Customer support done so badly

I asked for help

I relate below a totally failed customer support activity that I requested from my DNS provider on Friday, because I was frustrated by their inertia, their exacerbation of the problem, and as a result, it put my week out that it is taking some time to get back on an even keel.

I logged a support ticket because a change the firm had done on the backend took away the presentation of my corporate Blogger website using a domain name, they had provided me. The change was implemented in mid-March, but I just did not seem to have the time to address it, so I removed all references to my corporate website on all published material until I could properly review the issue.

Asking with clear concerns

My support ticket was written thus:

I had my company blog at http://www.forakin.com/ which is a redirection for http://forakin.blogspot.com for years until a change was made to your back-end systems.

Since that change, anytime I visit my blog, I get the following error:

Welcome to www.forakin.com, a site recently created using our clustered Linux web hosting. If you’re seeing this page instead of your website, please replace or remove the default index.php from your public_html directory. (Screenshot attached.)

I have no idea what to do here because I did not have to create an index.php file when I created my website and the redirection from here, I believe it is a file in the TSOHost environment which I did find but still could not resolve the issue.

Note: Also, I use forakin.com as my Microsoft Azure domain with my email managed within Azure / Microsoft 365 and cannot afford for any changes to the domain to affect my email services.

Expectation: How do I get my Google Blogger website to show again when referenced as forakin.com?

The error I reported.

Think like your customer

The error I was getting when I visited my website, I could not fix even after I accessed the said file on the hosting service portal, this apart from the fact that I did nothing in Linux or with the service provider apart from entering a few DNS records to redirect my custom domain to my blog.

Fundamentally, the change had no guidance for users who do not normally tinker with Linux and all I wanted was for this issue to be fixed.

However, despite the narrative of my issue, the note attached was quite particular, whilst I wanted a problem solved, I had a core dependency on that domain name, the business email that I could not afford to lose, and I clearly stated that I do not want any changes made that would affect my email service.

Despite my expectation of a resolution, my thinking was my note would stay paramount in the mind of whoever took up the issue to help resolve it. I was wrong.

This matter goes to the heart of understanding what it is to give customer support in the Information Technology and Computing world. It is not enough to understand and comprehend the problem being stated with the wherewithal to resolve the issue. Much as a customer will have expectations, once a concern or requirement is raised, nothing whatsoever should be done to impair the quality of service the customer is trying to retain as the issue is being resolved.

A fix or a fudge?

On Saturday morning, I received an update from a customer support person, and this is what he said:

Thank you for getting in touch on that matter!

I checked your account, and it seems like the problem was coming from the DNS conflict, I fixed it, but could you clarify from where should the website load from?

Could you please confirm where you host your emails because it currently shows they are with Outlook?

If you have any further questions or concerns, we will remain available.

There is a lot in this response that might not be seen without carefully reading it. He said, “I fixed it.” No, it was not fixed, and his assessment that it was a DNS conflict was strange because no changes had been done to my custom DNS records for well over a year, and everything website and email was working until the change in mid-March when I lost access to my website.

I already stated where I was loading my website from in my support ticket, all he had to do was click on both URLs to see what results. He had somewhat attempted a quick fix, with no attention to detail or verification of the consequence of his action.

Indeed, my emails were hosted with Outlook, he would have seen the DNS records indicating that and that service was what I expressly said should not be affected by what they do.

Like I said, my website was not working after the fix, rather it was showing another error. However, what also happened was I was no longer able to receive emails on my business email account. Much as I was able to send from it with my email client, no emails were received.

Hey! I’ve lost my email service

I updated my support ticket with my new observations and concerns, this time asking that they either revert what was done or resolve everything and particularly the email service that was lost.

Another customer support agent, instead of reading what I had written, responded on Monday morning:

In terms for the emails related to forakin.com, you need to contact Microsoft as they are the email providers and not us.

They should be able to assist you a lot further into this as they will see any errors that appear.

If you need further assistance, feel free to contact us.

Not our problem, dear

Well, no, I do not need to contact Microsoft when in fact it is what your customer support agent did that lost me the email service. I was incandescent with rage but had to keep my cool as I tried to assess the situation.

