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A quick follow-up to tech support writeup…

If you've read the Tale of Two Support Calls article already, I've got a follow-up to the Cingular support call I discussed. It's a kind of funny ending to the tale of my broken Treo, so read on if you want to see how it all worked out. If you haven't read the other article yet, then this post won't be quite as interesting...

As you'll recall, after my tech support call yesterday, the supposed resolution of my Treo internet access issues was a new phone. The new unit arrived today, so I transferred the battery and SIM chip to the new unit and powered it up. After finding the Cingular network, I tried to load a web page ... and got the exact same error message! Arghhhhh!

So it was time to get back on the phone with Cingular. Thankfully, the details of yesterday's call were in the system, and the new tech was able to quickly come up to speed on the problem. The first thing he had me do was check the network settings, which I had also done yesterday. In fact, yesterday we had stepped through every option on every screen of the networking area, verifying entries on a line-by-line basis. Everything looked good, which is why I wound up with a new phone.

The guy I spoke with today acknowledged that we'd already looked at that section, but he wanted to start there again anyway. Somewhat reluctantly, I agreed. As soon as he asked me to read him the "User Name" and "APN" entries, the guy said "There's your problem!" He had me change the prefix on both from WAP to ISP. Saved the changes, switched back to the web browser, and found that my phone was once again fully internet enabled! So in the end, the problem was a simple configuration issue. The real question, however, is why one rep had me verify the entries started with "WAP" and the other wanted them changed to "ISP." Also note that you cannot change the default connection method (when you modify a connection, it creates a copy), and my default is hard-coded as "WAP." Not only that, but it worked fine that way for literally a couple of months.

Overall, a very strange conclusion to the issue, but heck, I got a new phone out of the deal, and learned quite a bit about tech support in the process!

Update:Based on the outcome to the Cingular situation, I should probably also change Cingular's score from 7 out of 10 (which I considered "decent but not great" -- it's like getting a "C" in a class in school). A better number might be a 6, perhaps equivalent to a "D." That is, passing, but barely. I had to make multiple calls, the reps had conflicting info, and in the end, the solution they provided wasn't the right one. It took yet another call, and a more knowledgeable rep, to solve my problem...

9 thoughts on “A quick follow-up to tech support writeup…”

  1. rob,

    I hope you deleted all your infos and data of the old phone before sending it back. Could be that Cingular refurbishes phones to sell them/ give them in exchange to other customers, and I personally would not like it when my phone history or even addresses/ notes are still on the old phone.

    Cheers from Tokyo,

    arne

  2. At first, I would have guessed the SIM chip holds the personal data, but then I remembered that this thing is a Palm Pilot at heart. So yea, all the personal data is stored in the non-volatile memory within the device.

    A hard reset does the trick, though -- all data wiped and the unit is back in "factory" configuration.

    Thanks for the reminder!

    -rob.

  3. Well, a hard reset doesn't necessarily mean that all data are wiped, though. But anyway, I am glad to help the helper for once ;-)

    arne

  4. In my Treo manual, on page 169, it says:

    "A hard reset erases all information and third-party software on your Treo."

    If there's other info that's stored, I'm not sure where to look or how to zap it -- I verified that the unit looked completely stock after the hard reset...

    -rob.

  5. My comment didn't aim specifically at the Treo, sorry if I confused you. I do not own a Treo so I do not qualify for a commend, but some Nokia phones are known to not erase all data after a hard reset.

    If you say that no dialed/ incoming numbers are stored anymore, and the contacts & appointments are not wiped as well, I think you've done your part. It's rather debatable if the user's dictionary should also be checked or not, but your story reminded me of Bruce Schneier's blog I've linked above.

    Enjoy your old new devices, Rob!

    arne

  6. Scanning google turned up a lot of confused people discussing wap.cingular vs isp.cingular, after skimming through the discussions, it may depend on what data plan you have with Cingular. Perhaps the plan was modified by your company after they received a high bill for data usage?

    Not every technician will be fully trained or knowledgeable. It takes a year in most cases to become educated enough to answer 98% of questions and solve most problems. The trouble is that the turnover rate for most call centers is extremely high. Perhaps you reached that 1% of the technical base that has been around long enough to know what they were doing.

    Why the high turnover rate? There are many reasons, mostly the pay is not all that great and many call center environments can feel like a slave driven job. You are tethered to a phone all day and statistics on the phone and call ticketing system are tracked and reported on by the managers. Your calls may be recorded and reviewed. You are constantly getting a report thrown at you showing your statistics and how you compare to your coworkers. There is a lot of competition between technicians. Add into this taking calls from pissed off customers all day every day and after a while most people just throw in the towel. Not to mention the constant threat of getting outsourced to India!

    I have been working in a technical support role for a financial company for 10 years. Our team is unique. It's small (10-15 people), highly skilled, highly paid, and we all have a very good sense of humor! Currently supporting about 12,000 employee's and external partners running over 800 software applications. We were level II and III support previously, but were frustrated by the Help Desk so we formed our own Help Desk and started taking calls directly. Yeah we handle a lot of stupid calls but typically we handle them much faster then the Help Desk would because the easy problems are a no brainer.

    When our managers go to Help Desk conferences they see the difference. We have almost zero turnover and our pay scale is way above the others. Consequently, you end up getting better people on staff and they are more likely to stick around. When we higher people we look for technical abilities, unending patience, a constant desire to learn, and a passion for the technology. We hire geeks and we pay them very well. Most of us are salaried so no overtime but we get a much bigger paycheck and we get larger bonuses at the end of the year. Also lots of vacation time. We have found that if you hire the best you can find and pay them well then a smaller staff can outperform a larger low paid staff. In the end it costs almost the same! Our company outsourced quite a bit recently, but they took one look at what our team does and they skipped over us. They did not think the outsourcing company could handle the level of support we perform and they were right. In fact, we are now taking many calls away from the outsourced help desk because it's more efficient that way.

  7. JBrickley,

    I'd like to know where you are located. Are you currently looking for people? You can contact me at stepscollector AT adelphia(dot)net.

    Thanks!
    Stephen

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