My Experience with Sprint DSL: A Tech Support Primer

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

Very, very recently(Like yesterday), my DSL service went to merde. The time it was taking to load a webpage, any webpage went far beyond painfully slow. Let's put it this way: In the time it was taking to load DU, I could, in a long, slow and leasurly manner, give birth to quite a New Jersey State Trooper, while reading the whole "Used Cars" section of the local want ad circular. I know that because I did. Not exactly why I am paying the medium bux.

What I am going to tell you now is what I did to get satisfaction from Sprint DSL Customer Service. Not only can you get your own satisfaction this way, but also come across as incredibly clueful to the tech weenie.

1. Do not call up angry and nasty. Angry and nasty will get you nothing more. Call up prepared.

2. Your Tech Support Experience will only be as good as the information you give them. When I call them, I ALWAYS have a root console(Linux) open, so I can run network diagnostics for them, in real time. If you do not know how to do that, you should learn. For Windows users, a good starter program is "Sam Spade". Also "NeoTrace".

3. In the beginning, take a few moments to prepare, before you call. Be exacting in your description of problems. Be detailed. More data points mean better triangulation on the problem at hand.

4. Be prepared to run pings, traceroutes, reverse traceroutes and whatever else, as you speak to them.

5. Some of these Tech Support people, while trying hard, may well not be as knowledgeable as you, believe it or not. The person I dealt with suggested I make huge configuration changes here, in my network interface chain. I did not, and I am incredibly glad I did not. Don't do it, if what you had as a setup was working once and is now problematic. These people are trained to question the user side first, since a lot of people do not know what they are doing with their computers.

6. Most Broadband/Baseband providers have repositories of technical information for their users. HOWTOs and whatnot. Find them, read them. Use them.

7. After the problem is fixed, call them and tell them it is fixed. It is just good manners and you will get yourself a good reputation at Tech Support that will assist your future calls and their success.


That's about it. One more unrelated thing: With the number of self-installing viruses and 'bots running around the net these days, if you are on DSL or cable modem and do not have a real hardware firewall, as good as you can afford(Something with "Stateful Packet Inspection" is highly advisable!), you are a friggin' maniac. I just fixed a computer the other day with 519 instances of the Agobot zombie bot on it. No firewall. Cost the woman $125.00. Get the drift? Here, the firewall and intrusion detection logs on my Smoothwall Firewall/Router read like "War and Peace". All 'bots and viruses trying to install themselves.

[TOhioLiberal]

1. Great post!

As a former tech support person, I agree with most of what you are saying.

1. Absolutely, be prepared! Also be prepared for the person at the other end (tech) to be less than happy with the knowledge that you know what you are doing. It means he will have to deviate from his script.

2. Be prepared for 'Linux? whats that?'

3 & 4. Will save time!

5. I had 4 weeks of training, before being tossed overboard (figuratively) Nowhere near the time needed to understand the nuances of: a. dealing with the public and b. understanding the different OSes, configurations etc.

6. A little digging is a good thing.

7. You can call if you want, if it is small company, you may get the same person. Most of the time, however, the person you are speaking to really doesn't care that you fixed the problem; unless you are calling to cancel a tech visit.