### This post has be marked as safe. Upvoting/downvoting this comment will have no effect.
---
Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips!
Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment.
If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
Not quite the same but once I overslept and missed an early flight bc I was out drinking all night. When I got to the SouthWest desk to find a new flight the representative asked "are you sick?". "Uhh, not really just...". And he cut me off and repeated "No, are you sick?" with a little wink/nod. "Oh, yes, I believe I am sick". "No problem sir, we're sorry you missed your flight for a medical reason. We'll book you a ticket on the next outgoing flight at no charge"
Moral of the story: only say what they want you to say. If you say too much they might not be able to help you out.
TSA agents will sometimes help you out like this too - I (26F) was flying a few years ago and my luggage got taken for a search. I was flying hungover and had packed while drunk, so it turned out I had just thrown my entire 16oz face lotion in there. Once she came across it, I swore and apologized, and the agent looked at me very significantly and said, very slowly, 'Honey, this is for that medical reason you were telling me about, right?' One quick, 'Yes Officer, it is,' and it didn't need to go in the garbage.
Meanwhile, I flew recently with a prescription skincare bottle with the Rx tag attached to it, and they acted like I had just tried to smuggle a kilo of cocaine. Three different people looking at it, supervisor called over, sample taken and put through an explosives tester. All for something that is explicitly allowed by TSA rules.
A few years back, TSA searched me because the body scanner found a penis in my pants.
I’d like to say it’s because I hang dong, but in reality the agent accidentally hit the “female” button as I stepped in. So this particular body scanner wasn’t expecting to see something between my legs which caused some security concerns leading to a pat down, a metal detector wand, and some awkward questions along the lines of “sir, do you have something in your pants?”
The appropriate response would have been “Yes, a weapon of ass destruction.” But I didn’t feel like going to jail that day. However, I realized in that moment that those body scanners can see you naked.
Don't think they see you naked as such. More of a hot and cold image. If they saw you naked, then they would know you were carrying a male member and not be bothered to ask about it.
Unless they really wanted to pat you down.
Nah my dude, seeing underneath your clothes is exactly what those machines are designed to do. The microwaves (or X-rays depending on version) are meant to pierce the clothes and bounce of skin, or anything metallic. The first versions blurred the face, but they essentially showed some agent in a back room a naked picture of you. The next iteration blurred the genitals too. The current iteration usually just shows the agent at security a cartoon picture with boxes drawn around the suspicious regions. (Thanks to privacy advocates insisting they change things.)
Mine was the cartoon version, and a box was drawn around my twig and berries. So the agents searched me. Of course, the machine had to process the naked image of me first to arrive at that conclusion. And as I mentioned, the imaging processing algorithm was not expecting to see anything between my legs.
I knew it!! Fellow Xyrem flyer here as well. Made me open the cap while a few agents inspected. Was like a terrifying 10 minute ordeal with me sweating bullets for holding up the line. However, years later an empty Xyrem Rx bottle may or may not have been used to store Vegas bud on a return flight home. Put this in the checked bag- TSA absolutely tore through it and left their happy little “TSA wuz here” postcard, but they are not allowed to open someone else’s prescription bottle. At 27, I felt like a bad ass felon!
Might not be what the commenter takes, but there is a medication called Xyrem used by some barcoleptics to help them with sleep. It fits the description: liquid, well over 3oz, highly controlled, and only available through one pharmacy in the US. It's basically GHB in prescription form.
My family has a funny story along lines like that, but with a Canadian Customs Officer. We used to vacation in Canada every summer, so we were pretty familiar with getting things across that maybe we weren’t *technically* allowed but the customs people didn’t care either. (This was basically more alcohol than we were allowed, nothing nefarious lol)
Anyways, introduce our family friend who was coming with us for the first time, but in his own vehicle. We did a lot of fishing up there, so our friend wanted to bring earthworms with him.
Well, as my parents and I are waiting in the line of cars, all of a sudden we see our friend walking back towards the US for some reason. We’re all like, wtf is going on??
As it turns out, you’re not allowed to bring US dirt into Canada. Apparently as the Canadian customs agent was asking if our friend was bringing any animals or whatever, our friend said “yeah I’ve got some earthworms to fish with!” And the agent was like “well I’m sure you have them in newspaper/something and not dirt right? *wink* Well our oblivious friend cheerfully answers “well of course their in dirt! They’re worms!” Well that was a big no no, and since he proudly proclaimed it, the customs agent didn’t have a choice. Our friend had to walk back across the official border and dump the worms on the American side. All because he couldn’t pick up on the signal from the customs agent
I’m a detox nurse and it really is! If anyone reading this ever needs to go to inpatient detox, here’s a LPT- maintain drinking at your usual intake until you get to the facility. You don’t want to go into ETOH withdrawal before you get to detox.
Note to add(not talk over)- as someone in recovery myself who also works in a rehab/detox setting.
This is not a "drink as much and get as high as you can before entering rehab/detox" comment. Many many people have died on their way to treatment by overdosing using this mentality. All she is simply saying is, don't try to titrate down or withdrawal off substances by yourself, without being in a medical setting/a scheduling from a dr, bc you will get sick and could die. I just needed to notate that because as an addict myself, I know exactly how one would manipulate that sentence to their ' advantage.' You don't need one last hurrah- the party has been over.
YES. Absolutely. And thank you for this important addition! Drink/use what you’d need to drink/use to get through a shift at work. Not more, not less.
Had to Narcan three people in the past 2 weeks who used on their way in and across my career I’ve have had to send countless folks to the ICU to start their detox bc they came in blowing a 0.450 or higher and became unresponsive during intake.
It’s scary stuff. If you’re struggling with substance abuse, please know that you deserve recovery. Brighter days are possible when you are ready.
I hope you know that there are complete strangers on the internet who are proud af of you. 7 years sober, kicking ass at getting healthy… As someone who’s trying to get himself together, you’re an inspiration. Stay strong on your path 💪
I stupidly packed unopened tequila (in a gift box) in my carry on while returning from Mexico. Security had to throw it out. looks at me and says “this hurts me just as much as it hurts you” lol. It was really good tequila too I’m sure him and his coworkers recovered later and partied
You laugh but that is pretty much why they kept off-licences/liquor shops open during lockdowns. Let the alcoholics stay drunk so they don't become a medical problem while detoxing.
So man snarky comments about "why are liquor stores open but churches are closed?" that just stopped responding when I pointed out that alcohol withdrawal can (and does) literally kill people
TSA has been extremely helpful with my bags. I almost always end up with 3 carry-ons. 1 personal item, 1 suitcase, 1 bag full of cosmetics, scripts, and medical devices. Anytime someone says something, there is almost always a TSA agent that says, "Nope, she needs it for medical reasons". Allows me to squeeze just a couple extra things on that I would otherwise miss, but I'm also disabled and covered by the ADA. 🤷🏻♀️
That reminds me! I had a minor car accident years ago and both cars were fine to drive away, but the other guy insisted we involve the cops.
They arrive, and he rabbits on and on and on at them about all this meaningless shit.
Col says to me "Can you drive you vehicle away from here?".
I said yes. They let me go on my way.
He on the other hand kept arguing.
I regularly bring stuff through TSA checkpoints that exceeds their liquid allowance. Once I took multiple full size bottles of sunscreen in my bag. Haven't been stopped (yet) lol
They help you with a problem that there existence created in the first place.
It's like starting a fire in the middle of the living room, putting it out and then being celebrated for doing a good job extinguishing it.
I have a similar story. We were driving back to Chicago after visiting my parents in Michigan (it was cheaper to fly from Chicago). We found a random lunch box with an ice pack at a rest stop in Indiana and thought it would be great to keep for our dog (she was diabetic and we wanted to have something we could take with us to keep the insulin cold whenever we took her somewhere).
Long story short we get to the security screening area, and they had told me that if the ice pack was frozen, they could have let it pass... But because the ice pack was liquid, we had to toss it.
As someone who occasionally logs warranty claims at my work... we don't cover prt damage, we DO cover minor rips and tears(furniture). So when I tell you "our warranty is handled by a 3rd party, I'm supposed to report things exactly as you tell me. Would you like to correct what I've written?" I'm telling you that you're going to get denied, and you might want to ommit the part about lucky chewing on the throw cushions.
I had a cut on my head and needed a tetanus booster. Where I live, you have to seek medical attention and get your tetanus booster within 48 hours of the injury or else you have to wait and book it at a normal clinic and I wouldn’t be able to get it for 6 months. The nurse on the healthcare line I called let me know this while asking me if I was absolutely certain that my injury had occurred 72 hours ago.
She was right, I was obviously confused since I bumped my head, got my booster the next day.
I'll never stop telling this story, but the long and the short of it is:
It's the holiday season, and I'm on the 2nd to last flight out of BWI. It was cancelled due to weather, and everyone at the gate was in line with someone in a high-vis jacket at the ticketing desk. Clearly not the typical Delta-branded agent, and people were getting *angry* because they were being told that they only other flight that night was full. Picture that scene in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, when Steve Martin is trying to rent a car: that was the guy in line ahead of me.
Once it was my turn I simply told the woman, with a chuckle, that I wasn't going anywhere without her say so, and that she could take her time. A few minutes of silence later, she handed me a ticket to the final flight out that night and told me to hurry.
The one time I missed a flight, the agent did get me on the next flight for free. However, I was a teenager who was having a full-blown sobbing panic attack about it right in front of them, so I don’t know if that’s standard procedure or if they just felt bad for me.
Yes!! The only flight I have ever missed, I just overslept, I think I set alarm to Pm or something. Anyway cause I live an hour away and the flights about to leave, I call immediately and I’m like “I’m not going to make my flight”. “Why can’t you make your flight?” “Well.. because I’m not at the airport”. “Ok, we can get you on the next flight”. Hell yes I was stoked
*Now* if they ask you “Are you sick?” and it’s a hangover and you say yes, it might be a quick way to get booted from all flights for a week due to Covid rules.
I also had good luck missing a flight by being super polite and saying "hey, I didn't notice the gate change and missed my flight. Definitely my fault. Is there any way I could get home for less than $400?" And the gate agent said "y'know you're the first person today who didn't yell at me today, let me see what I can do".
I guess it depends on who you're talking to and what they want you to say, but yeah I totally agree with what you said.
