These, for the most part, are not "tips". These are sarcastic and mean comments from a call center worker. "We know there's an outage, we don't need 700 people to call"? How exactly is the average person sitting at home with no internet supposed to know that there is an outage and that the ISP already knows about it WITHOUT calling and reporting it? I thought that a customer telling an ISP that there is a problem, when it started, and exactly what the symptoms are would HELP the ISP diagnose the issue. Silly me.

Things like "Yeah, I know you've been on hold a long time, we have alot of calls, so deal", isn't helpful. It's rude. Much like "I can fix your problem, I just can't fix you". Yes, the customer is always the problem.

Thanks for the post, Consumerist, but frankly I don;t read this site to get slapped around by an ISP phone rep having a bad day.

#3, #7, & #8 are kinda shady. I'm calling about the outage because I'm paying $50 a month for internet and it's not working. I'd like to know when it's going to be working again so I'm not paying for a piece of coax and a plastic box.

You've been on the phone for hours because its your job. I'm on the phone for hours because my service (again $50 a month), is not working.

We might call about the slow Chevy because network problems can be hard to diagnose and confirmation that the cable coming is working can help sometimes. No I don't expect you to fix my network problem, but I do expect you to help me confirm the internet is still working.

The rest of them are pretty good general tips for dealing with customer service.

I'd hate to say it, but A+ and Network+ are about as complicated as a greeting card.

Heh, I spent three and a half years working at my college Helpdesk, and while I agree with most of what this dude said, the attitude in which it was written is all wrong. Being a bigger jerk than your customer isn't the friggin solution. Nor is treating them like they're stupid.

That one is kinda bad. I agree. The customer has no way of knowing if it's a widespread outage or not. However, if it is an outage, there is no information you can give them that will help in resolution. Seriously.

The rest is good advice, and in fact is good advice when dealing with any technical support.

4. I can fix your problem, I just can't fix you.

I like this one only for the title. I went to a great workshop on communication called, "I'm not crazy, I'm just not you."

6. But I'm a PHD, MBA and a CPA!!!

This one kind of cracked me up. Why is it that people with advanced degrees (yes, I have one) suddenly think they know everything in every field?

I have heard this in my own work and just shake my head.

What is up with these call center worker vents today? How about real tips instead of complaining about their jobs?

Yeah, this basically boiled down to "I hate my job and it's your fault, stop being so stupid, you have no right to ask for support for something you paid for."

#3 is often critical from what I have seen as for the end user there if generally doubt if the problem is their's alone or a network problem. A phone bank message about the network being down can save a fair bit or resources.

My cable service (TV and Internet) from Time Warner went down (surprise!) at 2 p.m. on Monday. Calling in around 5 p.m., I was told it would be up shortly. When I called at 8 p.m., I was told it would be up within four hours. I chose the option to get a phone call when service was restored and read a book. The next morning at 9 a.m. I got a call saying service was restored. Hmm. Still no TV or Internet. So I called the lovely folks at Time Warner.

Here's how that call went:

After verifying my social security number so that no state secrets would be revealed to someone not me, the tech support person insisted the outage had only been since 7 a.m. that morning. Oh, well, whatever. So how come I got a call at 9 and there's still no service. Put on hold.

Said tech person comes back with this:

-- Unplug your modem and plug it back in (OK, I've already done that, but whatever)

-- Do you have more than one computer? (yes) Can you check the other modem? (they're connected by a router) OH! Then please plug the modem directly into the computer. (I can't) Why not? (The modem is nowhere near the computer) Well then I'll have to schedule an appointment for a service call.

-- I point out that the lights on the modem are not on, and the TV cable box is not working either, so it's not the router. "Sir, all I can do is schedule a service call if you won't plug the mdoem into the computer." "Look, I told you the router lights are not on. It's not the router. I won't wait a week for a service call." She says something something. I say again, firmly "IT'S NOT THE ROUTER. THE MODEM LIGHTS ARE NOT ON." She says, "Sir, do not yell at me, I'm trying to help. Put on hold.

