[110143] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: What to do when your ISP off-shores tech support
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Skywing)
Fri Dec 26 23:37:17 2008
From: Skywing <Skywing@valhallalegends.com>
To: Joe Greco <jgreco@ns.sol.net>, Jay Hennigan <jay@west.net>
Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 22:36:52 -0600
In-Reply-To: <200812270417.mBR4HPbn018225@aurora.sol.net>
Cc: "nanog@nanog.org" <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
I find those speech recognition menus quite annoying. American Airlines ha=
s one that's just not good enough over a lower bitrate cell voice link in a=
crowded situation when you're trying to determine what's the deal with can=
celled flights or whatnot along with everyone else in the plane. Always ha=
ve to waste a minute for it to decide that it's going to punt to a real per=
son. It would be nice if there was a way to bypass it.
- S
-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Greco [mailto:jgreco@ns.sol.net]=20
Sent: Friday, December 26, 2008 11:17 PM
To: Jay Hennigan
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: What to do when your ISP off-shores tech support
> Joe Greco wrote:
> > Sure. Blaming off-shore tech support is pretty easy stuff, but the
> > reality is that the trouble is more along the line of appropriate
> > training.
>=20
> But, the reason that US-based $TELCO and $CABLECO use off-shore tech=20
> support is that they don't want to pay for the training and supervision=20
> to do it right in-house.=20
Jay, that's an interesting misstatement. It implies that they're going to
be paying a lesser rate to do it right somewhere else, which typically does
not seem to be what happens.
> The same person diagnosing your IP routing=20
> issues may indeed be asking, "Would you like fries with that?" thirty=20
> seconds later. [1]=20
Does Bronco actually do that? :-)
> And, for purposes of, "Would you like fries with=20
> that?", off-shore is good enough that most customers can't tell, nor do=20
> they care. It may often be better than a newbie local ten feet from=20
> you. It's the ultimate scripted application, a literal menu. People=20
> expect half-duplex-low-fi audio when talking to a tin speaker buried=20
> inside of a plastic clown. ;-)
Right.
> > Some discussion suggested that the RR people were highly script-oriente=
d
> > and not necessarily capable of complicated problem solving.=20
>=20
> And they are afraid to admit (or don't realize) that they are not=20
> capable of complicated problem solving. They're following a script,=20
> just like the fast food order-takers.=20
Don't-realize. The number of times I've been talked down to by people who
don't have any clue what the "4" in "IPv4" means is depressingly high. I
do not need to reboot my Windows PC to know that the DHCP answer my UNIX
box is getting from the DHCP server, dumped in gory detail, is providing an=
=20
IP address in a prefix that's not appearing in the global routing table now=
.
> Or maybe they don't have the=20
> authority to escalate it to someone with clue, even if/when they do=20
> realize they're over their heads.
That's definitely a problem.
> > It appears
> > that the TWC Business tier 1 people actually have a fair amount of
> > technical training and clue, and resources to tap if that's not good
> > enough. Further, he was bright enough to let me know that they had a
> > "better than turbo" package available with a higher upstream speed, for
> > only a little more, that'd make me a business customer, so I'd never ha=
ve
> > to deal with Road Runner again. Based on this one experience, we were
> > more than happy to sign an annual contract and pay just $10/mo more, an=
d
> > have direct access to people who know what words like "DHCP" and "route=
"
> > actually mean.
> >=20
> > I did ask, and all the local people are, in fact, local. It's a matter=
=20
> > of training and technical knowledge. None of them was really putting=20
> > together the fact that the modem was sketchy for the service class we
> > had.
>=20
> So, regardless of geographic location, using scripted clueless=20
> order-takers without the ability to escalate for customer support is a=20
> bad thing. And, scripted clueless order-takers exist solely because=20
> they're cheap, not because they provide anything remotely resembling=20
> good service. Cheap, from a US-centric perspective, generally means=20
> offshore.
>=20
> The interesting thing about your experience is that your service=20
> problems resulted in an up-sell, but only because you were persistent=20
> enough to fight through the system.=20
Plausible interpretation, but not really accurate. An upsell would
normally be convincing someone to buy something that they would not
otherwise have thought to be useful; is it really an "upsell" when
you fail to advertise your new service offerings on your web site,=20
and so leave your potential business customers with the impression=20
that the only offerings you have are the same in-excess-of-T1 prices
that you offered last time they talked to you?
Come to think of it, I just looked and I still can't find any solid
information about the plan we've got. I *think* it's some variation
on the "teleworker" package. There's a "home business solution" pkg
for $100/mo that includes 15M/2M broadband, but we're paying less
than that...
> Furthermore, it took a person with=20
> clue to do the up-sell. How many customers and up-sell opportunities=20
> does RR lose because of their decision to go with cheap, scripted,=20
> clueless off-shore support?
... or in this case, cheap, scripted, clueless in-house support ...
The thing that is really unfortunate is that I had told the agent at the
time we went to Turbo that I was primarily interested in upstream speed.
> > My point is that you not only need the language skills and a good phone
> > connection, but also a reasonable process to deal with knowledgeable=20
> > people. I understand the need to provide scripted support, but there=20
> > should also be a reasonable path to determine that someone has an=20
> > exceptional problem and isn't being well-served by the script.
>=20
> Precisely. Or for better service have reasonably clueful people at=20
> level 1 so that they can quickly and expeditiously deal with the easy=20
> problems that could be scripted.
>=20
> The scripted part could (and often is) being done with IVR, no humans at=
=20
> all. But, please, if you do this, use DTMF menus and not that God-awful=
=20
> worthless "Tell-me" speech-guessing machine. And make sure that every=20
> menu has a "0-to-human-being" option.
I don't know, I've seen some relatively impressive "speech-guessing
machines." It is clear that the technology still needs some work, but
Amtrak's "Julie" is fairly impressive and useful.
... JG
--=20
Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net
"We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then=
I
won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(=
CNN)
With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apple=
s.