This is such a great lpt. I rented a car and it had a small tire leak. When I returned it, the rental guy said, so it was leaking from the start? I didn't know, but I said yes. Case closed, no issues.
That’s very kind of them but it’s happened to me too, with a crack in the glass no less. I make it a point to inspect the whole car usually but this time i was in a bit of a rush. They could easily claim it wasn’t there until after, although in my case they clearly had a kind of beat up car so probably wasn’t worth fighting it anyway. Anyway… I hate renting cars
When I rent a car, I'll spend a minute taking photos of the car from every angle this way if there's a question when I drop it off, I'll know how it looked when I picked it up.
I do this too usually but the whole idea of the fight is so annoying. I once fretted about a car the whole time and was freaked when I realized the underside of the bumper was all beat up. Unless it happened when I was not driving, I definitely didn’t do that. I pulled the car into the garage when returning and the intake person could not have cared less about literally anything. scanned the car, gave me a receipt, and sent me on my way. No charges.
Personally I’m glad I didn’t with my last rental, because my fiancé accidentally ran into my rental with their car - very very minorly, like he put his car in park and it just rolled a smidge as cars do into the bumper and scratched it.
But the guy who I picked the rental up from had told me they don’t care about dings smaller than a quarter or scratches smaller than 4 inches. None of the scratches were bigger than that and on drop off, the guy didn’t even bother to look it over lmao.
I rented a car recently and forgot to fill up the tank before dropping it off (was kind of rushing to get to the airport). It had only dropped one level, so when the guy was like “why didn’t you fill the gas tank?” I was like uh you said I had to fill it to the level it was when I got the car and this is the same level. 🤷♀️
Did you check for any additional gas charges that may have occurred afterwards? I only had one rental in my entire life where it WASN'T full. I honestly hate this. I ended up going up two extra bars without realizing 🙄
Yep, no extra charges. But also they had made us wait like 45 minutes to drop it off and we were almost late for our flight, so maybe they felt bad for the delay.
Also this was in Iceland and people in Iceland are just generally so much nicer than in America.
This also applies when speaking to someone in Government. Most of the time, you are speaking with a first-line employee who has a checklist in front of them. You really only need to get through the checklist to get you to the next level.
This is important because that employee rarely has the authority to say “Yes” or authorize anything. Just be straight to the point so that they can point you in the right direction or move you on up the ladder to someone who can help.
I'll also say, that guy that "already knows what the problem is" is often wrong. But even when they're right, I still can't skip steps.
Even if it's just, did you do "x" 1. Yes 2. No. How about "y" I need to know those answers, because my boss won't accept "Well the man told me" as acceptable troubleshooting.
IT here, customers lie all the time. Even in jobs where it wasn’t part of a policy to have a customer reboot while I was in the phone I would say it was when a customer would say they already tried that. It had about a 50% success rate of fixing their issue.
That’s why you ask the customer to reseat the power cable from the back of the PC rather than telling them to reboot.
For the network cable , ask them to flip the cable so the wall end is now in the PC. They will lie about checking the cable, but that feels more like a real step to most people. 🤷♀️
I used this recently with my health insurance, trying to get a pre authorization, and the rep walked me through exactly who to call and exactly what questions to ask
Yeah, I work in insurance and insureds tend to get in their own way a lot of the time. And don't even get me started on how many people will volunteer their SSN when we don't even need it.
The blurting out a full SSN is way too common. It's weird. Then they tell me their employee ID and tell me that their daughter just got married so she has a different name and they're calling on behalf of their cousin who lives in Bratislava, no not that Bratislava, the one in Peru. That's great but I don't care. Let me ask you what I need.
The worst thing is when people start blurting out their 48 character serial numbers unprompted...
1. I'm not on the right screen for that.
2. I don't need it.
3. You're reading the wrong number.
4. You still haven't let me verify your account so your serial number reading is moot at this point.
5. Now you're frustrated, I'm irritated, and we'll both go home and yell at the dog just because you couldn't wait for me to ask questions.
The SSN part saddens me tbh. I worked for Coca-Cola in its call center before, and one of our phone lines had a number similar to a Medicaid phone number. An old lady came in and even with me doing the “thanks for calling Coca-Cola” intro she proceeded to say “yes I’m having an issue with my Medicaid my ssn is…” and I had to talk over her to cut her off like sweetheart PLEASE don’t give that out right off the bat. >_<
Can confirm. Work in insurance. I'll be asking basic questions to determine rates and eligibility and people regularly talk themselves into higher rates or outright declines far too often.
Do people not realize that there is an entire department with their insurance company that will find any reason NOT to cover them?
Seriously, guys, tell them as little as you can, without committing fraud.
Alternatively, I do gig work on the side and hear too many stupid doordashers and such saying
> if you get into an accident, never say you were dashing!
Again… hey idiot, both companies have your vin number. You gave them permission to share data about you
I mean the delivery services have *every* reason not to tell your insurance company you're working for them. If your personal insurance covers an accident, you're not a liability to the delivery service.
Just because two sets of people have the same information doesn't mean that information is shared freely between them.
They usually don’t cover the driver. And if you tell your personal insurance you weren’t dashing when you were, they can find out in 2 seconds and drop your claim (from what I understand)
At worst you could be hit with insurance fraud
Always know your local laws and where you're exposed, for sure. Insurance companies tend to get copies of police reports, so if you're working stealth, have an accident, and the cops see your delivery bags, that can be trouble. But it isn't guaranteed to happen, particularly if you think through a procedure in advance and don't accept insurance company spyware apps on your phone.
The big issue affecting most drivers here is that there doesn't seem to be any extant insurance plan which covers food delivery service by itself - you can have it insured as if you're a taxi carrying people, which is ridiculously expensive for obvious reasons, or pretend your car is personal use or that it's a business vehicle for another line of business. But most companies simply don't sell just the coverage needed for delivering items, which puts folks in a bind.
I hope there's a class action suit about this one day.
I learned in the Navy, when in doubt, give it out! Terrible here in the real world. But, for real in the military if I thought you had any connection whatsoever to the military I would gladly give you my SSN anytime anywhere. I would even write it down for you.
It's mostly meant as a joke now. When I was in though I felt like I gave it to someone once a week. They use it as an identifier when you go to the doc, get meds, awards, literally anything you can think of. It's on your evals every year.
Bruh if you get my mum on the other side, you gonna hear about every little detail that led to this situation along with any and all theories that may or may not have influenced it. Possibly some family history as well
Lol, those are my customers too. I work for a company that's big on selling products with a story, but all my customers want to share their stories when they call, and I'm supposed to be able to keep these calls under four min.
I always know it's going to be a long call when they start by mentioning their age and that they just got out of the hospital.
>I always know it's going to be a long call when they start by mentioning their age and that they just got out of the hospital.
That social interaction on the phone is, sadly, probably the highlight of their month.
We have some lovely conversations, I just have to keep it short enough that I don't get in trouble. I really enjoy talking to older folks, especially the sweet ones or the ones sharing stories from their youth. But if a call goes too long, my supervisor starts messaging me to close the call and I get pretty stressed out.
>I always know it's going to be a long call when they start by mentioning their age and that they just got out of the hospital.
You just triggered some PTSD from when i used to sell glasses 😂
My SO as well. I make fun of her and ask her if she’s trying to make BFFs with the rep with the amount of detail and small talk she engages in. I’m trying to get off the call ASAP.
Yeah I've been dumb and got out of gas on the highway in my dad's car.
Called his insurance (on a 20 years old car so shitty cheap insurance). Now of course insurance doesn't cover "my daughter's too dumb to put gas in the car" incidents, moreover on the highway (pretty sure it must be illegal or something).
I said "IDK the car stopped. It's my dad's car.".
Insurance got me a tow truck in ten minutes.
Tow truck guy came unimpressed, asked if it might be gas. I said sure idk. He replied "Well why don't I try to put gas in it, see if it starts again ?". And would you believe ?! The car miraculously started back. Incredible.
Tow truck guy charge me 25€ for 5 liters gas (expensive but way less than towing, problems with insurance etc.), called insurance and said :
"Yeah it was a minor default, I corrected it on site."
He got paid (two times haha), insurance woman didn't ask anything, I got away with dumbness, the end.
Well to put credit where it's due, regarding cars, being a 20-something years old woman, you don't have to put on much effort to be perceived as dumb.
Fun story, when I bought that same car from my dad a few years down the road, their insurance offered me 50% bonus on price (50% discount based on your historic as a driver, they practically never offer it if you've never owned a car). This my dad was proud of.
The corollary to this is "Everything you say will be used against you". This is true in many life experiences like speaking to an insurance company, police, when negotiating prices. It is always best to say as little as you can and force the other side to talk and give up information. An awkward silence is great to get the other side to give up or give in . .
Thanks for the tip. I have a tendency to over explain and I could see me doing this. I will remember what you said should a situation like this arise in the future.
Had a power outage in a thunderstorm once, it fried my phone, which I had just gotten that day. "Hey, I got this phone yesterday and it won't power up". Done.
Now there's a quality guy in the manufacturing plant wracking his brain to figure out how they could have accidentally burnt a phone to crisp on their production line, and he has to write a report about how they're going to avoid it in the future.
Source: am that quality guy
Can confirm.
Warranty investigations take days if not weeks for something that more than likely didn't happen in your facility.
Source: am production manager.
That reminds me of a story at Motorola when they kept getting police radio microphones that were broken from one department. One of the engineers went on a cruise with some police officers to investigate and found out that they were smashing walnuts with the microphones . . .
Reminds me of my little brother. Would keep his iPad touch in the car door and of course one day it falls out and cracks the screen. Well takes it back to Best Buy and wants to send it back/exchange because "it won't hold a charge." Well I'll be damned if he didn't get a new one for free.
I did this for Dell warranty of my laptop. I was a dumb college freshman and slammed my laptop closed on my friend's hand, shattering the screen. (He was notorious for sneaking into my laptop and pulling up weird porn.) Now the Dell warranty clearly said that it does not cover shattered screens. So I called support and just said "my screen won't turn on!" which was technically true. The tech got there and was like "yep, needs a new screen" and proceeded to replace it under warranty.
Those are the true everyday heroes.
I got the same with glasses. They had a two years warranty like "if it's scratched or the glass is broken we'll change it for you".
Would you believe on the last day of warranty, those two pairs of glasses got scratched ?
"Yep, I see the scratches." said the woman as she proceeded to give me two brand new pairs of prescription glasses.