I visited the Microsoft 365 portal to check my domain configuration and what I could see on the Microsoft end was that it was expecting to read some DNS records from my DNS hosting provider, and it was getting something else. Their assessment of the issue was that some DNS entries were wrong.

Therefore, if a member of staff with my DNS hosting provider was tinkering with settings on my account and fixing a DNS conflict that until I received the first response was working, the responsibility for the issue lay with my DNS hosting provider, but what I was met with was lethargy, inertia, and a total lack of consideration. It was in all terms a total failure of change management and customer support.

Maybe it’s just the culture there

This was further complicated by the fact that no one could determine what the supposed DNS conflict was nor was there any documentation of exactly what was done that could be reverted.

The culture in the organisation was becoming evident.

1. A lack of controls in the organisation that documents or considers customer engagement, apart from the fact that they had withdrawn telephone support for either live chat or support ticket registration.
2. A lack of attention to detail where customer concerns are paramount, requiring the customer to be first informed of the consequences of any action to be taken before the action is implemented
3. A poor grasp of comprehending and reading up on all the material and communication between the customer and any agent before acting or responding.
4. No proper escalation processes where a poorly executed activity can be reviewed and remediation towards reversion or forward resolution.
5. A tendency to engage in back-and-forth communication without any sense of responsibility for their actions.
6. Any absence of enduring team cohesion that allows other agents to know what one agent has done, especially, when that action has caused other issues.
7. In fact, I did also write to the head of the organisation about my issue, well, they just pay lip service to customer service and enablement, but the reality is far from the intentions expressed.

I provided additional information with screenshots and data that needed to be entered in my custom DNS records table, even though from my perspective on the DNS provider’s portal, everything seemed correct.

However, I could not persuade my DNS provider’s agents to enter these DNS records, they all were requiring me to clean up after the mess that one of their agents had created by totally ignoring my note.

By Tuesday morning, it became evident that whatever I was trying to do on the DNS provider’s portal was not working. This might have been because that part of the portal even though it was displaying my changes was not saving the same changes.

For all that time, Microsoft 365 was indicating to me that no changes were being observed from the entries on my DNS provider’s side to match the entries it was expecting.

Not all rotten apples

Eventually, I initiated a new Live Chat session where the very helpful agent said the DNS records were propagating, but when I checked, they were not the expected DNS records. I was then able to persuade the agent to enter the 5 records needed to restore my email service and device registration service in Microsoft Endpoint Manager.

Once those were done on Tuesday afternoon, my email service was restored and by then I was no more interested to getting my corporate website back up on forakin.com, I could not go through another ordeal like that, I began the process of moving my corporate website to forakin.org that is hosted by another DNS provider.

Now that I think of it, I might well consider moving forakin.com to this other DNS provider.

It was all unnecessary

It must be said, this issue could have been resolved on Monday morning if any of the customer support team cared. I provided them with the full details of the DNS records that needed to be entered to be matched to what Microsoft 365 was expecting and each time, rather than act, they asked me to do it myself.

A few hours after my email service was restored, I got another update on my support ticket asking for the DNS entries I had already provided and this after the update that the issue had been resolved. What did I say earlier, they do not read the full thread of communication before they act, it is appalling.

This time I had to update the subject and state as the first line in my response, “Please, close this ticket.” After which I explained why it should be closed. It is evident that if an organisation cannot take responsibility for the actions they have undertaken, it is quite unnecessary waiting for an apology from them.

It is my hope that customer service in that organisation improves, however, if I have to face another technical support situation, I will rather take my custom elsewhere. No one should ever have to face the level of ineptitude I experience, and this is the case with someone who has been in the industry for over 3 decades. I hate to think of what people who have no IT experience have to face, it just does not bear thinking of.

Personal website

Business website – I hope to start putting more up there.

Thought Picnic: To the letter for the better

Getting the letter too right

If I am to access customer services anywhere, I take the time to find out what is expected of me to easily obtain the assistance or service I need.

