Being a techie calling tech support

OK, so one of the things that happens when a SPCS employee stops being a
SPCS employee is that the account has to be removed as an employee
account. Expected. Cell service shut off for a couple of hours,
expected, too. In short, they have to shut my existing account down in
order to do this, and move the number over to a new one. All done.

Except PCS Mail fouled up in the process. Because of the field test
phone I've been authorized to have, Vision doesn't work anymore. None
of this is news to me, and I'm waiting for them to finalize the phone's
software before I either send it to them for update, or go to a store
once the phone is released. Then Vision should be fine.

Except that the tech I called to explain my problems with PCS Mail all
of a sudden tries to troubleshoot my phone and the 1012 error I'm
getting. Like I said, I *already* know what's causing that. And it's
confirmed by the people who let me test the phone. I try three times to
tell her just do a ticket about the Manage site. It's a web site
problem. The web site's "link" into PCS Mail has forgotten I'm a Vision
customer and it's giving me the PCS Mail signup "invitation." Probably
happened when they converted me to a consumer account again.

You know what? I had to demand a supervisor, and I'm *still* going to
have to call them back in a couple of days when it isn't fixed. The
supervisor lied to me, and I know it. For this problem, a Tier 1 tech
has to call our internal I.T. help desk and they setup the ticket for us
with the web support team. He didn't. He CLAIMED to have written the
ticket while I was on the phone with him. If he did, that ticket's
getting rejected, because it'll never get to the web support group.

GOD, I hate knowing more than those who are supposed to know.

--
RØß
O/Siris
-+-
"A thing moderately good is not so good
as it ought to be. Moderation in temper
is always a virtue, but moderation in
principle is always a vice."

Thomas Paine, "The Rights of Man", 1792

---

› See More: Being a techie calling tech support

Now you know what it feels like to be on the other side of a
customer call.

--

John Richards

"O/Siris" <0siris@sprîntpcs.côm> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> OK, so one of the things that happens when a SPCS employee stops being a
> SPCS employee is that the account has to be removed as an employee
> account. Expected. Cell service shut off for a couple of hours,
> expected, too. In short, they have to shut my existing account down in
> order to do this, and move the number over to a new one. All done.
>
> Except PCS Mail fouled up in the process. Because of the field test
> phone I've been authorized to have, Vision doesn't work anymore. None
> of this is news to me, and I'm waiting for them to finalize the phone's
> software before I either send it to them for update, or go to a store
> once the phone is released. Then Vision should be fine.
>
> Except that the tech I called to explain my problems with PCS Mail all
> of a sudden tries to troubleshoot my phone and the 1012 error I'm
> getting. Like I said, I *already* know what's causing that. And it's
> confirmed by the people who let me test the phone. I try three times to
> tell her just do a ticket about the Manage site. It's a web site
> problem. The web site's "link" into PCS Mail has forgotten I'm a Vision
> customer and it's giving me the PCS Mail signup "invitation." Probably
> happened when they converted me to a consumer account again.
>
> You know what? I had to demand a supervisor, and I'm *still* going to
> have to call them back in a couple of days when it isn't fixed. The
> supervisor lied to me, and I know it. For this problem, a Tier 1 tech
> has to call our internal I.T. help desk and they setup the ticket for us
> with the web support team. He didn't. He CLAIMED to have written the
> ticket while I was on the phone with him. If he did, that ticket's
> getting rejected, because it'll never get to the web support group.
>
> GOD, I hate knowing more than those who are supposed to know.
>
> --
> RØß
> O/Siris
> -+-
> "A thing moderately good is not so good
> as it ought to be. Moderation in temper
> is always a virtue, but moderation in
> principle is always a vice."
>
> Thomas Paine, "The Rights of Man", 1792

On Tue, 3 Aug 2004 11:30:34 -0500, O/Siris <0siris@sprîntpcs.côm>
wrote:

>Except that the tech I called to explain my problems with PCS Mail all
>of a sudden tries to troubleshoot my phone and the 1012 error I'm
>getting. Like I said, I *already* know what's causing that. And it's
>confirmed by the people who let me test the phone. I try three times to
>tell her just do a ticket about the Manage site.

I'm amazed that you couldn't play the "listen bud, I'm a pro,
just follow my lead" card.

I used to be in video production, and when I call my local
cable service and the "trouble-shooter" goes through her typical
"please see if your tv is plugged in" shtick, I just say "I understand
you've got a list of questions in front of you, but please be assured
that I have professional video experience and this will go a lot
quicker if you let me tell you what's happening in technical
language". Of course I make sure that I'm friendly and not
condescending.

I'm surprised you had such trouble.

Good luck, DGI

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> I'm amazed that you couldn't play the "listen bud, I'm a pro,
> just follow my lead" card.
>

So was I. I tried to, and as soon as I said, "I was in..." you could
almost hear the ears snapping shut. As predicted, my PCS Mail still
isn't working, but I gotta give them the full 72 hours or they'll tell
me to wait.

--
RØß
O/Siris
-+-
"A thing moderately good is not so good
as it ought to be. Moderation in temper
is always a virtue, but moderation in
principle is always a vice."

Thomas Paine, "The Rights of Man", 1792

> I'm amazed that you couldn't play the "listen bud, I'm a pro,
>just follow my lead" card.

Although not Sprint, I had a similar situation with Cingular and a 6340i phone
that was only about 2 months old.

The problem - the GSM side of the phone simply quit working.

I went to the local store and although the tech looked at the phone he sent it
back to me saying "It seems to be working, I can make calls" and the girl
delivering this message couldn't understand that it was NOT working properly
because the GSM side didn't worl.

She gave me the Tech Support 800 number and after talking to them and a
supervisor there, they too couldn't understand what I was compolaining about.

Finally they changed the phone from TDMA prefered to GSM prefered. I power
cycled the phone and it came up and looked for GSM first (couldn't find it
since the GSM part wasn't working) and then came up on TDMA.

I then rounded up the store manager who was very nice about the situation. She
got a new phone and we compared the two side by side and I showed her that the
new phone was working and my phone wasn't.

She then changed the phone on my account and I left a happy customer, although
all this actually took about 2 hours in the Cingular store.

--
John S.
e-mail responses to - john at kiana dot net

> So was I. I tried to, and as soon as I said, "I was in..." you could
> almost hear the ears snapping shut. As predicted, my PCS Mail still
> isn't working, but I gotta give them the full 72 hours or they'll tell
> me to wait.
>

72 Hours... they must have an 'in' for you.....
They only quoted me 51 hours on my ticket 'escalation on a similar
problem...
Original problem: Couldn't get to pictures mail site.
1st call: Level 1 tech check some things and blew me off with basically "you
have a phone problem, go to store"
2nd call: WONDERFUL Tech, reprovisoned VISION, phone worked with me, called
back to check Picture worked, vision worked... It Appeared everything was
working.....This person was great.. Wish I could request people by name!
3rd call: I discovered a few days later PCS Mail was not working (and the
web was trying to treat me as a new mail user!)...This is the one that
resulted in a 'ticket' being opened and being told to allow 51 hours....Tech
called back saying "all better"... Mail was working on web...... but
couldn't log on to phone. Tried a 'RESET VISION Password' on phone and that
got screwed up
4th call They reset something on the phone... but still not receiving
'notifications' (you've got mail!).. they worked and worked and finally got
notifications work.

Moral of the story: It's not just you! It seems that the process on
resetting VISION or resetting the phone is SCREWED UP!

Too bad, you are not 'on the other side' to have input to fix it !