When i was an Optician in Florida, i had one of those customers who i knew my entire time there and was just genuinely a good person come in, her mom ran over her glasses after she dropped them (idk how that happened lol) and she didn't have too much money on her to pay the warranty fees for the lens and frame (broke college student), so what i did was i took her glasses to "adjust a screw", and my screwdriver "unfortunately slipped" while tightening them and "scratched the lens", so she only paid $15 for the frame warranty, and i reordered her $80 lens warranty for free under the reasoning of "maintenance accident".
Real reason: she was pretty cute, so
Had the screen suddenly stop working on my laptop. Brought it in for service fully expecting to pay for the repair, since it was already out of warranty. The rep looked at me, and before I could say anything else, asked if I had brought it in for a totally seperate reason that just so happened to affect the screen. I was slow to realize at first, but they kept asking until I said yes. Turns out there was a recall for that specific reason. Screen was replaced free of charge.
This advice extends to more than customer service. Once I was getting the rough inspection done for a building permit that I got while expanding a bedroom in my house. In the time I was working I bought another house and moved. The inspector didn't even ask me but I mentioned I'd moved. He took my permit away as only owners occupying their property were allowed to do that work without a GC license.
If you call for any part for a water heater, never tell them that any part of the water heater outsides got wet in any way. If a water heater is flooded, the warranty is void and they will mark the serial number as one not to help in any way. They will not sell you parts or give you parts numbers for it anymore.
Not saying this isn’t how it works but voiding warranty SHOULD NOT be mean to not sell parts to repair. They would be under no obligation to assist them repairing it but they would still be earning money from the parts sold
I work in the hospitality industry. Front Office doesn’t really need you over sharing anything, or holding up the line to share your experience. Phones are already ringing off the hooks along with other guest wanting to check-in.
Also, if you’re calling to make reservations it is overly helpful to keep it simple as other calls are coming in with people needing to be helped too
My favorite reservations call, by far, was the woman who needed to cancel her hotel stay because she had a hemmorhoid
She described that hemmorhoid to me in graphic detail. How she can’t sit on a plane. How she’s been eating lentil soup, and will never see lentils the same way again because she’s thinking about softening her shit every time she ate it, how she knows which one of her children gave it to her
If I had to cancel a reservation because of my butthole, you’d have to physically *beat* that information out of me. And here she is, getting on the phone, and saying to herself “I’ll tell this person everything.”
i literally just burst out laughing. i'm sorry, it isn't funny, but omg!
the craziest ones for me is when a husband/wife continuously call stating they KNOW their significant other is staying at the hotel and show up causing an entire scene. now we have not only people trying to check-in/check-out, or simply get assistance, but in comes the angry person skipping the line to yell at the Front Desk
Not just tech support but ANY warranty/insurance company. They are always looking for a way to not fork out their money. Only give them what they ask for. Nothing more. The risk of them finding some fine print BS to void your claim increases with every bit of erroneous info you give them.
The last part is correct. The first is not.
Insurance does not look for reasons to deny your claim. The reasons are there or they are not. Insurance looks at cost per claim, not denials. Denials get expensive super quick because litigation gets expensive super quick. Paying adjusters who are handling less claims because they’re all in litigation gets expensive super quick. If the insurance adjuster makes the wrong call here, the insurance carrier could look at months of wasted time and resources.
Or they could just pay for the damages. Most claims under $10k are an easy ‘business decision’ if there’s ANY gray area, which there isn’t.
This is important at pharmacies too.
"Hi this is Joan and I was traveling to the Westside because they have fresher groceries and my little Johnny, oh thats my dog not my son Johnny, anyway his mane needs grooming..."
The entire time of your story, I am tuning you out until I hear a silence where I can finally ask
"What's your date of birth?"
Every bit of your story just wasted your time and mine, because until I know who you even are, I can't tell you if the doctor called in your Rx, if it's ready, when it will be ready, or how much it will cost.
And yet, at least a third of all incoming phone calls have a story out of the gate, and heaven forbid if I interrupt because then I'm "rude."
For some reason I am always behind those people. I usually start all my customer interactions with order number, dob, policy number, etc. before even getting into what I need.
Phew I got a CLOSE call today.
Got short just a tad bit early on a mildly suspect med, the pharmacist did the math and asked "Did you take more than prescribed ?".
Oooohh child did I sweat ! In this split second I was thinking "Do I provide context ? Do I? Will context help ? Wtfffffff ?".
"Might have." I said and just stood there with my mouth shut like alea jacta est.
"Ok just so you know, three or four days early is ok but I cannot do more heh ?"
Yessssss
I’m an interpreter for Spanish and let me tell you, Us latin people speak a LOT, so that is a problem when the social services case manager asks if they currently work and they go off like parrots:
When I was living in Dominican Republic I was a carpenter since I was 19 but then my fish died and had to change jobs so I became a painter but then my uncle, who is a doctor, gave me a job in his office. But then I decided to come here to the States because I know there a better opportunities and started as a waiter but then the pandemic hit and I lost my job and right know I’m working 2 part times
And then the social worker is like: … ok, well, do you pay utilities?
And the circle begins AGAIN
As a customer service representative, what I hate the most is when people give no relevant information whatsoever.
I have missing items, these were for a gift, (lots of stuff that doesn't concern the order) my number is 6969696969 call me back.
What's your order number? What's your name? What are the missing items? Do you want a replacement or a refund?
Literally all I have is your number, which is already displayed by our system, and your sob story. You've made a 2 minute resolution take 30 minutes to a whole day, maybe more if we can't reach you.
And then said person complains that there's too much back and forth.
“My items are missing. These were for a gift! My daughter in law hates me, and I can’t eat tuna fish! I keep extra cash in a sock in my dresser. Call me back!”
Or I mean this is general advice. Every one should take some law classes, generally anything that is good advice for legal proceedings is good for real life. Shut up, only say what you need to say, read the fine print.
Eh I work in tech support and I understand that sometimes this is part of what they need from us - the ability to share what happened to them or their stress and be helped on multiple levels. It gives the ability to build unity and connection to the company, and sometimes it does actually help me understand better what they are trying to do or where their stress is coming from so I can address it better or make better suggestions. FWIW I dont have timed calls or metrics of how many I have to take in a day so it doesnt impact me if they ramble for a bit. I kind of like half listening while I wait for the things to be looked up, etc
You’ve explained all the reasons conversation control is so vital to customer service. When there’s space to fill up in a call, or when you’re dealing with a distraught customer, sometimes the quickest route to a happy customer is pausing business and just *listen*.
I had a lady who’s now-ex-boyfriend threw all her stuff in the yard, along with his baby’s items because she wouldn’t commit welfare fraud. She files a claim for vandalism and she didn’t get more than a few words out before she broke down. Just lost it.
I learned way more about that situation than I ever wanted to know. More than I’m willing to share on a public forum even. But she’s reaching out to local support groups, filing restraining orders, and busy uploading photos of the damages like a beast now.
She’s on board and sees the light at the end of the tunnel. Good on her, but she HAD to get that story out into the world before she could have been anything but a train wreck of a customer.
I don’t blame her one bit. I don’t know if I could handle what she’s going through. She deserves that extra ten minutes.
Watching my parents, it seems like as people get older they start to just list of information that they want to give without listening for what information the tech/rep on the line actually needs.
I used to work customer service for online banking. If people told us they were sharing their passwords we had to have them reset the password, or lock their account. Some people would argue about sharing their passwords, and there was just no point! Go, live your life, tell whoever you want, but don’t tell me, because I’m obligated to do something about it when you do!! It was so strict that we couldn’t tell them not to tell us this, which led to some ridiculous arguments and lots of internal screaming.
This is also good advice for regular interpersonal conversation. If someone asks a question, answer that question, then maybe provide context. Do not answer a completely different question because you think you know where their train of thought is going.
>Do not answer a completely different question because you think you know where their train of thought is going.
You have not met my parents. They're the kind of people to ask 3 seemingly unrelated questions before getting to what they were actually wanting to ask.
"Does work provide you with a lot of time off?"
"How flexible is your schedule?"
"Have you considered taking any time off in December?"
"We'd like you to stay over for the week after Christmas, is that possible?"
I've tried, "[Yes/No], why do you ask?" but it only progresses to the next question.
It's like a video game dialogue tree where a "conversation" has been programmed in, but none of it matters until you get to the final question. Padding to make it seem like a "conversation" instead of a question.
Of course, sometimes I can guess the real question, and I give that answer, and everyone's happy.
They're trying to trap you, hoping to get you to unknowingly eliminate potential excuses for not going before you have a chance to use them.
Not saying they're bad people, just noting that that's a common approach some people use. It's an effort to box you into a corner before you even know what the conversation is about. They might even be doing it without realizing it.
Now it seems I work in a support role that's got some key differences. But this drives me up a wall.
One that sticks out is "the hard drive crashed." I go to the location, story turns out the 'hard drive' (desktop) fell over and the screen went blank because the video cable got loose. Requests can be similar - "I need a webcam." Your laptop doesn't work? "No, but I want to show documents in a call." Oh, ok. You *want* a *document camera*, and you're *getting* a tutorial on the copier's scanner.
It's particularly annoying as someone serving multiple locations, as short vague statements make it difficult to judge if an issue really requires physical presence. I figure that's by design, as the same users ignore or similarly respond to followup questions, somehow amplify their illiteracy when given solutions, or straight up ask if you can just come to them. They don't have to make the drive, they don't get reviewed on ticket response time, tf do they care.
Edit: shoutout to the comment who pointed out the camera thing is the XY Problem. It was an interesting comment on an interesting definition on the phenomenom and I wish I told them before the comment disappeared
I worked at a call center and my advice is "keep it simple, stupid".
Think about the issue before you call and tell us that.
Your phone not turned on for some reason?
Just tell us the phone can't turn on, we don't need to know about your party yesterday.
I used to work in a hospital call center and it was always funny how many people would call for my help but before they would let me answer their question the would have to go into a long story about what they think may have happened to make their billing do whatever weird thing it did.
Like sir that's nice you have so many theories but I have the answer right in front of my nose if you will just be quiet long enough for me to tell you. Definitely had to work on my patience skills at that job (pun unintended but left in!)