There is nothing like having too much information at hand to help determine what you really want and in the same vein; it prevents the situation where they could persuade you into going for something else that does not suit your purposes.

When I went shopping for my high specification laptop that came with 4GB of RAM but had a capacity for 16GB, I had obtained the information for the 16GB option, bought the default configuration and upgraded the laptop at home; saving me, about £200 if I went for a laptop fully configured to me desired specification.

I visited the shop with 16 pages of information, and each sales pitch fell flat as I flipped page after page of my research stressing why I had made my decision and emphatically making it clear that I would not be swayed.

Showing the letter to fight

Today, I walked into the 3Three mobile telephony shop to remove the adult content filter on my phone. This is not to entertain bawdry activity but to take of restrictions where somewhat overzealous censors might have blocked innocuous websites.

Besides, I should not be embarrassed to visit websites of an adult nature, and I do not want the establishment to determine what I can or cannot view even if I do not end up viewing sites the sententious might presume will corrupt my morals.

3Three provides one of the following three ways of removing the adult filter.

1. A refundable credit card charge.
2. By visiting a 3Store with identification to verify age.
3. Over the phone by calling customer services and still having a credit card.

I chose to visit the store because that meant I could have questions answered along with all the assistance I require if there are issues.

I approached the counter and asked to enable Adult Content and the customer service agent said I should call Customer Services because the adult filter cannot be lifted in-store.

Giving the letter to sight

Patiently, I attempted to access a possible adult site and the filter warning came up with the instructions, the letter of which was clear, it can be done in-store and so I expect it to be done in-store until such a time when the advice on the 3Three website is removed.

Seeing that I had won the argument, the agent himself called Customer Services and went through the process that involved reading disjointed numbers off my SIM card, reciting my phone number like a mantra and though I am a good many years over 18, I still had to prove I was over 18.

Having things done to the letter can be pernickety but I will not be fobbed off by recalcitrance in the face of compelling information.

Seeing the letter of blight

As I left the store and got to the City of London, not too far from a church, a little inhabitant scurried into a cranny defying to the letter the metaphor of being as poor as church mouse, this mouse was probably too well fed to be swift on its feet.

Perish the thought that besides the vermin of banksters that roam the skyscraper sewers of the City of London gambling away our futures for bonuses today, we have the compounded infestation of vermin in subterranean sewers too.

In no way, have I found to love these scenarios to the letter without a fight for the right in the sight of blight.

Where is Dick Whittington and his cat to make history again?

Thought Picnic: Outsourced Hearing

Account locked

In performing a portal update last night I could not complete a particular action the result of which locked out my account and almost terminated all activity.

So, I sent an email to our support personnel and in the morning received a response to call a support line to have my account unlocked.

As usual, you call the number; I was given options for Dutch or English and then other options about what service I required. As a manic depressive, I pushed buttons jumping through menus like negotiating obstacles in a medieval quest for the damsel in distress.

Sounds unintelligible

Then, I heard a voice, an interactive voice, maybe human, probably not human because I did not catch anything the person said. I thought I heard another language, when the sound came again, the phonetics sounded like English but an audio tape running at triple speed.

He was asking for my first name and last name in English, he couldn’t be, but he was.

Now, English is my first language but this one threw me completely and every other sentence I heard left me almost flummoxed. It was nothing to do with the accent but I would suppose it had to do with the speed at which words are spoken in the speaker’s main language.

I found I could not ask for him to speak more slowly as I would have asked people to when trying to converse in Dutch or German, it left me feeling strange.

Something else in operation

I did get my account unlocked and when he asked if I needed anymore help, even if I did, I wanted this uncomfortable conversation to end and he him, it always ends quickly because of the speed at which his words are spoken.

For me, it was the first time I really felt the impact of having my hearing outsourced, because the social consequence of outsourcing is not so much that of cost but that a natural function is given to a foreign organ to manage, support and operate.

In this case, the management was fine, the support worked but in operation, I can only wonder how well others who have English as a second language would have fared on trying to unlock their accounts.

They might well have asked for the speech to slowed down to Morse code and even if he were to do that, it is unlikely we would have kept up.

