Quote:
Originally Posted by southwell
Which is unfortunately the problem with people reading off 'crib sheets' they just wont listen to you, no matter what your technical understanding is. Anyway  to the person who sorted it. |
QFT
I've dealt with both Zen and I found that they were technically very good. They seemed to be ACTUAL techies, and they really did know their stuff. I had random conversations about the issues and had real answers, rather than the usual 'I'll have to find out'. Be's weren't quite as good, as although they seemed to know their stuff, they made you do everything per the book. Some of them were quite technical, but obviously they had targets or something because they'd get you off the phone as quickly as possible, which wasn't great.
Trouble is, getting actual techies onto support lines isn't all that hard, but getting them to STAY there is! I know at work our techies loath doing support desk, as it is such mind-numblingly boring stuff to do, sorting the same issues over and over. A mate of mine worked on the support line of a PC vendor, and had similar issues. You've got to keep your techies motivated; Sophos's techies seem to be given time to play with things, as they've often mumbled things about seeing similar issues 'on the test network' or 'when I installed it', which suggests they get hands-on with the stuff they support.
Virgin's support staff really do need to be:
1. UK-based
2. "Eating the dog-food" - using a VM connection themselves, or at least have access to one to play with it, and know what it actually does and the little foibles and niggles you just can't find out from a crib sheet.
3. Real techies
Nothing against the Indian call centres per se - I've dealt with some and they were stellar, but I thought it rather telling that having once phoned Barclaycard, I got to an Indian guy in account enquiries who had to put me onto the anti-fraud guys who were based... in the UK.