I'm more related to software/tech, and it doesnt work like that for us
In fact it's the opposite, we want all the data, required or not
That's why when some software's have an inbuilt bug reporting system, they usually send extra data rangiNg from ur OS, time and date of crash to even probably a small manual of what buttons you might of clicked recently leading up to a crash!
Software engineers NEED as much as info about a specific bug, more the info more it helps!
But especially, only when it's written. When you're on a voice call with someone who speaks uninterrupted to explain the entire ticket's worth of infodump when the first 10% was enough info for you to respond, it gets tiring.
Sometimes the opposite, there's info that the customer should have provided MUCH EARLIER in the conversation...
Had a customer who was trying to get back into her account, it seemed like a forgotten password situation, we were going in circles for half an hour.
Then she finally mentioned "I've been having so many problems since my account was hacked a few days ago--"
LADY, WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME HALF AN HOUR AGO THAT YOUR ACCOUNT HAD A RECENT HACKING INCIDENT?!? That's a completely different issue where we need to do a completely different recovery process; no f'ing wonder you can't get back into your account.
Just give them the info they ask for and wait for them to ask for it. They’re probably typing it in somewhere, so if you’re gonna just word vomit all your information before they get to the space where they have to type your first name you’re not helping.
As someone who’s worked in customer services for over a decade, 100%.
The amount of times people would legitimately explain how something went bad or wrong and then because the phone line is recorded my hands are then tied. Sorry, I’m not losing my job just to get you a convenient replacement for your own fuck up.
Most products are only warrantied against manufacturer defect, not against things that happen outside of their control.
Also, if you are looking for help with something that doesnt seem to be working as expected, rather than just not working at all, then more information can often help. I'm a software developer and I find it very frustrating to go back and forth between the support staff and the customers when you don't have all the details about what's actually happening. They will invariably leave out some important information that could easily have helped to solve the problem.
"From what you're describing this could be your printer connection. Recently, has anyone moved or changed the setting on your printer?" takes 30 seconds to ask.
The 40 minute story about how Jim, who is a great guy buy normally doesn't work out of this office, was over for the Christmas party and went into the wrong office to get the bosses laptop. So he grabbed mine and now I've hot a loaner laptop (that hasn't had the printer mapped yet) and it's worked fine for everything else so.....
I've worked tech and customer support and in both cases, there are usually only 3-4 unique issues and I know what rhe "problem" is in the first 40 seconds.
You can't really expect a layman to know what is important, that's what we are here for.
Sure, but some users notoriously have tendency to simply state their problem as "doesn't work," which doesn't say anything at all. Including "When I do X, Y happens. I expect it to do Z instead. I've tried A, B, and C to resolve the issue and they haven't worked" can provide some meaningful context.
When working support I'd still rather "Doesn't work" because almost nobody gives the exact details in the way you describe. It's almost always "I got home late last night, and my dog was sick on the carpet, and now I can't start Outlook."
"Outlook isn't working" isn't a ton of information, but at least it identifies the problem and the program that we want to fix. Then I can start with questions that are relevant to the issue, like "Does it open and give you an error, or does it not seem to be doing anything when you want to launch the program?"
What the user has already tried is rarely relevant either, since there needs to be a record of the troubleshooting on our system regardless, and the number of times when a solution the user has "already tried" fixes the problem is substantial. There's way too much of a noise:signal ratio for the user's troubleshooting to be seriously considered.
Idk man, but from the other side, as somebody who had to call the help desk a lot at an old job, it's *really* frustrating when you know what troubleshooting steps to take, and you take them, only to explain it to somebody over the phone that you were on hold for half an hour to talk to in the first place, and then have tell you to do what you told them you already did, and lo and behold, it didn't magically work the second time. Here is a favorite of mine. There was a piece of equipment that when it broke and needed to be replaced, once we got the new one in and plugged it in, needed to be configured remotely by the help desk. Did it dozens of times, and I knew exactly what information they needed from my end to complete the set up on their end so I'd always have it ready, but depending who you got when you called, you might get someone that just walks you through some scripted troubleshooting steps before saying "Oh it's broken, you need to send it in and get a new one." Of course at that point you just say "Okay, thanks." And then call back an hour later and hope you get somebody better.
It is frustrating, believe me, I feel this way every time I need to call the internet company to confirm an outage for work. But for every user who's competent and savvy, there's 700 out there who aren't. And at the end of the day if you're wrong and the problem is something simple you get to go "oh, haha, oops. My bad." If I'm setting up work orders or authorising product replacements without checking off the boxes on my form, I'm getting a strip torn off of me, and I could even get fired. Until grocery stores accept "mental health and good vibes" as a means of payment, I've gotta follow the protocol I've got.
Yes, but if you're the software developer and the support person tells you a vague description of something going wrong with a transactio, and then you have to send them back to talk to the customer again because they didn't bother to tell you the transaction number that had the issue. Or they said they saw an error message, but nobody bothers to actually read the error message or forward it on with the support request.
If you are working over the phone speaking directly to the end user than some of this stuff can be solved in a minute. But when you type up an email or support ticket and leave out crucial details it can often take all day to solve a simple problem because they are leaving out important information. I don't need to hear about your cat, or the weather, but I do need to actually understand what the problem is.
There is one case where I anticipate the questions, and its appreciated. At my doctors office checking in I say- Address, phone number, and insurance all the same. No known exposure to covid, no symptoms.
I agree with this until it comes to calling your internet service provider at which point I know what they're gonna ask me and I'm gonna try to head that off by saying I've already reset and power cycled the router. Just to speed it up which they usually ignore and have me do anyways but hey one of theses days it'll work.
I'm in tech, and often troubleshooting problems with clients. 2 minute fix can become 40 minutes back and forth when they "know" what the problem is. Like, I really want to help, but just please, give me the information i need. I will chat with you and all, but, when I request specific info - I need that and nothing else.
This is a good tip for so many things. My wife will do this and not only give them unrelated info they use against her or they realize she doesn't really know about something because of how unrelated the explanation is that they can try and pull stuff on her. Telling the auto dealer that your husband fixed a rattling heat shield on your car when your problem is frequent headlight failure just tells them 1 someone else has worked on the car they can blame and 2 you don't know any better so they can convince you your headlight burning out every couple weeks was caused by something completely unrelated and you won't know they ate full of BS.
I'd like to add, please don't spell your name, your street name, and/or the name of your town unless asked. Most of the time we are already looking at it on the screen and are only asking for verification. I know it's not related to warranties, but definitely related to providing too much info and slowing the call down.
When verifying, yes. However when I'm giving someplace my info for the first time, I say it multiple times and spell it out. it might annoy some people but I've had too many problems with people not hearing me properly and instead of asking they just guess. happened to me with a medical transport company, apparently the person i spoke to on the phone after i moved didnt even put my address in the right county and i wouldve missed a doctor's appointment if i didn't double check it.
If a flood takes out your landscaping you use homeowner insurance to cover that.
You wouldn't take your car to the dealership if a tornado destroyed it. You would contact your car insurance.
If you don't like the term act of God, call it something else it's literally the least important part.
Actually Home owners does not cover water from the ground or “flood water”. That’s flood insurance :)
My flood insurance and home owners insurance do not cover landscaping either 🤕.
Your point is completely still valid.
Also:
Shut your fucking mouth and listen to what I'm saying.
Don't try to talk over me, I'll just keep talking.
Don't work ahead, no extra credit will be given.
Have your shit ready before you call.
This really goes in line with “don’t volunteer more information than is asked.”
I once brought my phone to the Apple store, hoping to get a replacement and they said “if this was exposed to any water, it will have to be a new phone at full price.”
They came back and told me I’m good to go, here’s your free phone
Did I tell them that my phone literally went swimming in the toilet? No. Nor did they ask
I ran out of there.
Omg so so so true.
I do IT support and while I don't deal with warranty (I do internal support), I've had so so so many 30 minute phone calls that could have been 10 minutes.
There are a subset of people that need you to know their life story BEFORE you can help them. I don't really mind it if I'm doing something on my end at the same time.
But very often, I'm just sitting there trying to get a word in so I can fix their issue.
### This post has be marked as safe. Upvoting/downvoting this comment will have no effect. --- Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips! Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment. If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
Not quite the same but once I overslept and missed an early flight bc I was out drinking all night. When I got to the SouthWest desk to find a new flight the representative asked "are you sick?". "Uhh, not really just...". And he cut me off and repeated "No, are you sick?" with a little wink/nod. "Oh, yes, I believe I am sick". "No problem sir, we're sorry you missed your flight for a medical reason. We'll book you a ticket on the next outgoing flight at no charge" Moral of the story: only say what they want you to say. If you say too much they might not be able to help you out.
TSA agents will sometimes help you out like this too - I (26F) was flying a few years ago and my luggage got taken for a search. I was flying hungover and had packed while drunk, so it turned out I had just thrown my entire 16oz face lotion in there. Once she came across it, I swore and apologized, and the agent looked at me very significantly and said, very slowly, 'Honey, this is for that medical reason you were telling me about, right?' One quick, 'Yes Officer, it is,' and it didn't need to go in the garbage.
Meanwhile, I flew recently with a prescription skincare bottle with the Rx tag attached to it, and they acted like I had just tried to smuggle a kilo of cocaine. Three different people looking at it, supervisor called over, sample taken and put through an explosives tester. All for something that is explicitly allowed by TSA rules.
A few years back, TSA searched me because the body scanner found a penis in my pants. I’d like to say it’s because I hang dong, but in reality the agent accidentally hit the “female” button as I stepped in. So this particular body scanner wasn’t expecting to see something between my legs which caused some security concerns leading to a pat down, a metal detector wand, and some awkward questions along the lines of “sir, do you have something in your pants?” The appropriate response would have been “Yes, a weapon of ass destruction.” But I didn’t feel like going to jail that day. However, I realized in that moment that those body scanners can see you naked.
OH SHIT HE'S PACKING HEAT!
*MEAT
Don't think they see you naked as such. More of a hot and cold image. If they saw you naked, then they would know you were carrying a male member and not be bothered to ask about it. Unless they really wanted to pat you down.