My heartfelt gratitude

Dear Friend, Supporter and Reader,

I want to thank you very much for supporting my blog. I appreciate the time you have taken to donate in acknowledgement of my work and I am flattered by your contribution borne from your interest in my writing.

I assume you have been a regular reader of my blog which I started in December 2003 and probably have left comments on my blog in the past either on http://akin.blog-city.com which will close in January 2012 or http://akinblog.nl which is the new location of my blog.

Writing has been a hobby and sometimes a serious pursuit, your contribution is both an endorsement however tacit and an encouragement.

I hope you will continue to visit my blog and support my efforts; your kind contribution will be helpful. Please leave a comment if you can about how you have found my blog and writing, it will provide an opportunity for me to personally thank you for your generosity.

Accept my gratitude and kindest regards,

Akin Akintayo

Urging urgency urgently urges on

Work not urging enough

As patron to the Insomniacs Anonymous, one was up again at 02:30 hrs by the captain's log and found some work to do.

Harking back to the blog on customer requirements, one had to finish the report on one's findings, which had been delayed over the holidays for the reasons that holidays are supposed to be holidays and not workdays.

Therefore, the concluding parts were written as indications of what had to be done to alleviate the sufferings and solve the problems the customer highlighted. The topical issues covered performance, ease of use and communication, one felt quite gratified by the work.

By 05:45 hrs on the captain's log, a little lie-in with the week's Economist to serve as sheep-counting, one caught the slumber train and arrived at about 09:37 hrs. Late, late, what would one do?

One of the great successes of our team is the remote access via the Web to our Citrix environment, which gives a geek like one full access to all systems one has regimen over.

So, rushing in to work was not an option for a planned delivery of shortest shadow. Crumbs! After all done, the spell-checker in Outlook freezes, and all work is lost. No help could retrieve that laborious out-pouring of prose, forlorn but not hopeless, another opportunity beckoned through an alternative email interface.

Hardly, had the report landed on the boss's desk, a meeting to assemble at 13:30 on the vaguest agenda though referring to the report but covering a wider issue. Accepted and was at work for 12:15.

Urgency of personality psychology

During the holidays, the CEO had formally asked for information about the customer issues raised and wanted a reaction as soon as practicable. In a one-off response having checked one's office email on that day, one urged that political expediency should take not the place of carefully laid out plans to resolve a number of those issues.

Well, the boss had convened the meeting to arrive at ideas of what needs to be done to solve these problems. We were at pains to stress that we had started on this weeks before and had plans which were underway, and that the report needed discussion that is more technical before any conclusions could be reached.

Nay, said the boss, with the mercurial ability to belittle the critical for the sake of getting his own way.

However, seeing that the thought waves would not converge, the meeting attracted a lot more input from other interested parties, the kick-off managed excellently by the Operations Director who doubles as second-taker - since minutes mean nothing in our organisation - and consequently secretary - bless him!

Anyway, where one could not concur was where the boss being an expert in situation clairvoyance was of the opinion that the CEO's mind would be amenable to a particular slant in our presentation rather than the presentation as we saw it.

Well, where would we be without the benefits of that kind of profiling?

In fact, the driving factor was the urgency urged on us by the CEO through the CIO and when that wind blows, all trees bow and some get felled.

Not impressed, said one, but one has to gel at times in teams that seem to be going the other way. One is not the sole source of objectivity, at the risk of arrogance.

Urgently deploy

Just as the Goosy Gander in the nursery rhyme met the old man who would not say his prayers, it became apparent that the last year did not inspire positive New Year's resolutions in the office lives of certain well-known colleagues.

Once again, a major change to a critical application needed an urgent deployment and this by Monday. One checked, today is Thursday and one does not do weekends without duress.

This change happens to handle a rather less critical daily workaround and satisfies the requirement of certain regional sites to take no record of staff who work out of hours.

One is at times caught up in the unethical and downright nasty in the execution of management policy.

The user base on which this update was tested was one expert application analyst with a sign-off by the manager of the project. One can only portend that this clique had moved from bad to worse.

