Mom is a very “green” computer user. Over the holidays she decided her machine was working very slowly and the best way to fix this was to go through “Add/Remove Programs” and remove all the programs she didn’t use anymore.
Big shock I get the call “my computer isn’t working right”. After about 40 minutes on the phone I figure out she probably deleted a video driver or some component of her ISP (would you believe she doesn’t use MSN – I have half a mind to tell her it’s the ISP but I don’t <grin>). This happens at a bad time for me because I can’t do this over the phone and she wants it fixed today.
She ends up bringing the machine to a local retailer where they install a new video card and now she can’t turn the machine on …
She decides to buy a new machine (I’m skipping a bit of the story but for time/sanity I cant re-live the whole ordeal).
Next call – she can’t get to the online game she plays (on Zone.com). I walk through firewall settings and Active X controls, but everything appears ok. Part of the deal is a support agreement with the OEM. I can’t help her. I tell her to call the Support Techs – she says she did and they said it was a software problem. Im not buying it so I try to connect to the site and play from my machine w/ XP and have no problem. I tell her to call them back and tell them you were able to play your games on your old machine and if they can’t help you’d like to return the computer.
Wouldn’t you know it was an OEM setting that needed to be changed (couldn’t get specifics from Mom).
My two takeaways – I have a new respect for phone support professionals – I know it can be very difficult trying to outline a computer problem over the phone; be it level of knowledge, language issues or just bad connection. This time it really was the hardware <grin>.