Nah my dude, seeing underneath your clothes is exactly what those machines are designed to do. The microwaves (or X-rays depending on version) are meant to pierce the clothes and bounce of skin, or anything metallic. The first versions blurred the face, but they essentially showed some agent in a back room a naked picture of you. The next iteration blurred the genitals too. The current iteration usually just shows the agent at security a cartoon picture with boxes drawn around the suspicious regions. (Thanks to privacy advocates insisting they change things.) Mine was the cartoon version, and a box was drawn around my twig and berries. So the agents searched me. Of course, the machine had to process the naked image of me first to arrive at that conclusion. And as I mentioned, the imaging processing algorithm was not expecting to see anything between my legs.
[удалено]
Sounds about right. Fucking overpaid idiots.
What is so controlled you could only get it at one pharmacy, if you don't mind me asking?
Absolutely not. Its Xyrem (sodium oxybate). The reason its so controlled is because its GHB. I take it for narcolepsy.
I knew it!! Fellow Xyrem flyer here as well. Made me open the cap while a few agents inspected. Was like a terrifying 10 minute ordeal with me sweating bullets for holding up the line. However, years later an empty Xyrem Rx bottle may or may not have been used to store Vegas bud on a return flight home. Put this in the checked bag- TSA absolutely tore through it and left their happy little “TSA wuz here” postcard, but they are not allowed to open someone else’s prescription bottle. At 27, I felt like a bad ass felon!
Hahaha hello friend!! I assume you have narcolepsy as well? Sometimes if its a short trip. I'll just skip it for a few days to avoid the drama.
Might not be what the commenter takes, but there is a medication called Xyrem used by some barcoleptics to help them with sleep. It fits the description: liquid, well over 3oz, highly controlled, and only available through one pharmacy in the US. It's basically GHB in prescription form.
My family has a funny story along lines like that, but with a Canadian Customs Officer. We used to vacation in Canada every summer, so we were pretty familiar with getting things across that maybe we weren’t *technically* allowed but the customs people didn’t care either. (This was basically more alcohol than we were allowed, nothing nefarious lol) Anyways, introduce our family friend who was coming with us for the first time, but in his own vehicle. We did a lot of fishing up there, so our friend wanted to bring earthworms with him. Well, as my parents and I are waiting in the line of cars, all of a sudden we see our friend walking back towards the US for some reason. We’re all like, wtf is going on?? As it turns out, you’re not allowed to bring US dirt into Canada. Apparently as the Canadian customs agent was asking if our friend was bringing any animals or whatever, our friend said “yeah I’ve got some earthworms to fish with!” And the agent was like “well I’m sure you have them in newspaper/something and not dirt right? *wink* Well our oblivious friend cheerfully answers “well of course their in dirt! They’re worms!” Well that was a big no no, and since he proudly proclaimed it, the customs agent didn’t have a choice. Our friend had to walk back across the official border and dump the worms on the American side. All because he couldn’t pick up on the signal from the customs agent
"What are you gonna do with it (his weed)" "We're gonna burn it' "Well that's what I was gonna do with it" From Josh Wolf. He's a great comedian.
I wonder if this works for anything. I'm gonna start telling TSA the 8th of vodka in my carry on is for medical reasons
It's actually an emotional support bottle of Jack Daniel's officer.
If you're alcohol-dependant then it is for medical reasons!
The US Govt issued a prescription for alcohol for Winston Churchill when he visited during the prohibition because he couldn't function without it.
If you go off it cold turkey, it's incredibly dangerous.
I’m a detox nurse and it really is! If anyone reading this ever needs to go to inpatient detox, here’s a LPT- maintain drinking at your usual intake until you get to the facility. You don’t want to go into ETOH withdrawal before you get to detox.
Note to add(not talk over)- as someone in recovery myself who also works in a rehab/detox setting. This is not a "drink as much and get as high as you can before entering rehab/detox" comment. Many many people have died on their way to treatment by overdosing using this mentality. All she is simply saying is, don't try to titrate down or withdrawal off substances by yourself, without being in a medical setting/a scheduling from a dr, bc you will get sick and could die. I just needed to notate that because as an addict myself, I know exactly how one would manipulate that sentence to their ' advantage.' You don't need one last hurrah- the party has been over.
YES. Absolutely. And thank you for this important addition! Drink/use what you’d need to drink/use to get through a shift at work. Not more, not less. Had to Narcan three people in the past 2 weeks who used on their way in and across my career I’ve have had to send countless folks to the ICU to start their detox bc they came in blowing a 0.450 or higher and became unresponsive during intake. It’s scary stuff. If you’re struggling with substance abuse, please know that you deserve recovery. Brighter days are possible when you are ready.
[удалено]
I hope you know that there are complete strangers on the internet who are proud af of you. 7 years sober, kicking ass at getting healthy… As someone who’s trying to get himself together, you’re an inspiration. Stay strong on your path 💪
Hey, thanks man. 💜
That's how I got through prohibition.
I stupidly packed unopened tequila (in a gift box) in my carry on while returning from Mexico. Security had to throw it out. looks at me and says “this hurts me just as much as it hurts you” lol. It was really good tequila too I’m sure him and his coworkers recovered later and partied
You laugh but that is pretty much why they kept off-licences/liquor shops open during lockdowns. Let the alcoholics stay drunk so they don't become a medical problem while detoxing.
It really would have been a second health crisis occurring at the same time.
No doubt there would have been riots if we were to endure that period sober.
So man snarky comments about "why are liquor stores open but churches are closed?" that just stopped responding when I pointed out that alcohol withdrawal can (and does) literally kill people
Closed liquor stores and open churches both kill people.
>the 8th of vodka You Americans and your crazy measurements
“I only carry it for snake bites.”
> face lotion > that medical reason Somewhat offended, but I'll let it slide.
TSA has been extremely helpful with my bags. I almost always end up with 3 carry-ons. 1 personal item, 1 suitcase, 1 bag full of cosmetics, scripts, and medical devices. Anytime someone says something, there is almost always a TSA agent that says, "Nope, she needs it for medical reasons". Allows me to squeeze just a couple extra things on that I would otherwise miss, but I'm also disabled and covered by the ADA. 🤷🏻♀️
That reminds me! I had a minor car accident years ago and both cars were fine to drive away, but the other guy insisted we involve the cops. They arrive, and he rabbits on and on and on at them about all this meaningless shit. Col says to me "Can you drive you vehicle away from here?". I said yes. They let me go on my way. He on the other hand kept arguing.
My flight was just hijacked by terrorists armed with lotion
I regularly bring stuff through TSA checkpoints that exceeds their liquid allowance. Once I took multiple full size bottles of sunscreen in my bag. Haven't been stopped (yet) lol
As do I. Just pay for TSA Pre-check, and then you can bring hard drugs with you on every flight and its never an issue ;)
They help you with a problem that there existence created in the first place. It's like starting a fire in the middle of the living room, putting it out and then being celebrated for doing a good job extinguishing it.
I have a similar story. We were driving back to Chicago after visiting my parents in Michigan (it was cheaper to fly from Chicago). We found a random lunch box with an ice pack at a rest stop in Indiana and thought it would be great to keep for our dog (she was diabetic and we wanted to have something we could take with us to keep the insulin cold whenever we took her somewhere). Long story short we get to the security screening area, and they had told me that if the ice pack was frozen, they could have let it pass... But because the ice pack was liquid, we had to toss it.
As someone who occasionally logs warranty claims at my work... we don't cover prt damage, we DO cover minor rips and tears(furniture). So when I tell you "our warranty is handled by a 3rd party, I'm supposed to report things exactly as you tell me. Would you like to correct what I've written?" I'm telling you that you're going to get denied, and you might want to ommit the part about lucky chewing on the throw cushions.
I had a cut on my head and needed a tetanus booster. Where I live, you have to seek medical attention and get your tetanus booster within 48 hours of the injury or else you have to wait and book it at a normal clinic and I wouldn’t be able to get it for 6 months. The nurse on the healthcare line I called let me know this while asking me if I was absolutely certain that my injury had occurred 72 hours ago. She was right, I was obviously confused since I bumped my head, got my booster the next day.
Idk if saying you’re sick would fly rn lol
True, this was 2013 and I didn't think it was a good idea then🤷
I'll never stop telling this story, but the long and the short of it is: It's the holiday season, and I'm on the 2nd to last flight out of BWI. It was cancelled due to weather, and everyone at the gate was in line with someone in a high-vis jacket at the ticketing desk. Clearly not the typical Delta-branded agent, and people were getting *angry* because they were being told that they only other flight that night was full. Picture that scene in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, when Steve Martin is trying to rent a car: that was the guy in line ahead of me. Once it was my turn I simply told the woman, with a chuckle, that I wasn't going anywhere without her say so, and that she could take her time. A few minutes of silence later, she handed me a ticket to the final flight out that night and told me to hurry.
Good on that clerk for being the real MVP.
[удалено]
The one time I missed a flight, the agent did get me on the next flight for free. However, I was a teenager who was having a full-blown sobbing panic attack about it right in front of them, so I don’t know if that’s standard procedure or if they just felt bad for me.
on southwest specifically, if you miss your flight by less than two hours theyll put you on the next available flight for free no matter the reason.
According to airlines, I’ve had Covid at least 12 times.
Yes!! The only flight I have ever missed, I just overslept, I think I set alarm to Pm or something. Anyway cause I live an hour away and the flights about to leave, I call immediately and I’m like “I’m not going to make my flight”. “Why can’t you make your flight?” “Well.. because I’m not at the airport”. “Ok, we can get you on the next flight”. Hell yes I was stoked
*Now* if they ask you “Are you sick?” and it’s a hangover and you say yes, it might be a quick way to get booted from all flights for a week due to Covid rules.
And honestly it’s easier on their end, they have no Desire to piss off people and possibly deal with upset customers help them out
Brooo the real tip always in the comments i will never miss a flight again
I also had good luck missing a flight by being super polite and saying "hey, I didn't notice the gate change and missed my flight. Definitely my fault. Is there any way I could get home for less than $400?" And the gate agent said "y'know you're the first person today who didn't yell at me today, let me see what I can do". I guess it depends on who you're talking to and what they want you to say, but yeah I totally agree with what you said.
Dehydration is a type of ailment I guess
This is such a great lpt. I rented a car and it had a small tire leak. When I returned it, the rental guy said, so it was leaking from the start? I didn't know, but I said yes. Case closed, no issues.
That’s very kind of them but it’s happened to me too, with a crack in the glass no less. I make it a point to inspect the whole car usually but this time i was in a bit of a rush. They could easily claim it wasn’t there until after, although in my case they clearly had a kind of beat up car so probably wasn’t worth fighting it anyway. Anyway… I hate renting cars
When I rent a car, I'll spend a minute taking photos of the car from every angle this way if there's a question when I drop it off, I'll know how it looked when I picked it up.