-- Tech support person comes back and says: "Can you please reboot your computer?"

Oh yeah, that should get the TV working and get the data flowing through the modem!

This is the kind of technical support they give, with claims they are "helping" to fix your cable TV service by rebooting your computer. It's just beyond belief.

Oops, in above post router lights not on: i meant MODEM lights of course.... I'm not THAT dumb!

Exactly-- I don't call the ISP to tell there's an outage. I call to find out if there is an outage or whether something is wrong with my computer or my router.

I swear that is my cat. Where has he been!?

If your modem lights aren't on you forgot to plug it back in like the nice lady asked you to. :p

What would be really helpful is to put up a voice mail message for incoming calls saying "We are currently experiencing an outage in the Yourtown, MD area. If you have another problem or do not live in this area, please remain on the line."

It seems like it would be a win-win, freeing up the CSRs to deal with other issues and cutting down long wait times just to find out there's an outage.

"Why thanks for calling, there is an outage in your area. Yes there is an outage, you don't think the cable company put hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment in your neighboorhood and then not monitor them? We can usually tell where there is a failure before the first call comes in. We really don't need 700 people to call."

Funny thing... my service provider doesn't consider there to be an "outage" and won't have a technician investigate until at least 10 people in a particular service area have called to complain. Actually it's worse than that, a call only counts if the customer books an appointment for a someone to come to their house (usually in about 3 days). (A friendlier than usual phone support person explained all this to me a while back)

Since the company doesn't advertise how their system works most people think they've done their part just by reporting the problem, decline the offer of an appointment, and sit back patiently to wait.

Now when my internet goes out I check with my neighbours and if theirs is out too we all phone and request a home visit (which never materializes because the company gets up off their butt, looks to see if just maybe there really IS a problem, and fixes it).

I had problems with severe packet loss on Comcast a few weeks ago. The problem was clearly on Comcast's network and it was clearly not related to line quality (modem interface showed excellent signal strength and SNR).

Since the packet loss was so bad that the connection was essentially unusable, I called Comcast. The CSR insisted that the problem was clearly on my end in the wiring in our apartment. He said they wouldn't do anything about it until a week later when they could dispatch a tech out. When I asked about the possibility of a wider outage he claimed "we don't even investigate network outages unless lots of people call them in" and was otherwise rude.

Well, something funny happened.. less than 24 hours later Comcast called me to say they'd fixed the problem, and indeed they had. I guess it was a network outage after all. To put the icing on the cake, the Comcast tech showed up at the scheduled time a week later even though everything had been working.

So definitely DO NOT obey tip #3, because ISPs will insist that "nobody else has reported the issue" and refuse to investigate problems unless people call in to report it. I understand it can take a long time to troubleshoot difficult area wide problems. But make sure the CSRs are informed about where problems are so they can be honest with customers! Speakeasy always used to be very good about informing customers with real information.. Unfortunately they are not available everywhere.

Regarding the classic CSR bitch about "I spend all day on the phone": You get paid to spend all day on the phone. That is your job. I'm calling because the service which I pay a relatively large amount of money for is not working properly, and there is a good chance it is your fault. Comcast originally insisted to me I had to be home all day on a weekday. Although they fixed the problem before this point, I would have had to sit at home all day, unable to work from home due to no connectivity, losing far more than what I pay a month for Comcast. I'm glad CSRs spend "all day on the phone" since that is their *job*.

How is this post about consumers biting back, exactly? No. 3 is perhaps the most asinine paragraph in the history of the English language.

How do you suppose your customers know that you know there's an outage, nitwit? Should we go from door to door in our neighborhoods and ask everyone in a three block radius whether anyone has reported it already?

This one: "7. But I've been on the phone for hours. And so have I. It's a call center, we take calls." is the first runner up for Most Asinine Paragraph. You even set yourself up for it, although it should read: "It's a call center. We take calls." Right. You are in the call center. You take calls. That is what you are paid to do. The difference is that your customers aren't being paid to call you. Conversely, you are being paid to take their calls. Is there some part of this transaction that is beyond your skills as an MSCE?

