The user who doesn't want help.

Posted by annoyedCDNthrowaway@reddit | talesfromtechsupport | View on Reddit | 39 comments

I am a software admin in an industry that you'd swear would be on the cutting edge. And if you think about military contractors who develop some of the tech we all eventually benefit from: you'd be right... well usually.

For those of us in the civilian sphere though; change comes slow, glacial even.

We recently transitioned from our 20 year-old primary platform to a new one. 6 months of blood, sweat, tears, and some new gray hairs for me. But we got it done.

Many of my users though were married to the old system and not happy with the change. Their objections were partly that it was different and partly that the new system no longer allowed our operation to behave like it was the wild west. Nothing brings out user animosity like justified permissions restrictions.

One in particular loves to send in support tickets that consist mostly of vague complaints with little directional hits thrown in. After many back and forth emails (it is mandated that we never do his initial troubleshooting over the phone for... reasons), my team can usually translate his vague complaints into an actual task he's struggling with.

At this point it is moved to a recorded call.

The conversation from here generally goes as follows:

Support: if I understand you correctly you are attempting X task and it's not happening as fast as you want.

User: Yes, it was so easy in the old system, why can't it be like the old system.

Support: I understand, using a new system can be frustrating, but you know how unstable the old system was. You wouldn't want us to continue using a system that puts (insert very VIP client here)'s data at risk because we didn't upgrade? Let's see what we can do for this issue.

Are you completing process X via steps D, E, F, G, H, & I.

User: Yes... insert vague complaints again.

Support: While those steps do work, try step A, B, C, D, you should get the same results, but much faster.

User: That does work and it is faster. (tone should be as begrudging as possible)

Support: Wonderful, do you think that will help you complete task X more efficiently and reduce some of your frustration?

User: No. I don't like steps A - D. I'm going to do it the other way.

User: hangs up.

We've been fully in the new system for 6 ish months now and this call happens so frequently, I had to ban facepalming because my team were giving themselves bruises and start to plot vengeance. As of three weeks ago his tickets are now exclusively directed to myself and our IT manager because as soon as we respond the answer is usually "never mind" because he knows we won't tolerate his pretend incompetence.

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dannybau87@reddit

I had the same issue at major car company.
Cheat sheets of common tasks saved me endless hours of back and fourth.
Having standard responses ready to paste in when people are unhelpful is also a lifesaver.

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mailboy79@reddit

100% this. To make it easier just put the canned responses into your email as signatures now you can select them from a menu and drop them in at once.

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himitsumono@reddit

Or if using Outlook, there's a feature similar to Word's QuickParts. I can't tell you the name or even how to find it because MS has done an incredibly competent job of hiding it. BUT you respond to an email with text, formatted if you like, images, whatever, save it as a quickpart and give it a phrase to invoke it next time.

User sends you a vague problem report, you reply and start to type Did You... and as soon as you hit the space bar OL offers to send them the complete "Did you try turning it off and back on again? Here's a picture of the ON/OFF switch, and a screenshot of how you do it from the Windows menu."

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vinyljunkie1245@reddit

I'm not in support but surely the best thing to do is copy all their tickets, outlining the refusal to use the new system correctly, to their line manager and tell the manager no further tickets will be addressed from this person until they follow the correct process?

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mailboy79@reddit

While that would work if logic were being employed, a good number of managers would actually side with the caller/requester.

My method ensures that IT has documented and authoritative proof of refusal to comply with a company policy.

I dealt with this this past week, in fact. One of my co-workers was being pressured to circumvent a process designed to preserve company data, and was strongly told to disallow such activity, and when proof of multiple previous violations of the policy by the requester was highlighted, the requester fell into line. Without the proof, the policy would have been overlooked.

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LightPast1166@reddit

Cheat sheets work well when users are ignorant of the procedures to complete the task, or are in the process of learning those procedures. They don't help against the willfully ignorant.

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Mr_Gaslight@reddit

No, but these create a defensible and economical method of showing to managers that you've done your job, and that this is a vexatious user.

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Demnjt@reddit

I appreciate being reminded of the word vexatious and will be putting it to use at work soon.

blootereddragon@reddit

Bob if you spent half the time you sped complaining about the old system learning the new system you'd be the company SME on the new system. Or at least have a helluva lot more work done.

Kiro0613@reddit

What does SME stand for?

oloryn@reddit

Subject Matter Expert

lord_teaspoon@reddit

It also means Small-to-Medium Enterprise, and we just have to determine from context which one it is this time.

I'm having trouble treating one person as a Small-to-Medium-Enterprise.

That's a little on the small side, yes, but what if they're unusually enterprising?

Hmmmm. I seem to have misplaced my eye-roll icon.

Awlson@reddit

Subject matter expert

Work with your tech writers. Work attractive one-pagers to fire off to customers like this.

WinginVegas@reddit

Ha, tech writers. You are funny. Who has those?

When you have users demonstrating a high level of willful ignorance, sending concise instructions doesn't help.

CharcoalGreyWolf@reddit

This usually calls for getting said user's manager involved.

annoyedCDNthrowaway@reddit (OP)

Unfortunately, this person is well protected by the shareholders so we have to tolerate his nonsense.

When he's not acting like a spoiled child, he is extremely good at handling their needs so our frustration and inconvenience doesn't matter as long as he continues to keep them happy.

Don't waste time on the telephone having foolish conversations.

You have sent him an attractive copy showing the answer. CC his manager if necessary.

If he insists upon using a deprecated process, that's all on him.

Old-Class-1259@reddit

"I don't WANNA"

Cool, you've just confirmed your issue isn't a technical one and is outside the scope of IT support. Thank you for clarifying, ticket closed.

In writing, naturally.

We just went through a whole process over the last 2 months of creating a very large pile of documentation that proves his "difficulties" are entirely self-inflicted. It's going to the CEO and board next week in a way that will hopefully put an end to all this.

Unfortunately, my company is the picture next to the word "dysfunction" in the dictionary.

djshiva@reddit

We had a similar customer at an old job of mine. The issues the client had were his own incompetence and lack of understanding of the software, but he wouldn't pay for training. Instead he would call 5 times a day, 5 times a week, until we made the case that his (small account) was taking up the manpower of a large account and we were losing money on him. He was then limited in how much time he was allowed with support.

KodokuRyuu@reddit

Make sure any costs associated with him have been translated to dollars – money is the only language boards understand.

This, and include not just the outright costs, but the opportunity costs due to having to deal with his procedure complaints instead of being able to support other, genuine complaints.

Geminii27@reddit

Put him on the list of people who have to submit technical issues via their manager rather than directly.

DMercenary@reddit

"this page won't help me because I won't read it!"

gonzalbo87@reddit

Kneecaps, on the other hand, get the point across rather quickly.

Yes, these do. You give them an e-mail rather than have another soul-destroying conversation on the telephone.

emax4@reddit

"Grreeeaat, sir! I'll just fire off an email to your supervisor letting him or know that they have to call us from now on because you refuse to follow directions. Sadly those tickets will not get a priority status either. Have a nice day!"

Equivalent-Salary357@reddit

I had to ban facepalming because my team were giving themselves bruises.

LOL, thanks for this!

karnevil717@reddit

How about mandatory retraining with supervisor to better assist with these problems in the future

His supervisor is more useless than him. The supervisor can't even generate a quote in the system... But that's not surprising because he answers directly to the Director of Sales.

At this point you just have to send a copy of the resolution to their boss, or start mandating that the user in particular not be allowed to directly contact you for technical issues (they must go through their boss, who will then have a front-row seat to everything this user does when they have a 'complaint').