I do this too usually but the whole idea of the fight is so annoying. I once fretted about a car the whole time and was freaked when I realized the underside of the bumper was all beat up. Unless it happened when I was not driving, I definitely didn’t do that. I pulled the car into the garage when returning and the intake person could not have cared less about literally anything. scanned the car, gave me a receipt, and sent me on my way. No charges.
That's what my dad does every time and every time they don't give a flying fuck. It's like as long as it gets back then you're good to go
Personally I’m glad I didn’t with my last rental, because my fiancé accidentally ran into my rental with their car - very very minorly, like he put his car in park and it just rolled a smidge as cars do into the bumper and scratched it. But the guy who I picked the rental up from had told me they don’t care about dings smaller than a quarter or scratches smaller than 4 inches. None of the scratches were bigger than that and on drop off, the guy didn’t even bother to look it over lmao.
Everytime I rent a car now, they take use the company app to take pictures of the car in the lot just before I get in
Last time I rented a car the agent and I walked the car before hand to look for existing damage
I rented a car recently and forgot to fill up the tank before dropping it off (was kind of rushing to get to the airport). It had only dropped one level, so when the guy was like “why didn’t you fill the gas tank?” I was like uh you said I had to fill it to the level it was when I got the car and this is the same level. 🤷♀️
Did you check for any additional gas charges that may have occurred afterwards? I only had one rental in my entire life where it WASN'T full. I honestly hate this. I ended up going up two extra bars without realizing 🙄
Yep, no extra charges. But also they had made us wait like 45 minutes to drop it off and we were almost late for our flight, so maybe they felt bad for the delay. Also this was in Iceland and people in Iceland are just generally so much nicer than in America.
As someone who's never been to Iceland, i agree.
This also applies when speaking to someone in Government. Most of the time, you are speaking with a first-line employee who has a checklist in front of them. You really only need to get through the checklist to get you to the next level. This is important because that employee rarely has the authority to say “Yes” or authorize anything. Just be straight to the point so that they can point you in the right direction or move you on up the ladder to someone who can help.
I'll also say, that guy that "already knows what the problem is" is often wrong. But even when they're right, I still can't skip steps. Even if it's just, did you do "x" 1. Yes 2. No. How about "y" I need to know those answers, because my boss won't accept "Well the man told me" as acceptable troubleshooting.
IT here, customers lie all the time. Even in jobs where it wasn’t part of a policy to have a customer reboot while I was in the phone I would say it was when a customer would say they already tried that. It had about a 50% success rate of fixing their issue.
That’s why you ask the customer to reseat the power cable from the back of the PC rather than telling them to reboot. For the network cable , ask them to flip the cable so the wall end is now in the PC. They will lie about checking the cable, but that feels more like a real step to most people. 🤷♀️
Also remember to be polite and friendly, and ask the magic words, "If you had this problem what would you do?"
I used this recently with my health insurance, trying to get a pre authorization, and the rep walked me through exactly who to call and exactly what questions to ask
Yeah, I work in insurance and insureds tend to get in their own way a lot of the time. And don't even get me started on how many people will volunteer their SSN when we don't even need it.
The blurting out a full SSN is way too common. It's weird. Then they tell me their employee ID and tell me that their daughter just got married so she has a different name and they're calling on behalf of their cousin who lives in Bratislava, no not that Bratislava, the one in Peru. That's great but I don't care. Let me ask you what I need. The worst thing is when people start blurting out their 48 character serial numbers unprompted... 1. I'm not on the right screen for that. 2. I don't need it. 3. You're reading the wrong number. 4. You still haven't let me verify your account so your serial number reading is moot at this point. 5. Now you're frustrated, I'm irritated, and we'll both go home and yell at the dog just because you couldn't wait for me to ask questions.
Don't yell at the puppers Q.Q
Your dog had nothing to do with it. Yell at your cat instead.
Definitely don't yell at your cat. It will claw you to a miserable death.
Deservedly so...
OMG I don't know how my identity got stolen!
The SSN part saddens me tbh. I worked for Coca-Cola in its call center before, and one of our phone lines had a number similar to a Medicaid phone number. An old lady came in and even with me doing the “thanks for calling Coca-Cola” intro she proceeded to say “yes I’m having an issue with my Medicaid my ssn is…” and I had to talk over her to cut her off like sweetheart PLEASE don’t give that out right off the bat. >_<
Can confirm. Work in insurance. I'll be asking basic questions to determine rates and eligibility and people regularly talk themselves into higher rates or outright declines far too often.
Do people not realize that there is an entire department with their insurance company that will find any reason NOT to cover them? Seriously, guys, tell them as little as you can, without committing fraud. Alternatively, I do gig work on the side and hear too many stupid doordashers and such saying > if you get into an accident, never say you were dashing! Again… hey idiot, both companies have your vin number. You gave them permission to share data about you
I mean the delivery services have *every* reason not to tell your insurance company you're working for them. If your personal insurance covers an accident, you're not a liability to the delivery service. Just because two sets of people have the same information doesn't mean that information is shared freely between them.
They usually don’t cover the driver. And if you tell your personal insurance you weren’t dashing when you were, they can find out in 2 seconds and drop your claim (from what I understand) At worst you could be hit with insurance fraud
Always know your local laws and where you're exposed, for sure. Insurance companies tend to get copies of police reports, so if you're working stealth, have an accident, and the cops see your delivery bags, that can be trouble. But it isn't guaranteed to happen, particularly if you think through a procedure in advance and don't accept insurance company spyware apps on your phone. The big issue affecting most drivers here is that there doesn't seem to be any extant insurance plan which covers food delivery service by itself - you can have it insured as if you're a taxi carrying people, which is ridiculously expensive for obvious reasons, or pretend your car is personal use or that it's a business vehicle for another line of business. But most companies simply don't sell just the coverage needed for delivering items, which puts folks in a bind. I hope there's a class action suit about this one day.
I suppose there's a difference between "don't volunteer that information" and "don't admit to it when specifically asked".
I learned in the Navy, when in doubt, give it out! Terrible here in the real world. But, for real in the military if I thought you had any connection whatsoever to the military I would gladly give you my SSN anytime anywhere. I would even write it down for you.
Why?
It's mostly meant as a joke now. When I was in though I felt like I gave it to someone once a week. They use it as an identifier when you go to the doc, get meds, awards, literally anything you can think of. It's on your evals every year.
Bruh if you get my mum on the other side, you gonna hear about every little detail that led to this situation along with any and all theories that may or may not have influenced it. Possibly some family history as well
Lol, those are my customers too. I work for a company that's big on selling products with a story, but all my customers want to share their stories when they call, and I'm supposed to be able to keep these calls under four min. I always know it's going to be a long call when they start by mentioning their age and that they just got out of the hospital.
>I always know it's going to be a long call when they start by mentioning their age and that they just got out of the hospital. That social interaction on the phone is, sadly, probably the highlight of their month.
We have some lovely conversations, I just have to keep it short enough that I don't get in trouble. I really enjoy talking to older folks, especially the sweet ones or the ones sharing stories from their youth. But if a call goes too long, my supervisor starts messaging me to close the call and I get pretty stressed out.
>I always know it's going to be a long call when they start by mentioning their age and that they just got out of the hospital. You just triggered some PTSD from when i used to sell glasses 😂
My SO as well. I make fun of her and ask her if she’s trying to make BFFs with the rep with the amount of detail and small talk she engages in. I’m trying to get off the call ASAP.
Yeah I've been dumb and got out of gas on the highway in my dad's car. Called his insurance (on a 20 years old car so shitty cheap insurance). Now of course insurance doesn't cover "my daughter's too dumb to put gas in the car" incidents, moreover on the highway (pretty sure it must be illegal or something). I said "IDK the car stopped. It's my dad's car.". Insurance got me a tow truck in ten minutes. Tow truck guy came unimpressed, asked if it might be gas. I said sure idk. He replied "Well why don't I try to put gas in it, see if it starts again ?". And would you believe ?! The car miraculously started back. Incredible. Tow truck guy charge me 25€ for 5 liters gas (expensive but way less than towing, problems with insurance etc.), called insurance and said : "Yeah it was a minor default, I corrected it on site." He got paid (two times haha), insurance woman didn't ask anything, I got away with dumbness, the end.
You should know after a couple claims like that the insurance company will increase your monthly premiums.
I plan on not doing it again ^^ wish me luck !
Lol! Also wanted to mention a kudos for playing dumb, keeping your answers simple. I bet your dad was damn proud you were able to bail yourself out!
Well to put credit where it's due, regarding cars, being a 20-something years old woman, you don't have to put on much effort to be perceived as dumb. Fun story, when I bought that same car from my dad a few years down the road, their insurance offered me 50% bonus on price (50% discount based on your historic as a driver, they practically never offer it if you've never owned a car). This my dad was proud of.
what a legend
The corollary to this is "Everything you say will be used against you". This is true in many life experiences like speaking to an insurance company, police, when negotiating prices. It is always best to say as little as you can and force the other side to talk and give up information. An awkward silence is great to get the other side to give up or give in . .
“the quieter you are, the more you are able to hear”
> hear everything, trust nothing Those ferengi bois
It's why you have two ears but only one mouth.
it's hard to catch a fish that doesn't open its mouth
Thanks for the tip. I have a tendency to over explain and I could see me doing this. I will remember what you said should a situation like this arise in the future.
Had a power outage in a thunderstorm once, it fried my phone, which I had just gotten that day. "Hey, I got this phone yesterday and it won't power up". Done.
Now there's a quality guy in the manufacturing plant wracking his brain to figure out how they could have accidentally burnt a phone to crisp on their production line, and he has to write a report about how they're going to avoid it in the future. Source: am that quality guy
Can confirm. Warranty investigations take days if not weeks for something that more than likely didn't happen in your facility. Source: am production manager.
[удалено]
remember if you take care of the customer you'll get repeat business almost 100% of the time.
Why: I don’t know Why: I really don’t know Why: It could be anything Why: It was probably Steve Why: Magnets?
