My internet connection has been rubbish recently. I phoned my ISP last night to see if they could fix it for me. Three phone calls and about an hour later there was finally success. I rather suspect that their IT support is outsourced to India, which isn’t a problem, but I don’t think they outsourced it there due to the great skill of the people dealing with calls because they could clearly only help me if my computer did exactly what it said on the screen in front of them. I don’t think they were very impressed with me when my computer didn’t comply. I think the first woman put the phone down on me because she didn’t know what else to suggest. I was waiting for her next instruction but instead the phone went dead.
I phoned back and spoke to someone else who took me through all the same things the previous woman had and then did a few bits more. It still didn’t work but she assured me that if I switched my computer off for 20 minutes it would then be working again. It wasn’t. I had to phone back. The second woman did amuse me though. She was giving me a password to type in and would give me the letter and then a word that started with that letter so I got it right. I was very confused when she kept saying “Q for cubic”, but I decided that it was probably quite rude to point out that cubic starts with a C. It was only later when I spoke to G about it that I realised she had been trying to say “Quebec”. The phonetic alphabet only really works if you know the words involved...
I phoned back a third time and after running through all the same stuff again, this woman managed to get my connection running again, but did have a bit of an officious tone if I queried what she asked me to do. Let’s be honest, if I knew what I was doing would I have to have phoned them? Anyway, it’s fixed for now.
I was going to say something more profound today but my computer conspired against me. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
9 comments:
go on spill who's your internet provider?! In a strange way "Q for CUBIC' makes perfect sense to me.....my world is strange indeed!
spudgy - it is the evil company that is aol.
It did take me a bit of time to work out why I was so confused by what the woman said because it sounded logical and yet something in my brain was telling me that it wasn't quite right...
Part of my team are in india. Bright, highly qualified people. Culture differences can really impact though.
kahless - ironically I couldn't reply to this before, as I totally lost my internet connection for a bit.
Anyway, yes I don't doubt that many are highly educated people, but whether those are the people you talk to at a particular company depends on whether a company is trying to capitalise on those skills or are just trying to be cheap. I think aol are just trying to be cheap...
Its all about cost. However India's inflation is in double figures, so not too many years before it isnt so clear cut.
Oh, and my isp is aol so I know how crappy their support is.
I remember once that I asked them is they could 'see' my internet connection. They replied 'no mamme, we havent a camera in your home'
I nearly brained them!
kahless - Well that isn't great for India in any sense, comapniesmoving in and out based purely on whether it is cheap. I do think we kind of exploit countries like that.
That is really funny about what they said to you. I think aol have previously connected to my machine and looked at what I was doing (with my permission I might add). That was about a year ago though, so perhaps they can't do that now.
Yes they can see online connections.
People thinking me thick is a push-button for me. I was so mad at the time lol! I try and fix myself if I can by going on-line. Obviously you need a connection for that so I use my mobile!
AOL are expensive too! I would change but I dont want to loose my addy.
kahless - I can usually find some way to fix the connection, particularly as I have some aol software on my machine that is designed to diagnose the problem, but the current problem has been ongoing for a while and I was hoping to get it permanently sorted, but even now my signal keeps dropping out.
I will remember never to insult your intelligence!
Yes aol are definitely expensive, I have to be with them for another few months but I might think about moving after that. Although Ihave no idea if another isp would be an improvement.
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