Please hold... Please hold... Please hold...

Try calling Northern Computers...

Blah blah blah... ...for "other" options, press 5... BEEEP

blah blah ... for tech support, press 3... BEEEP

For our real stuff press 1, for our cra.... BEEEP

For our Version 1 product line, press 1, for version 2 product line, press

If you have a ticket number press 1, if you don't have a ticket number press

Please enter your dealer ID... If you don't have... BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

If this is your dealer ID, press 1.. BEEEP

Your estimated hold time is 25 minutes...

The problem is all the idiot installers and there companys who will not train them properly calling up and tying up tech support with common questions that they should know the answer for. How many times when i call tech support the person answering the questions is glad to talk to some one who has a legitamte programing or other quastion not bullshit how do i wire in a door contact.and other stupid stuff

Nick, that is part of the problem, and it compounds another problem. Quite often tech support people assume you don't know anything and make you go through a lot of ancillary bullshit before addressing your real problem.

Although to be honest I can certainly remember many times when one of my guys couldn't figure out why a Napco fire zone wasn't working properly because they had it wired up to the burg terminals on the board. Grrrrrrr!!!!!

Bob La Londe

There's definitely a trick to getting at the ability of the caller. I used to do phone tech support for Heathkit, and I developed a way to get to their knowledge level fairly quickly. Sometimes they'll tell you what they know, but sometimes you have to judge the silence on the other end when you ask a test question like: 'is that RMS or peak?' But yeah, smart customers are either great or major trouble. They either overlooked something easy, something is busted, or the problem is impossible to solve.

These days, some companies figger idiots with a script will do the job.

-John O

Subject: Re: Please hold... Please hold... Please hold... Newsgroup: alt.security.alarms => John O There's definitely a trick to getting at the ability of the caller. I used

There is also a method in asking a question. When I call I tell them *exataly* what equipment I'm dealing with. Then go into great detail about what I'm trying to accomplish. Follow-up with every step I've tried to make it work.

If you give them something to work with, they will work with you.

As long as they aren't script jockeys. For example, the Indians who support Dell. That is the biggest waste of time, some of those fools don't know anything, and can't do anything. And like I believe a guy with that accent is named Bobby. LOL.

-John O

There's a good reason for that Bob

Thats usually the reason :)

yah...I spoke with one of those guys yesterday.

I asked who I was speaking to..he replied: Eton Ok...fine. Ok Eton when if I have to call you back what's your extension, and = lemme get the spelling of your name... Eton, spelled: Ethan Oh you mean Ethan? Yes, that's right Eton.

Who's on first? Yes.

S*it, freekin guy doesn't even know his own name.

I ended up fixing problem on my own...I figgered if he didn't know his = own name he's not likely to be much help on a tech problem.

Subject: Re: Please hold... Please hold... Please hold... Newsgroup: alt.security.alarms => Crash Gordon® Who's on first? Yes.

hahahahhahaa!!!

Come to ISC and front them off in front of everyone at their booth. It doesn't do much good, but it will make you feel better. Fun to watch 'em wiggle around. js

That's funny. Ultimately I discovered that when we sent in two cell authorization requests at the same time they screwed up. Of course it took me another day and tremendous amount of wasted tiem to do it because of their tech support snafu.

They authorized the first one for the first account. I hada tech on site and we tested it. The I sent him to the second site. We called in to authorize (two step authorization process) the second one for the second account, and we tested it. It didn't work. They claimed htey saw the signlas, but we never got them at the central station.

Upon reviewing activity for both accounts we had put cell units on the next day I found that thre was a false alarm dispatch later int he day on the first account. Hmmmmm..... Yup. That was the time we were test on the second account. They authorized the second unit to the first account. When I called in to check the status of the unit sn that was supposed to be assigned to the first account they said it was not an active unti.

Oh, boy!!!!

We got it all straight in the end.