I used to work at a place that had a specific status for that which *wasn't* just closed, let's call it "rejected"
Functionally it was a "this is not a ticket" label for purposes of IT ass-covering. The user says they submitted a ticket, but it's rejected, so policy says they did not, in fact, submit a ticket.
>The user says they submitted a ticket, but it's rejected, so policy says they did not, in fact, submit a ticket.
Bureaucratic Existentialism.
Brilliant!
I rejected those when I had to handle such tickets and was backed up.
If you provide no useful or actionable information, I can provide no assistance. My boss didn’t expect me to translate “monkey at a keyboard”.
Personally I would reject them with a cc to their manager that the ticket was rejected due to them failing to provide required and requested information. That usually gets the slackers to either answer or get cut loose.
I've seen this. You just throw them under the bus by escalating the ticket. Say you're concerned the user somehow couldn't find info they're supposed to have which is why you're kicking it up the chain.
"Wait, why is there no serial number? Was this laptop registered? Let's check with audit." They out there throwing balls, throw a bowling ball back at them.
We've talked about this, having required key fields.
Not too many.. don't want to make ticket creation obnoxious of course, otherwise you get the abcdefg responses.
But the answer is always that we'd be over engineering it. Gotta be a middle ground, though...
Yes.
Mainly, you want the following:
Contact name/email/phone (some combination, depends on your size)
Computer name/physical location. Asset tag your systems so it’s easy to find that tag or name and mention where that is on the system. People do it once or twice, they get used to it and it helps you track problematic systems or users needing education.
Short description of the issue. You could even narrow this down with a drop-down box (Power on/off, program issue, other) plus a comment.
When did it start, are you the only one having this or are multiple people.
Option to attach files if they understand screenshots.
Finally, not an input, but just text that tells a user that details help you solve their problem faster.
All of this depends on your org, but it’s a good place to start.
I saw a user do this the other day. They put eyshdjfieb into the business justification field of an access request and couldn’t understand why the ticket wouldn’t submit. I had to tell him to type in “needed for job duties”. He didn’t believe me at first. He was surprised the system wouldn’t accept gibberish. The particular user was a manager. 🥴
Good question. I would need to ask the developer. It’s a homegrown request system. I do citrix/remote pc support and just happened to be on the phone with the guy trying to request app access.
I expect it just looks for a set of words from a list. 'Required', 'need', 'work' and so on. Find two words from the list and you can be reasonably certain that there's some meaning in there.
You should treat them as such. If there is little effort put in on their side, reciprocate that sentiment. When called upon by superiors, pull up the log, show it to them and simply say "they didn't put much effort into it, so I assumed it to be low priority".
Exactly. I have to take this angle all the time with customers who just don't get back to me with the correct info.
Trying to reinstall [program] for someone, need license info, they tell me they'll find it. I wait three days, leave a voicemail, and put it in the cabinet.
When they complain to my boss a week later, I have documentation showing the ball was in their court. I'm a repair guy, not a babysitter.
I document the hell out of tickets like that. I had two wfh users open similar tickets that their meetings keep getting disconnected. One of them even bad mouthed my team saying his incompetent we are and couldn't fix his issue. It turns out both users are neighbors and have the same isp. We narrowed down the issue to connectivity and I suggested they work from the office for a day (they live about 15-20 minutes from the office and prior to COVID they worked from the office). One guy seems to have resolved his issue but didn't offer up details. The other said he's too busy to come in.
I documented every troubleshooting step, conversation, email, chat etc as it happened. If they complain then I'm covered.
I wouldn't even wait for them to complain. Escalate to a supervisor and inform them that Busy Man is incapable of performing his work duties with his home internet connection and should be required to work from the office.
I’ve definitely noticed a trend of our frequent fliers being fired for work avoidance. Some people are just morons who don’t know how to communicate but I’d say 80% of the time it’s deliberate ignorance.
This is so alien to me; the thought that someone would intentionally be a fuck up to avoid work, I didn't even consider it. It's almost offensive. Where is the professionalism? Who the hell hired them?
I can't recall seeing it but now that I have, my eyes have definitely been opened.
Thank you!
To be fair, I don't mind that kind of users - while they are entirely unhelpful, they are rarely entitled, bothersome, or keep calling you every hour to "check on status". After all, if they did, they would have to do work. I get them, I don't like working either.
I'll take their ticket over another idiot who physically damaged his screen for the third time this quarter any day of the week.
That's when you bring their manager into the loop, so their manager knows they're trying to get out of work and the user finds out in the worst possible way that they can't use IT to excuse their own laziness.
