Tech Support

Yesterday, I got to call tech support while working on my parents computer. This ranks up there with my least favorite activities in the world. After spending 2 hours troubleshooting the issue I determined that it must be a server issue. Well, when you call tech support, they take you through everything that you've already been doing for the last two hours. And as we all know, most tech support has recently been outsourced to India, so not only do you get to be redundant, you get to struggle with the English language at the same time (apparently coin-furg-ation is the Indian pronunciation for configuration). And since it's my parents' computer, all the software is at least 5 years out of date.

The first person that I talked to had a great idea of deleting the coin-furg-ation file and he didn't have enough sense to back the file up first, but since he was getting paid for his advice, I figured that he was confidant in what he was doing. (I generally don't spend the extra time to back up files if I am confidant in what I am doing.) Well after deleting the coin-furg-ation file, we got an error that the configuration file could not be found - was I supposed to be surprised. So, he decided at this time to escalate my issue to the next tier.

The guy at the next tier spoke significantly better English and confirmed that there was a change in the server configuration. He gave me the settings that I needed to change but wanted to send me in a different direction for application support on the configuration file. Instead of spending another 20 minutes on hold, I figured that I could reinstall the software instead (since I'm sure that's the conclusion that application support would come to anyway).

Well, I reinstalled (and actually upgraded since we couldn't find the original installation disks) and I typed in the settings that I was given at the second tier of support - and of course it still didn't work. Doing all of my background server pinging and route tracing, it still seemed as though the server wasn't connecting.

When I called a second time, the guy started me through all of the same things that I had done before. Then it came to my mind that the newest version of the software that I had just upgraded had a better way of connecting to the server - I mentioned this to the tech support guy and as he rambled on for a few minutes about how much better the new connection is, I changed the configuration to include the new connection and confirmed that it worked correctly. Finally, the tech support guy started with "so let's open up the coin-furg-ation set up [yes the second call started on teir 1 again] - go to Start and Control Panel". I told him that I already had it confugured and tested, I thanked him for his time and ended the call.

So, my question: Is there a way to bypass tier one? Can there be a code phrase known by all tech support that says "let's act like we've done everything in your little booklet already, can you just pass me to tier 2, where probability is higher that I will talk to somebody who speaks English with a more American accent, and so I don't waste your time and you don't waste mine?"

The guy who had me delete my configuration file just sent me over the top. Especially when it still seems that their inital connection port is dead on their server. I guess that it forces the upgrade process, but I think that it seems really rude.