Good lord, what's with all the butthurt in the comments lately? You're getting the insider perspective that this site is famous for providing to consumers. Is it really that awful for you to know that the rep you're talking to is thinking "die a painful death" when s/he says "Thanks for calling Time Warner Cable"?

@tmweber & Haplo9000

I used to work for a small ISP in Atlanta, I have dealt with these issues.

#3 yes, i understand your paying for a service and its not working, the problem is that fact is the first thing you hear when you call in, and you still want to hold on the line, ask why you internet isn't working and want to complain about it for 30 minutes, while a call queue is building up of other people who want to complain for 30 minutes and somewhere in there is 1 or 2 people with some other problem I could actually help them with and they get frustrated and hang up.

and an aside: if there is any information you could provide on the issue that would help, it wont be affecting anyone other than you, typically this is a blown fiber card, or downed router, and believe me, unless they are incompetent (possible but unlikely) they know the second it goes down and are working their ass off till it comes back up

#7 I agree, this is something call center personnel just have to deal with, don't know why the customer would need to know it, other than its not productive to complain to tier1-3 tech support about, you need to complain to the call center manager if its chronic.

#8 yes and no, small guys usually only pier with one person, so they cant do anything about it other than complain upwards, and again, tier 3 will pass it to a network engineer (or in my case I would hand it to dan). Bigger companies could do something about it but are less likely, cuz they are bigger.

3. I really have no idea what the cable company is doing with their equipment. Not maintaining it, apparently. If it bothers you so much to have customers calling to ask about outages, stop having so many outages. And unless you are aggressively prequalifying your customers to ensure that they can tell the difference between an outage on your end and a problem on their end, it's perfectly legitimate for customers to call to ask or confirm that it is an outage on your end. Perhaps it would be a good idea for your employer to have some kind of notification system at the front end of your phone system, describing the outage and possibly giving general idea of when it will be back up. My ISP, phone company, and utility company all do this. Why don't you?

6. Learn to adjust your approach to the specific customer. It's really not that much to ask. I am very likely calling you because the problem is not here. It's with you. I already know this. I did do the basic troubleshooting before I called you. I either have a very specific question, or I have isolated the problem and found it is with you.

All the same, before I called you, I got on a Windows machine, and prepared myself to repeat pretty much all the troubleshooting steps I've been through already. I understand this is necessary. All I ask is that, as you are providing me with some bizarre, roundabout method to access the command line, you listen to what I've already said. Namely, "I am at a command line." And when I interrupt you in the middle of your spelling out 'n-e-t-s-t-a-t' to ask if you want me to do netstat, please stop spelling. Even if I hadn't been familiar with it before, this is the THIRD time you've spelled it for me. I have had your output since you said 'e.'

7. Oh. Sucks to be you. Maybe you should get some other kind of job. I, to contrast, am not getting paid for this. I do have some other kind of job.

8. Your customers pay a premium to you to manage and deliver services. That means all of the services you deliver, including those through third parties. If your third party is not currently delivering the quality of service you promised, it is your problem. You may not be able to fix it directly, but you've got a much better chance than I do. Also, take a gander at your company's marketing material, please. I can pretty much guarantee you that they offer prospective customers some kind of simple, one-stop solution for internet access. That's what you're getting paid for. Deliver it.

10. SPLUH? You just told us not to call you about outages. What sort of problems should we report? What should we report promptly? And while we're at it, please define 'prompt,' in light of #7 on your list. If your customers are waiting for hours to get through to you, don't complain if they get out of the queue and call you back at a better time.

Yet again, another set of lame comments from a sad deadbeat cs rep that Consumerist wants to call tips from an 'insider.' I'm not even going to go into detail on the quality of the 'valuable information' in each tip.