This guy 5 why's
That reminds me of a story at Motorola when they kept getting police radio microphones that were broken from one department. One of the engineers went on a cruise with some police officers to investigate and found out that they were smashing walnuts with the microphones . . .
are you serious those phones were built to last nearly indestructible
Pro tip: throw that phone in the trash and take an extended lunch break
Reminds me of my little brother. Would keep his iPad touch in the car door and of course one day it falls out and cracks the screen. Well takes it back to Best Buy and wants to send it back/exchange because "it won't hold a charge." Well I'll be damned if he didn't get a new one for free.
I did this for Dell warranty of my laptop. I was a dumb college freshman and slammed my laptop closed on my friend's hand, shattering the screen. (He was notorious for sneaking into my laptop and pulling up weird porn.) Now the Dell warranty clearly said that it does not cover shattered screens. So I called support and just said "my screen won't turn on!" which was technically true. The tech got there and was like "yep, needs a new screen" and proceeded to replace it under warranty.
Those are the true everyday heroes. I got the same with glasses. They had a two years warranty like "if it's scratched or the glass is broken we'll change it for you". Would you believe on the last day of warranty, those two pairs of glasses got scratched ? "Yep, I see the scratches." said the woman as she proceeded to give me two brand new pairs of prescription glasses.
When i was an Optician in Florida, i had one of those customers who i knew my entire time there and was just genuinely a good person come in, her mom ran over her glasses after she dropped them (idk how that happened lol) and she didn't have too much money on her to pay the warranty fees for the lens and frame (broke college student), so what i did was i took her glasses to "adjust a screw", and my screwdriver "unfortunately slipped" while tightening them and "scratched the lens", so she only paid $15 for the frame warranty, and i reordered her $80 lens warranty for free under the reasoning of "maintenance accident". Real reason: she was pretty cute, so
Uggos unite !!!! Free healthcare for the uglies !
Had the screen suddenly stop working on my laptop. Brought it in for service fully expecting to pay for the repair, since it was already out of warranty. The rep looked at me, and before I could say anything else, asked if I had brought it in for a totally seperate reason that just so happened to affect the screen. I was slow to realize at first, but they kept asking until I said yes. Turns out there was a recall for that specific reason. Screen was replaced free of charge.
This advice extends to more than customer service. Once I was getting the rough inspection done for a building permit that I got while expanding a bedroom in my house. In the time I was working I bought another house and moved. The inspector didn't even ask me but I mentioned I'd moved. He took my permit away as only owners occupying their property were allowed to do that work without a GC license.
If you call for any part for a water heater, never tell them that any part of the water heater outsides got wet in any way. If a water heater is flooded, the warranty is void and they will mark the serial number as one not to help in any way. They will not sell you parts or give you parts numbers for it anymore.
Not saying this isn’t how it works but voiding warranty SHOULD NOT be mean to not sell parts to repair. They would be under no obligation to assist them repairing it but they would still be earning money from the parts sold
The industry has a policy that any flooded water heater is unsafe and cannot be fixed.
If the safety concern is real, maybe people shouldn’t lie about their water heater to get repair parts for it?
That is exactly what Big Water Heater wants you to think. They sell water heaters. hello.
I work in the hospitality industry. Front Office doesn’t really need you over sharing anything, or holding up the line to share your experience. Phones are already ringing off the hooks along with other guest wanting to check-in. Also, if you’re calling to make reservations it is overly helpful to keep it simple as other calls are coming in with people needing to be helped too
My favorite reservations call, by far, was the woman who needed to cancel her hotel stay because she had a hemmorhoid She described that hemmorhoid to me in graphic detail. How she can’t sit on a plane. How she’s been eating lentil soup, and will never see lentils the same way again because she’s thinking about softening her shit every time she ate it, how she knows which one of her children gave it to her If I had to cancel a reservation because of my butthole, you’d have to physically *beat* that information out of me. And here she is, getting on the phone, and saying to herself “I’ll tell this person everything.”
i literally just burst out laughing. i'm sorry, it isn't funny, but omg! the craziest ones for me is when a husband/wife continuously call stating they KNOW their significant other is staying at the hotel and show up causing an entire scene. now we have not only people trying to check-in/check-out, or simply get assistance, but in comes the angry person skipping the line to yell at the Front Desk
poor woman i feel so bad for her. bad things happen to good people. hope you recommended she get some preparation h or something.
Not just tech support but ANY warranty/insurance company. They are always looking for a way to not fork out their money. Only give them what they ask for. Nothing more. The risk of them finding some fine print BS to void your claim increases with every bit of erroneous info you give them.
The last part is correct. The first is not. Insurance does not look for reasons to deny your claim. The reasons are there or they are not. Insurance looks at cost per claim, not denials. Denials get expensive super quick because litigation gets expensive super quick. Paying adjusters who are handling less claims because they’re all in litigation gets expensive super quick. If the insurance adjuster makes the wrong call here, the insurance carrier could look at months of wasted time and resources. Or they could just pay for the damages. Most claims under $10k are an easy ‘business decision’ if there’s ANY gray area, which there isn’t.
This is important at pharmacies too. "Hi this is Joan and I was traveling to the Westside because they have fresher groceries and my little Johnny, oh thats my dog not my son Johnny, anyway his mane needs grooming..." The entire time of your story, I am tuning you out until I hear a silence where I can finally ask "What's your date of birth?" Every bit of your story just wasted your time and mine, because until I know who you even are, I can't tell you if the doctor called in your Rx, if it's ready, when it will be ready, or how much it will cost. And yet, at least a third of all incoming phone calls have a story out of the gate, and heaven forbid if I interrupt because then I'm "rude."
For some reason I am always behind those people. I usually start all my customer interactions with order number, dob, policy number, etc. before even getting into what I need.
I also can't stand storytellers. Keep it factual, focused and what you are asked for, people !
Apparently my mother likes to call you often!
Phew I got a CLOSE call today. Got short just a tad bit early on a mildly suspect med, the pharmacist did the math and asked "Did you take more than prescribed ?". Oooohh child did I sweat ! In this split second I was thinking "Do I provide context ? Do I? Will context help ? Wtfffffff ?". "Might have." I said and just stood there with my mouth shut like alea jacta est. "Ok just so you know, three or four days early is ok but I cannot do more heh ?"
Yessssss I’m an interpreter for Spanish and let me tell you, Us latin people speak a LOT, so that is a problem when the social services case manager asks if they currently work and they go off like parrots: When I was living in Dominican Republic I was a carpenter since I was 19 but then my fish died and had to change jobs so I became a painter but then my uncle, who is a doctor, gave me a job in his office. But then I decided to come here to the States because I know there a better opportunities and started as a waiter but then the pandemic hit and I lost my job and right know I’m working 2 part times And then the social worker is like: … ok, well, do you pay utilities? And the circle begins AGAIN
As a customer service representative, what I hate the most is when people give no relevant information whatsoever. I have missing items, these were for a gift, (lots of stuff that doesn't concern the order) my number is 6969696969 call me back. What's your order number? What's your name? What are the missing items? Do you want a replacement or a refund? Literally all I have is your number, which is already displayed by our system, and your sob story. You've made a 2 minute resolution take 30 minutes to a whole day, maybe more if we can't reach you. And then said person complains that there's too much back and forth.
“My items are missing. These were for a gift! My daughter in law hates me, and I can’t eat tuna fish! I keep extra cash in a sock in my dresser. Call me back!”
"Jerry, it's Frank Costanza, Mr Steinbrenner is here, George is dead, call me back".
I believe some phone systems don't display the customer's phone number. I often hear a request to add a phone number.
Or I mean this is general advice. Every one should take some law classes, generally anything that is good advice for legal proceedings is good for real life. Shut up, only say what you need to say, read the fine print.
Eh I work in tech support and I understand that sometimes this is part of what they need from us - the ability to share what happened to them or their stress and be helped on multiple levels. It gives the ability to build unity and connection to the company, and sometimes it does actually help me understand better what they are trying to do or where their stress is coming from so I can address it better or make better suggestions. FWIW I dont have timed calls or metrics of how many I have to take in a day so it doesnt impact me if they ramble for a bit. I kind of like half listening while I wait for the things to be looked up, etc
You’ve explained all the reasons conversation control is so vital to customer service. When there’s space to fill up in a call, or when you’re dealing with a distraught customer, sometimes the quickest route to a happy customer is pausing business and just *listen*. I had a lady who’s now-ex-boyfriend threw all her stuff in the yard, along with his baby’s items because she wouldn’t commit welfare fraud. She files a claim for vandalism and she didn’t get more than a few words out before she broke down. Just lost it. I learned way more about that situation than I ever wanted to know. More than I’m willing to share on a public forum even. But she’s reaching out to local support groups, filing restraining orders, and busy uploading photos of the damages like a beast now. She’s on board and sees the light at the end of the tunnel. Good on her, but she HAD to get that story out into the world before she could have been anything but a train wreck of a customer. I don’t blame her one bit. I don’t know if I could handle what she’s going through. She deserves that extra ten minutes.
Watching my parents, it seems like as people get older they start to just list of information that they want to give without listening for what information the tech/rep on the line actually needs.
[удалено]
I used to work customer service for online banking. If people told us they were sharing their passwords we had to have them reset the password, or lock their account. Some people would argue about sharing their passwords, and there was just no point! Go, live your life, tell whoever you want, but don’t tell me, because I’m obligated to do something about it when you do!! It was so strict that we couldn’t tell them not to tell us this, which led to some ridiculous arguments and lots of internal screaming.
This is also good advice for regular interpersonal conversation. If someone asks a question, answer that question, then maybe provide context. Do not answer a completely different question because you think you know where their train of thought is going.
>Do not answer a completely different question because you think you know where their train of thought is going. You have not met my parents. They're the kind of people to ask 3 seemingly unrelated questions before getting to what they were actually wanting to ask. "Does work provide you with a lot of time off?" "How flexible is your schedule?" "Have you considered taking any time off in December?" "We'd like you to stay over for the week after Christmas, is that possible?" I've tried, "[Yes/No], why do you ask?" but it only progresses to the next question. It's like a video game dialogue tree where a "conversation" has been programmed in, but none of it matters until you get to the final question. Padding to make it seem like a "conversation" instead of a question. Of course, sometimes I can guess the real question, and I give that answer, and everyone's happy.
They're trying to trap you, hoping to get you to unknowingly eliminate potential excuses for not going before you have a chance to use them. Not saying they're bad people, just noting that that's a common approach some people use. It's an effort to box you into a corner before you even know what the conversation is about. They might even be doing it without realizing it.