This rollout goes to over 600 computers in five regions and one is to roll this out on the wing of one non-representative user and the prayer of the manager, propped up by directorate escalations. I think not and one is not that easily scared either.

Containing the urges to rebuke

Being one who does not suffer fools gladly to a searing fault. Restraint and patience when one encounters those catalysts are a weakness almost too great to overcome.

In not too many words, one rebuked lightly stating that the test base was too insignificant to be of value, that the deployment would not occur for a week allowing for prudent deployment and that this presented an opportunity to collate all pending actions for this application.

One received thanks for the prompt response, whilst the scolded recoiled to lick wounds, though not mortal by any standards that one is wont to inflict.

By the way, another urge to deploy the urgent lost urgency when one of the protagonists was reportedly indisposed and it was reckoned that no tests had been done for that request to deploy by Sunday.

The New Year hardly brings the change one envisages in others, rather one just has to learn to grin and bear it more.

Applying to the Corporate Masochists Anonymous - the urge is compelling.

When the customer needs you, you need help

The Visit

A regional director was pulled over the coals for the sluggish performance of his region. No manager wants to have to give excuses for not performing because of intransigent IT problems that recur and never seem to be solved.

In the technical Ivory Tower, ever customer problem is easily discounted with the simple credo... "The customer is always right, only when you are selling tomatoes".

This has served me well when on average many customers do not know if they have a problem, are probably confused, need education or are just a vexatious nuisance.

However, customers do have genuine problems, the context of which gets lost in the processing from the helpdesk - read "Helldesk", through second line support to any other level of tertiary support.

Poorly documented problems

If a problem is not properly logged capturing the necessary and essential detail and scenario, it gets stuck in a quagmire of clarifications of intention, detail, context and validity. By which time, there is an escalation and you have a priority without a purpose. Suddenly, it is at the highest priority and the clogged up communication channels open like floodgates. You get all the information you need because the intervention of some bigwig has put aside the absurd organisational practice that stops the techies speaking to the customer.

A resolution then materialises because the thinking man's thinking man has been able to think with the thinking but frustrated customer to find out what the problem is and sort it out. The resolution then has pride of place in the... wait for it... PowerPoint of the week.

Crisis Averted!

However, the solution really lies in employing properly educated and knowledgeable helpdesk personnel whose skills can overlap into second-line support. Logging intelligent calls that need little further clarification between teams would go a long way to providing resolutions without using the classic "Problem solving by escalation" - in a perfect world it should be "Problem solving by understanding, analysis and final resolution"

Furthermore, you wonder about the names that certain companies give their products that it becomes virtually impossible to search for decent support because of ambiguity.

Application/Service	Comments
Microsoft WINS	Windows Internet Naming Service A method for identifying computers on a local network. Ask the techies, there is nothing winning about WINS apart from winning the battle that creates some of the biggest headaches.
AmDocs Clarify	This is possibly the most common CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool for managing customer related events and procedures. You cannot search the internet for Clarify and get anything that relates to this tool. There are a number of modules within this tool as ClearSupport, ClearHelpdesk, and ClearQuality; however, one's view is we are missing the mostly important module in a customer support tool - ClearThought.
AIMS	This is another CRM tool with its accompanying application called ASAP. One aims to get rid of such silly application acronyms ASAP.
Wise Solutions' Wise	A utility used to repackage an application for automated installation on computers. The wisdom in choosing this name escapes one. Other products that are probably as wise at doing the same job better.
Microsoft Windows	From the 13th Century until the beginning of the 20th Century, windows had only 6 meanings. With the explosion of knowledge in the last century, we had a few more meanings until 1990 when a growing company called Microsoft launched Microsoft Windows 3.0 - the rest is history.

So today, we challenged one absurd organisational practice and visited the customer to find out that they had real problems that require immediate solutions. The Regional Director must be relieved he would get Christmas pay for the problems have nothing to do with his management skills.

The visit came about because the Regional Director lodged a formal complaint with the CEO and we are now working on a resolution.

One needs a holiday.