But here's some nitpicking on grammar, since it reflects on this person's level of 'professionalism':
#2 missing period
#3 misuse of comma
#5 unnecessary comma
#6 use of ain't, misuse of comma
#7 should have used semicolon instead of comma
#8 unnecessary comma
#9 misspelled frustrated
#10 misspelled matter

Consumerist, stop posting this crap. Thank you.

#3 is a lie. I've called in and they've put me through phone trees for HOURS that want me to try to bounce my modem and hub. If I do get through to an operator, they deny outage, because I'm usually one of the first to call and they honestly DON'T KNOW YET.

@SOhp101: THANK YOU! The grammar and spelling were driving me nuts.

Am I the only one that doesn't believe the "F" in RTFTOS stands for "free"?

Crap, hit submit by mistake

...privileged enough to talk to you. To #3, I've called over and over and they always say "gee, there doesn't seem to be a problem in your area, I don't know why you have a problem".

Overall, this is useless as "tips" since it's about the same level of "help" I get by going down to Best Buy and talking to a salesman.

"If you depend on our internet service to manage your business, trade stocks, or connect to your company, then you really need business class service. The residential class service agreement says, "For Entertainment purposes only""

This is ridiculous. I've been handed that "for entertainment purposes only" when told I'd have to go a week without an Internet connection. So here's my question: is business service provided through a totally separate network? No. Basically you want to charge me three times the monthly fee so that when you screw up it will be fixed more quickly? So what does that mean, instead of waiting seven days, I'd only have to wait three? Now that's value!!!

crap again...it posted the first part, but now it's not there...odd. Forget it, I'm not retyping it all, sorry for the 1/2 post up there.

Basically, this is just a jaded CSR that seems to suck at his job since he just doesn't actually care about the customer or helping them. He just hates to be inconvenienced by you making him work.

I strongly, STRONGLY disagree with #3.

There was an intermittant outage on Comcast in Berkeley a few years back, I and several other CS PhD students were affected. I had identified the router(s) in question, and it was IMPOSSIBLE to get tech support to even acknowledge there was a problem, let alone fix it for a week.

That was not helpful or constructive. You are not going to get much sympathy here, buddy. Instead of the promised tips for getting an outage fixed, you offer complaints because people call you when your crummy product doesn't work, and then point to the TOS showing that it doesn't have to work because, while we are paying for internet, we have to actually pay MORE for it to WORK. Nice, dude.

And here's 10 tips from a Consumer Insider

to help you deal with CUSTOMERS, which sometimes happens in CUSTOMER SERVICE JOBS. And sometimes, surprisingly, the customers have varying levels of knowledge about the product you provide, and they, like, call you and stuff!

1) I can be a respectful customer, but I can't fix your job. I'm sorry that people call in because they have a problem with the service that you provide and need it fixed. I'm sorry that it is your job to talk to them; clearly you don't like your job.

2) If you want to pay me $10 an hour too I'll be less upset you left me waiting on the phone all day. You get paid to make your 30 calls in 8 hours. And your internet isn't broken too, so that's another plus.

3) I'm sorry that sometimes you aren't always the true cause of the problem, but I don't have those prestigious degrees, so I can't hack into the router through the command prompt. Thus, I call you to do that, and I'm sorry you have to whine about it. Calling you and finding out you aren't the problem is not like calling Ford for a broken Chevy. It's like calling Chevy for a broken Chevy and having you saying it's the road's fault.

As someone who had a nightmare of a Customer Service event with a certain com- Err.. ISP company. Including 80 hours over 4months and 3 truck trips, patience is a virtue. They may screw you over by saying they escalated the problem and they promise to call you back and never do, but these are hard working users just like you. Be patient long enough and they will solve the problem.

and when all is said and done, if you have a legitimate claim on your service for not working, ask for a discount. Even if it is just an extension of your trial rate.

"It's like calling Chevy for a broken Chevy and having you saying it's the road's fault."

Brett, you reminded me of several years back when I turned in a Mazda Miata at the end of a lease. They wanted to charge me $1500 to replace the top because the plastic back window had "sun damage" and that was somehow my fault. My response: they never told me their product could not be used outdoors.

