If only technical support weren't so technical

I had a simultaneously fantastic and frustrating experience with technical support last night. It has been rather windy in my neighborhood for the last couple of days, and various places lost power and phone service and such. I didn't lose power, but my wonderful dsl connection was not connecting. Well, the computer said it was connecting, but I couldn't access anything.

All I really wanted to know was whether the problem was with my dsl line and/or connection or with my computer.

I spent over half an hour lost in an automated telephone system before I spoke with someone who could actually help me. The first call resulted in a dead end, and the system hung up on me. The second call I got a nice lady who told me to call the number which had resulted in a dead end. I informed her that it was a dead end with no human being apparently connected to it, so she noted my experience and transferred me to someone who could help me. Evidently the transfer to India or Bangladesh or wherever technical support might actually be didn't work too well because the technician claimed she couldn't hear me.

I hung up and contemplated giving up, but I really wanted to know what was wrong or at least find out if I had some sort of limited dial-up access available on my account so that I could at least check my e-mail. So I tried again, grumbling all the while about my aversion to being so dependent on and so easily thwarted by advanced technology.

After wading through the system (which in a persistent fit of irony continually referred me to various helpful web sites) one more time, I was finally connected with someone who could hear me and could help me, and he helped me figure out and solve the problem in five or ten minutes. He was courteous and clear in his instructions, and I don't care if he was reading from a script. He figured out exactly what was wrong and helped me fix it in such a way that I understood what the problem was, how it happened, and why what was done to resolve the issue worked.

Hooray for the nice man whose name I can't seem to remember!!

And so I offer three observations and/or pieces of advice:

1. A large part of the frustration which tech support folks have to deal with is probably due to the cumbersome, aggravating, irritating, vague, looping, infuriating, lengthy automated path customers had to follow to be able to speak to an actual human being.

2. Be persistent with said system. Refuse to give up the belief that somewhere out there on the other end of the line there is someone who can help. And don't blame the person who does finally answer for the horrendous experience of getting to him or her. The technician has probably already heard many times over how horrible the system is but has no authority to change it, especially if he or she is in some far away land. By all means mention the difficulty. Just don't take out your frustration on the tech.

3. The CEO and several other highly-paid, high ranking employees of large corporations (i.e. people who could actually change the system if they had a mind to do so) should be required to call their own companies and go through the automated system without using any short cuts.