If you’re like me you try to avoid technical support as much if not more than you avoid going to the hospital.\u00a0 But sometimes you just have to.\u00a0 Something doesn’t work right and its plainly not your fault.\u00a0 What do you do?\u00a0 Yes, you tap your network and you try to get around it as much as possible but sooner or later there’s nothing else to do but go through tech support.<\/p>\n
Many times they can’t help you.\u00a0 Most of the time you might be lots smarter than tech support.\u00a0 But proving you’re smarter won’t solve your problem.<\/p>\n
The best thing to do is play dumb.\u00a0 Especially when you get the answer that sounds like “We can’t help you”.\u00a0 This lesson comes from a good friend of mine who is one of the most tech savy persons I know.\u00a0 He says you just need to know the magic words.\u00a0 The magic words are:<\/p>\n
(Then repeat ad-naseum)<\/p>\n
When they tell you that they don’t carry a part any more: I don’t understand<\/p>\n
When they tell you that its not covered under warranty any more:\u00a0 I don’t understand<\/p>\n
When they tell you you’ll have to come back later:\u00a0 I don’t understand<\/p>\n
When they tell you what you’re doing is not supported:\u00a0 I don’t understand<\/p>\n
Then they’ll try to explain it again, and this will take them about 5 minutes.\u00a0 After they have explained it, you simply repeat:\u00a0 I don’t understand.\u00a0 Then we go in circles until someone breaks.\u00a0 Since its easier to say “I don’t understand” than to explain in 30 sentences why they can’t help you, you will eventually get some type of best effort non-standard support help.\u00a0 I find that most people want to help you once they find you are clueless.\u00a0 Supporting the arrogant is not as fun as supporting the ignorant because the person feels like they are actually doing good in the world by helping some poor clueless person out.<\/p>\n
I told my friend about it today.\u00a0 He’s been struggling to get a part for his old macbook.\u00a0 He’s gone into the Apple store about 5 times.\u00a0 Apple told him that he would have to send it in for\u00a0 $300 part.\u00a0 On this last trip he was armed with the magic words.\u00a0 He just kept telling them “I don’t understand”.\u00a0 They got so frustrated that they just gave him the part from off the shelf that looked brand new.\u00a0 Problem solved.<\/p>\n
The hardest thing about this method for me is doing it with a straight face.\u00a0 Its much easier to do over the phone, otherwise I just can’t pull it off, unless I’m really upset.<\/p>\n
Don’t try to prove you’re smart with support, that won’t get you anywhere.\u00a0 Just play their game, pretend you’re stupid and let them have their moment to shine.\u00a0 Most people want to do a good job.\u00a0 This is another method of customer support judo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
customer support judo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[99],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benincosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benincosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benincosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benincosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benincosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=271"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/benincosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2808,"href":"https:\/\/benincosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions\/2808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benincosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benincosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benincosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}