They still tried to charge me for it.

Not like it's been said 8 million times already :) but I get enough 'tude from reps when I call in without having to read it here.

For #2, I work at home, and was denied access to Roadrunner Business Class; they simply do not recognize that some people work out of their homes full time. All I could get was the beefed up RR.

And the info for outages, I believe, is incorrect. When I worked at TWC, an outage wasn't declared until the 3rd person on that node called in; up until that point, it was just another service call. Being declared an outage meant that techs were routed there from other tasks ASAP rather than just showing up next Tuesday. So, in those cases, the first few calls were EXTREMELY important.

For #1: It has reason to it, but I have put a 486 machine on broadband. Sure the old thing was slow, but it loaded the pages as fast the pc can bring it up. Ideally a faster pc is a good idea, I was ofcourse messing around at the time :)

#3 is silly in itself. I had an issue before when I called in and my internet connection was not working. Apparently there was a problem with one of the other modems on the network that was knocking mine offline (probably others too) Since this is cable, that can happen, but not too common. Now, they didn't know about the problem till I called in. I was just lucky that they investigated the problem and found the issue instead of giving me bs to deal with instead.

So simply, to say they know everything that goes on all the time, it is a sold lie. They will only know of major failures or when they get phone calls saying of such.

In then end, this is just more whining from another customer service rep who hates dealing with people and would rather play games all day. Also to point out, those certifications are easy to get, try getting yourself an actual degree, those take time and hard work.

I've actually worked for 2 seperate cable companies doing tech support. The first company had a customer base about 10 times larger than the current company I'm with, and subsequently the customers hated it about 10 times as much! I remember how strange it felt when I took my first call for the smaller company, and the customer on te other line actually had CONFIDENCE in the fact that I could resolve her issue. But I digress...

This guy is PROBABLY either a) not supplied by his company with quality tools to diagnose issues, or b) a bad tech...

Our NOC can submit tickets to Level 3. I'm sure their's can too. If he doesn't know how to request this, he probably has a higher tier above his that does. And as far as outages go, if there IS one, the company would have a recording notifying the customer of this before he reached a rep (granted, some people want to 'make sure' and stay on the line, but whatever). THIS guy probably doesn't verify what node people are on, or check his e-mails, or know where to REALLY look to see if someone is being affected by an outage. I know at the bigger company I worked for, they had scrolling outage boards on TV's thoughout the call center, and they were RIDICULOUSLY vague. However, if you payed attention to information READILY available on the company intranet, you can see exactly how to verify if a cust is really in an outage or just needs to powercycle thier router.

And one other thing... Probably 7 out of 10 calls regarding connectivity can be fixed by powercycling the router. The larger company I worked for wanted us to have customers BYPASS the router, but that's rarely necessary. A lot of times customers will powercycle the modem and the router simultaneously, and this will not work because the modem may not synch with the router if you do it this way. DON'T TOUCH YOUR MODEM. Powercycle the router only, give it 20 seconds, and try to pull up a page. If it doesn't work at this point, and your modem lights look like they always do, then call us. It could be about 100 things wrong with your computer (169, proxy settings, FIREWALL, dns, specified IP, bad NIC, bad cable, cable not plugged in all the way, modem in standby, connected to a neighbor's wireless, virus, etc etc). Please just put up with all the (seemingly) asinine questions. (Most of us) know the absolute fastest way to find out what your issue is and how to fix it. Everyone here I'm sure is savvy enough to correct issues with thier PC's, but like the man says, we literally do this 50 times a day. You wouldn't argue with an air conditioning repair-man that was trying to fix your AC, would you? Anyway, I hope this helps shed some light on the issue, and I can honestly see where the submitter is coming from please, but if he hates his job so much, he needs to find a better company to work for (thank GOD I did)... Oh, and one last thing, just to humor me, please powercycle your router ;)

Consumerist is going downhill fast. I agree with the many other who pointed out that these are not tips - these are the rantings of a jerk who seems to hate his job.

