to queue for three days waiting for a return call from the government Payor.

I hate people. Maybe I'm in the wrong profession. Actually I'm really good at what I do, I'm patient and pleasant and I never make anyone feel like they're asking a stupid question. I should've been an actor!

Technical Support Horror Story of the Day

What not to do when speaking to a technical support representative:

1. I really don't need to know about the events of the last 48 hours that lead up to your problem. Just get on with the issue at hand!

2. If you're not going to believe the advise I'm giving you then why waste my time and yours by calling in for support in the first place?

3. Sometimes I don't know why computers or programs do what they do (user error). Is the problem fixed? Great, then why do we have to discuss the how's and why's for 30 minutes? We'll cross (burn) that bridge when and if the problem becomes chronic.

4. No, I'm sorry but I cannot support Word Perfect for DOS. The program is 8,000 years old, not to mention we are a medical software company!

5. For the love of god, a right mouse click is one click on the RIGHT side of the mouse! Don't tell me nothing is happening when you're clearly clicking the left mouse button.

Technical Support Horror Story of the Day

For those of you who don't know I'm working a new job now, of sorts. I worked for a medical software company from 2000 to 2005, after which I toiled in the restaurant industry until April of this year. I'm half way through my second week back with the medical software company. They found out that I was looking for a job and asked me to come back. Luckily I've found that I remember more than I forgot so I've been able to hit the ground running for the most part but there are two important lessons I had totally forgotten about until today...

1. The first rule of tech support is this: the client is always lying. That's not to say they're doing it on purpose. It just seems you never get the correct or full information needed. Being told a claim form is printing misaligned is not the same as the claim form not marking the correct boxes!

2. The second rule of tech support is this: do nothing to a client's system unless you can get them back to the point they were at before they asked for your help. Changing something in someone's system without making a backup is not fun when you have to clean up the mess you created!

I experienced both today. Number 1 is always true and number 2 should be easy to follow. Luckily I was able to worm myself out of the problem I created. The details aren't important but always remember the rules must be obeyed!

Technical Support Horror Story of the Day

All I can say is wow! I was helping one of our clients with a log in issue through remote desktop. So, no problem we solve the issue (user error) and of course there are other issues that need to be addressed while they have me on the phone. I'm told that we did something to her screen because there is a box frozen on her desktop that has been there for days and it has our company information on it. Hmmmm. After a better description of the problem I finally realize that the client is talking about our web page! Oh my god really? Surely no one can be this stupid! I ask her to left mouse click on the red "x" at the top right corner of the screen. Naturally this closes the Internet Explorer page that was open on her computer. Just when I think I've seen it all some fool comes along and surprises me!