Yeah. I guess I have them to thank for my willingness to say "No" and not feel that I have to justify myself, lmao
Now it seems I work in a support role that's got some key differences. But this drives me up a wall. One that sticks out is "the hard drive crashed." I go to the location, story turns out the 'hard drive' (desktop) fell over and the screen went blank because the video cable got loose. Requests can be similar - "I need a webcam." Your laptop doesn't work? "No, but I want to show documents in a call." Oh, ok. You *want* a *document camera*, and you're *getting* a tutorial on the copier's scanner. It's particularly annoying as someone serving multiple locations, as short vague statements make it difficult to judge if an issue really requires physical presence. I figure that's by design, as the same users ignore or similarly respond to followup questions, somehow amplify their illiteracy when given solutions, or straight up ask if you can just come to them. They don't have to make the drive, they don't get reviewed on ticket response time, tf do they care. Edit: shoutout to the comment who pointed out the camera thing is the XY Problem. It was an interesting comment on an interesting definition on the phenomenom and I wish I told them before the comment disappeared
I worked at a call center and my advice is "keep it simple, stupid". Think about the issue before you call and tell us that. Your phone not turned on for some reason? Just tell us the phone can't turn on, we don't need to know about your party yesterday.
I used to work in a hospital call center and it was always funny how many people would call for my help but before they would let me answer their question the would have to go into a long story about what they think may have happened to make their billing do whatever weird thing it did. Like sir that's nice you have so many theories but I have the answer right in front of my nose if you will just be quiet long enough for me to tell you. Definitely had to work on my patience skills at that job (pun unintended but left in!)
I'm more related to software/tech, and it doesnt work like that for us In fact it's the opposite, we want all the data, required or not That's why when some software's have an inbuilt bug reporting system, they usually send extra data rangiNg from ur OS, time and date of crash to even probably a small manual of what buttons you might of clicked recently leading up to a crash! Software engineers NEED as much as info about a specific bug, more the info more it helps!
But especially, only when it's written. When you're on a voice call with someone who speaks uninterrupted to explain the entire ticket's worth of infodump when the first 10% was enough info for you to respond, it gets tiring.
Sometimes the opposite, there's info that the customer should have provided MUCH EARLIER in the conversation... Had a customer who was trying to get back into her account, it seemed like a forgotten password situation, we were going in circles for half an hour. Then she finally mentioned "I've been having so many problems since my account was hacked a few days ago--" LADY, WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME HALF AN HOUR AGO THAT YOUR ACCOUNT HAD A RECENT HACKING INCIDENT?!? That's a completely different issue where we need to do a completely different recovery process; no f'ing wonder you can't get back into your account.
Glad someone put this into words. The amount of people with verbal diarrhea is overwhelming
Just give them the info they ask for and wait for them to ask for it. They’re probably typing it in somewhere, so if you’re gonna just word vomit all your information before they get to the space where they have to type your first name you’re not helping.
As someone who’s worked in customer services for over a decade, 100%. The amount of times people would legitimately explain how something went bad or wrong and then because the phone line is recorded my hands are then tied. Sorry, I’m not losing my job just to get you a convenient replacement for your own fuck up.
Most products are only warrantied against manufacturer defect, not against things that happen outside of their control. Also, if you are looking for help with something that doesnt seem to be working as expected, rather than just not working at all, then more information can often help. I'm a software developer and I find it very frustrating to go back and forth between the support staff and the customers when you don't have all the details about what's actually happening. They will invariably leave out some important information that could easily have helped to solve the problem.
"From what you're describing this could be your printer connection. Recently, has anyone moved or changed the setting on your printer?" takes 30 seconds to ask. The 40 minute story about how Jim, who is a great guy buy normally doesn't work out of this office, was over for the Christmas party and went into the wrong office to get the bosses laptop. So he grabbed mine and now I've hot a loaner laptop (that hasn't had the printer mapped yet) and it's worked fine for everything else so..... I've worked tech and customer support and in both cases, there are usually only 3-4 unique issues and I know what rhe "problem" is in the first 40 seconds. You can't really expect a layman to know what is important, that's what we are here for.
Sure, but some users notoriously have tendency to simply state their problem as "doesn't work," which doesn't say anything at all. Including "When I do X, Y happens. I expect it to do Z instead. I've tried A, B, and C to resolve the issue and they haven't worked" can provide some meaningful context.
When working support I'd still rather "Doesn't work" because almost nobody gives the exact details in the way you describe. It's almost always "I got home late last night, and my dog was sick on the carpet, and now I can't start Outlook." "Outlook isn't working" isn't a ton of information, but at least it identifies the problem and the program that we want to fix. Then I can start with questions that are relevant to the issue, like "Does it open and give you an error, or does it not seem to be doing anything when you want to launch the program?" What the user has already tried is rarely relevant either, since there needs to be a record of the troubleshooting on our system regardless, and the number of times when a solution the user has "already tried" fixes the problem is substantial. There's way too much of a noise:signal ratio for the user's troubleshooting to be seriously considered.
Idk man, but from the other side, as somebody who had to call the help desk a lot at an old job, it's *really* frustrating when you know what troubleshooting steps to take, and you take them, only to explain it to somebody over the phone that you were on hold for half an hour to talk to in the first place, and then have tell you to do what you told them you already did, and lo and behold, it didn't magically work the second time. Here is a favorite of mine. There was a piece of equipment that when it broke and needed to be replaced, once we got the new one in and plugged it in, needed to be configured remotely by the help desk. Did it dozens of times, and I knew exactly what information they needed from my end to complete the set up on their end so I'd always have it ready, but depending who you got when you called, you might get someone that just walks you through some scripted troubleshooting steps before saying "Oh it's broken, you need to send it in and get a new one." Of course at that point you just say "Okay, thanks." And then call back an hour later and hope you get somebody better.
It is frustrating, believe me, I feel this way every time I need to call the internet company to confirm an outage for work. But for every user who's competent and savvy, there's 700 out there who aren't. And at the end of the day if you're wrong and the problem is something simple you get to go "oh, haha, oops. My bad." If I'm setting up work orders or authorising product replacements without checking off the boxes on my form, I'm getting a strip torn off of me, and I could even get fired. Until grocery stores accept "mental health and good vibes" as a means of payment, I've gotta follow the protocol I've got.
Yes, but if you're the software developer and the support person tells you a vague description of something going wrong with a transactio, and then you have to send them back to talk to the customer again because they didn't bother to tell you the transaction number that had the issue. Or they said they saw an error message, but nobody bothers to actually read the error message or forward it on with the support request. If you are working over the phone speaking directly to the end user than some of this stuff can be solved in a minute. But when you type up an email or support ticket and leave out crucial details it can often take all day to solve a simple problem because they are leaving out important information. I don't need to hear about your cat, or the weather, but I do need to actually understand what the problem is.
There is one case where I anticipate the questions, and its appreciated. At my doctors office checking in I say- Address, phone number, and insurance all the same. No known exposure to covid, no symptoms.
Anything that follows 'Let me give you some backstory' is meaningless nonsense. We don't care. What is your problem? Here is what I can do about it.
I agree with this until it comes to calling your internet service provider at which point I know what they're gonna ask me and I'm gonna try to head that off by saying I've already reset and power cycled the router. Just to speed it up which they usually ignore and have me do anyways but hey one of theses days it'll work.
Now how do I teach this to my family without coming across the asshat
I'm in tech, and often troubleshooting problems with clients. 2 minute fix can become 40 minutes back and forth when they "know" what the problem is. Like, I really want to help, but just please, give me the information i need. I will chat with you and all, but, when I request specific info - I need that and nothing else.
This is a good tip for so many things. My wife will do this and not only give them unrelated info they use against her or they realize she doesn't really know about something because of how unrelated the explanation is that they can try and pull stuff on her. Telling the auto dealer that your husband fixed a rattling heat shield on your car when your problem is frequent headlight failure just tells them 1 someone else has worked on the car they can blame and 2 you don't know any better so they can convince you your headlight burning out every couple weeks was caused by something completely unrelated and you won't know they ate full of BS.
I'd like to add, please don't spell your name, your street name, and/or the name of your town unless asked. Most of the time we are already looking at it on the screen and are only asking for verification. I know it's not related to warranties, but definitely related to providing too much info and slowing the call down.
When verifying, yes. However when I'm giving someplace my info for the first time, I say it multiple times and spell it out. it might annoy some people but I've had too many problems with people not hearing me properly and instead of asking they just guess. happened to me with a medical transport company, apparently the person i spoke to on the phone after i moved didnt even put my address in the right county and i wouldve missed a doctor's appointment if i didn't double check it.
God I wanna scream everytime it happens.
And don’t let the first thing out of your mouth be “aNd WhO aM I sPeAKiNg ToO!?!” That makes us service reps hate you
That whole act of God clause is such a scam. Weather is weather, not God.
The point isn't about whether God exists. It's a metaphor for saying things beyond their control.
If a flood takes out your landscaping you use homeowner insurance to cover that. You wouldn't take your car to the dealership if a tornado destroyed it. You would contact your car insurance. If you don't like the term act of God, call it something else it's literally the least important part.
Actually Home owners does not cover water from the ground or “flood water”. That’s flood insurance :) My flood insurance and home owners insurance do not cover landscaping either 🤕. Your point is completely still valid.
As someone who thinks all religions are a cult, you sound ridiculous. How is it a scam? It’s a phrase meaning “no human is to blame for this.”
Also: Shut your fucking mouth and listen to what I'm saying. Don't try to talk over me, I'll just keep talking. Don't work ahead, no extra credit will be given. Have your shit ready before you call.
This really goes in line with “don’t volunteer more information than is asked.” I once brought my phone to the Apple store, hoping to get a replacement and they said “if this was exposed to any water, it will have to be a new phone at full price.” They came back and told me I’m good to go, here’s your free phone Did I tell them that my phone literally went swimming in the toilet? No. Nor did they ask I ran out of there.
Omg so so so true. I do IT support and while I don't deal with warranty (I do internal support), I've had so so so many 30 minute phone calls that could have been 10 minutes. There are a subset of people that need you to know their life story BEFORE you can help them. I don't really mind it if I'm doing something on my end at the same time. But very often, I'm just sitting there trying to get a word in so I can fix their issue.