And this is helpful how? Ten bitter rantings from a disgruntled employee do not useful information make.

Yes, working in customer service sucks. Thank for telling us.

@cde:

I'd hate to say it, but A+ and Network+ are about as complicated as a greeting card.

--

Not only that, this loser has a MCSE and all he can do is answer get a phone tech support job?

Hey "tipster", there is a reason why you are in a horrible job. Figure it out, pinhead.

I had a case where I couldn't reach any 69.*.*.* addresses on the net. I called a few other people I know with comcast and asked them to try and they had a problem too. I tracerouted it and the packets went in a loop inside comcast. Comcast uses some addresses in 69.* as well. OK, so they have a misconfigured router inside the network operations center that handles this area.

Now I don't expect the front line tech to understand any of this, but I can't get them to escalate my call either. I'm sure it sucks having a customer say "Look, I'm a network engineer in my job..." so I patiently try to convince them that I don't need a service call, that many people in the area are having the problem, that it needs to get escalated to their network ops people.

Finally I could take no more and told the person my theory about their router and they came back and told me comcast has no routers, a router is something that resides in a customer's home only.

I explained it wasn't just me, and they said they are not showing any outages anywhere.

I tried to give a list of sites that I couldn't reach, they all have IPs starting with 69.* and was told "those sites must be down right now." I tried to explain I could vpn into work and reach them just fine got me a lecture about how VPN is not supported. Sigh...

So I, as well as a number of other people I know in the area, had to schedule someone to come out to fix it. Er, "trucks had to roll."

I had a tech come out and he told me I had to replace my cable modem (I owned it) because all his tests were fine.

Finally after about two weeks a tech at a friend's house finally figured out what was going on and escalated it to their network ops and it got fixed.

So....... Mr. CSR if you want to save your company money and help your customers, recognize when someone might actually know more than you do and escalate the call. I don't expect comcast to hire technical experts on the front line but damn, they should at least understand when a call needs to get escalated appropriately. The refusal to escalate it caused many trucks to roll for no reason. Thanks for wasting my time and your employer's money

I must say I have been surprised at the sudden outbreak of elitist class pompous sense of entitlement that has been spewed in recent comments here on consumerist. I'm not defending the obviously jaded lists of "tips" posted by CSR's, but many of the retaliatory comments posted afterwards are perfect examples of why the field of customer service has so many unhappy employees and such a high turnover rate. The common thread that can clearly be seen from these recent tips is the golden rule. Treat the service rep who is trying to help you just like you would like to be treated. You may very well be more qualified to diagnose the problem than the rep you are talking to, but the rep doesn't know that. In fact from experience the rep you are dealing with knows that most people think they know much more than they do. If you are one of those highly educated experts with certifications in a field relating to the problem you are calling about, you are the exception, and you are still human. Yes, you are still capable of overlooking something with all your training and education, and since the rep you are talking with does not know you personally just humor them and actually follow their troubleshooting tips. Waiting 1 minute for your modem to reboot makes more sense than getting mad and arguing with a rep for 5 minutes. I can't tell you how many times I've had someone tell me they had already tried the steps I've gone through with them over the phone, only to find out there was some small detail they overlooked that was critical to resolving their issue. Most call centers are monitored on the regular stuff like AHT, hold time, and escalation calls. Most call centers also have rules the reps must follow, usually including no long periods of silence, and never interrupt the customer. You'd be amazed how much easier your problem can be solved if you don't interrupt the rep as well. Don't assume (you know what they say that makes out of you and me) just follow a clear concise path; give the rep all of the information you have on your issue, and let the rep do their job. Yes, I am paid to take calls and help you out. Realize I am not paid to take a barrage of insults from you. Chances are if you treat me well I will do everything the company I work for allows me to do. That last sentence is important; I work for a company not for you. Unless your name is on my paycheck it doesn't matter what you want me to do, only what the company tells me I can do. This isn't my way of saying I don't appreciate your business, I do understand without you I wouldn't have a job. This is my way of saying if a rep cannot do what you need, then recognize the rep has done everything they can do and take up a complaint with the company to have the policy changed.

When I answer your call thanking you for calling I do mean it. If you never called I wouldn't have a job, just don't mistake my appreciation for inferiority. I care about your business, not you. That's not to say I dislike you, but I have many different things to do before you even finish verifying your information. You don't really want me to care about your dog barking in the background, you want me to open your account in the 10 different applications necessary to complete your request, read the comments on your file, review your billing for any issues, and check your account settings before you say your zip code. If you really think a CSR should have some odd sense of caring about you, then you are expecting some sort of validation you are missing in your personal relationships. I care about keeping your business and fixing your problem, but remember I care about YOU as much as you care about ME. We don't have to be best friends after a 10 minute phone call, but I do want to fix your problem. You might make more money than me; I may make more money than you. You might have a PHD while I only have a bachelors degree, or you might not have finished high school. Either way you are no more or less important in the grand scheme of things than I am. I don't agree with many of the sentiments of the recent lists of CSR insider tips, but I can relate to their frustration.

#6 is BS. I'm working towards my CCNA (yes, I know it's the easiest of the Cisco certs, but I'm still in college) and am more than capable of troubleshooting any problem with my computer or home network. And believe me, before I waste my time on the phone with the incompetent fucks at Charter, I do as much troubleshooting as I can and if I find that the problem is not on my end (you don't even need a Cisco cert to figure that out, you just need to call your neighbor who has the same ISP and see if they have access), I call. I don't want to waste my time as some script monkey has me reboot everything.

If I'm calling, the problem is not on my end and you need to get some technicians on it ASAP and get the service that I pay for fixed. Don't go through the script with me. Rebooting my computer won't fix anything when the modem's not getting channel lock.

I realize some people are idiots and call in and the problem ends up being that they unplugged their ethernet cable, but not all of your callers are idiots. If the caller knows what they're talking about, skip the damn script. You're just wasting both of our time. And it's real easy to determine who's smart and who's not. When someone calls in and says "My cable internet connection isn't working. My router isn't getting an IP and I checked the modem and it's not locked onto a downstream channel" or something like that, you know they know what they're talking about and skip the damn script. When they call and say "My internet isn't working, when I double click the blue E the web doesn't load" then go to the script.

Don't act like a condescending ass, not all of your callers are stupid. Some could engineer and run the entire network that you offer "support" for.

@tmweber: Sure, but you've got to realise that the company is usually not going to be able to provide you with an ETA at least until they have a man on-site who has then diagnosed the problem. So asking for an ETA is not particularly helpful or understanding. Most customers I have in outage situations just want to make sure we know about it. After a while we will put a message on the IVR stating the outage is known; the ones that kill me are the ones that stay on the line after they hear that to ask for an ETA, or if their bill will be credited, or to tell me that they need the internet back ASAP because they're missing an eBay auction, &c.

This is the lamest "tips" I have ever seen. This is the whining of some entry level person in tech support. Sucks to be you pal, I been there, and done that myself, knowing I was paying my dues. i didn't whine about it, i fixed problems. Period.

You think we really give a shit about your problems? I am paying for 10mb down/1mb up, and i freaking well expect it to be within 5% of those specs. Otherwise, i will go elsewhere.

As the VP of Information Technology for a retail company, if I ever hear my techs talking like this, they will be looking for a job at your place of business, damn sure not mine.

Okay, first I don't know if this entire post was just satire from some random person... but if not, I would like to address some (read:all) of his posts...

I know some shit has already been said before.. but I find it nice if I can say all my shit at once.

1. We have minimum specs for a reason
You have minimum specs for a reason, but why the hell does a CSR like to use the "Oh, your computer is just running slow..." Yeah, the old core 2 duo is getting on in age, that fresh install clogged up the computer with the old 5 gigs of XP... That could be the problem. Cable can run on anything in the past 6 years easily, its not excuse for shoddy net service or using cheap shit modems and then blaming the customer.

2. RTFTOS (Read the Free Terms of Service)!!!
Business class rarely has anything special over residential class, the differences are so minute that almost any small business can get by on residential. Its another excuse of "we fucked up, but your to blame" shit.

3. Why thanks for calling, there is an outage in your area.
So then why he hell do we always get the "Oh, it could be you... power cycle your modem" retard CSRs? Its also nice that if an outage happens, CSRs get annoyed when you call in to inquire about the problem, and you should just sit in the dark and twiddle your thumbs...

4. I can fix your problem, I just can't fix you.
I have been trained in troubleshooting products we support. However if you called us because your printer quit working after your internet was installed, you are barking up the wrong tree.

With the absolute rejects cable companies hire to do contract work, I would not be surprised if a printer or something died after an install of cable. There has been MANY examples on this site alone (guy had his HP media center die thanks to a moron).

6. But I'm a PHD, MBA and a CPA!!!
Umm, I was given two of those qualifications you have after my first year of college. I have seen six year old "leet speaking morons" who can troubleshoot better than the idiots they hire for CSR. If I tell you the modem is running in diagnostic mode, or has smoke come out of it... and you tell me to powercycle the fucker one more time....

7. But I've been on the phone for hours.
Pay me $7 bucks an hour (or whatever your off-the-street services are worth) and I will gladly sit there and drone out, make shit up and just be completely dense too...

8. Don't call Ford to Complain about a slow Chevy.
This one makes me laugh. So many times I have called my two ISPs with and start out by saying "Just did a tracert and it shows after like two hops it gets really laggy, and I can read RIGHT HERE that its within your domain", only to get some "Straight-Outta-Highschool-had-4-hours-of-training" idiot ask "umm, whats a tracert? Perhaps you should powercycle your modem!"

9. Remain calm
You would scream too if you talked to you...

10. Try to call when you are actually having a problem
Oh, all that mythical technology to tell you if there is a problem at this very moment in time, but it cannot look to the past to see if there was a problem before? Incredible!

#3 - Except for when I tell you first.

#5 - Except for when I do pay the bill and some
incompetent moron working for your company
shuts off the service anyhow. (3 times)

Oh, and when I say you have an issue with your DNS servers because I can telnet and ftp, but can't get to any web-sites, please know what I am talking about.
It's okay though, I don't use your DNS servers anymore.

@weave: "Customer being right" is not in the script these idiots read....

@spanky, re #8: No, absolutely not. ISPs are not, not, not responsible for anything once it is off their network. They are NOT responsible for third parties. Nor can they or should they be. You pay for a connection to the public internet. The transfer rates you are quoted apply ONLY to transfer on the network owned by the ISP. PERIOD. This is stated in your User Agreement, I am sure.

.....Contrary to what some posters posit above, I think these sorts of entries are a fascinating look inside the minds of customer-service folks. I vote that Consumerist continue these!

.....The best idea, if your having a problem, is to treat these people with exaggerated respect. "Yes sir," "No Ma'am." Do what they say (within reason). Reboot the computer, or at least pretend to. Generally, pulling your network cable out of the computer, and putting it back in is going to reset a lot of the network innards that rebooting will...

.....Having said that, my sympathy for the Comcast woes. I've had Bellsouth DSL for 5 years, and as far as I know, the service has never been off. Occasionally (maybe once every three months) the internet will seem slow, and I'll head to the basement and power down the modem for a minute or two, then restart it. We're really hoping this AT&T takeover doesn't bollix things!

To all who are complaining about Consumerist posting this as if they were endorsing it... the feeling I got from "Bitter and Sarcastic" in the title is that it's not exactly a sweeping endorsement!

@Jon Parker:
Several years ago I called Comcast's predecessor company in Chicago to find out about an outage.
The recorded voice went on for a couple of minutes listing outages to single buildings, then this genius said: "All service north of Chicago Ave is currently out"!
That's about 30% of the city!
What an idiot!
But then the offices were in a former used car lot on the south side.