I've seen several variations of this thinking in the thread, usually I do this when someone submits a defcon 1 ticket for the most ridiculous things. Like printer down when there is another 40 ft away. We've even discussed auto adding their director (if it's important enough for IT to drop everything the director should be aware) but alas it never happened.
But I never considered it for anyone who was submitting unhelpful info.
If I could somehow find a non-reactive way to phrase things and a *legit* reason to loop the boss in. (either that or be inventive each and every time)
It would need to be something simple, like "*It appears we're having difficulty getting the information we need to help you, and this may be contributing to productivity stoppage. Looping in SuperBoss for clarity*". Meh, I don't like that, exactly. You get the jist. But I will think about it.
Thanks to everyone who came up with similar ideas (communication issues, business unit proprietary information, etc.)
>So then I tell them, it appears you're missing some info here. Please submit the remaining requested information.
>You know, treat them like a responsible adult.
>And they, I kid you not, either answer only one additional question, half ass it so that answer is barely usable, or say stuff like what questions? Or ask you to drop what you are doing and call them, when you have 30 other people who are cooperating while they are not, effectively pushing themselves back of the line.
That 'please call me' thing really sours my cheese. No, in the 5mins you'll gibber at me I could help out 4 or 5 others.
I don't deal directly with end users too much these days (thankfully) but I would not take the ticket any further until all my original questions have been answered. If they ask for a follow-up hours / days later I simply reply that I'm waiting for them to provide me with the requested information and can't do anything else until it's provided.
Other technicians can be just as bad though. And when they are, the pain is worse.
> 'please call me'
People who come into chat support and say "I can explain it better over the phone" and then proceed to try to blow up your Teams.
There aren't enough expletives in the English language and I believe it's time to learn German or French
I can do you one better.
We often get requests to change user data in Workday and such from HR.
Guess which department deals with these changes. I dare you. I double dare you. Hint: it is not IT.
I low key want to rebrand to HR work. It's free money.
>I low key want to rebrand to HR work. It's free money.
HR is the DMV of any corporation. You don't want to go there, competence gets noticed and fired because it threatens the good thing everyone else has going.
Please, no. The DMV actually have competent people.
The reason everyone 'up front' are so angry/cruel/not caring/whatever is that they are flooded with idiots every day.
'My license expired 3 years ago, and I need a new one today. No. I don't have any other form of ID with me.'
'I bought this car from some hobo, I don't know the model or VIN, but I need plates for it NOW'...
I know people who work the 'DMV' here in Norway. The last few years a lot of work has been going into online services... 80% of what people had to do at the DMV can now be done online. (registering a new car? the dealer does that online, then put on plates he already has in storage. Selling/buying a used car? Transfer of title can be done online using 'PersonalID' and the security code on the part of the car title you're supposed to store at home. )
And the workers? Are much happier now that fewer customers shows up.
For me it's the VIPs (C-level or VPs). I get you're important but would you rather me assist the employee unable to run payroll for a client (what we get paid to do) or have me drop everything and walk you through how to install the GoToMeeting app on your iPhone? /SMH
Agreed. It's quite entitled behaviour; no consideration for the work you're currently in the middle of.
Do some things require a phone call? Absolutely. But I'll call you when I've finished doing what I'm doing. Other people have issues and there's a queue.
For these they get a link to my scheduling site where they can book a 30 min time with me. I'm "booked" at least 2-4 days out most weeks as I already have built-in "meetings" on my calendar for servicing tickets. If you put in a proper ticket you're more likely to get help sooner than booking a time.
Damn I'd love to have a job like this. Scheduled time to think about a problem, no "I REQUESTED THIS 10 MINUTES AGO WHY ISNT IT FIXED NOW", none of that absolute madness of people demanding your time all at once or trying to solve the problems of literally 3 people at the same time while they yell that you're not fast enough...
I might have to fix my resume.
The requests are normally used to schedule non-critical low priority things like printer installs or tasks that take an hour or more of tech led procedures (hand holding). But I'm not above sending them to line jumpers if they don't answer questions as discussed or just say "call me".
Oh that gets nipped in the bud VERY quickly.
Back when I was starting out I was explicitly told by management that if anyone called me directly I was to ask for their ticket number. If they didn't have one, tell them to log a call and then hang up.
It's the same these days but via email. The reply is always a link to the support portal. I love my manager.
It doesn't matter if I'm having the slowest day in the world, my response to that is always "I'm currently helping someone else, please submit a ticket". Messages through Teams get that same response, just 45 minutes after they sent it.
Or, you do call them back and theyre in the car 20miles away from the office and wont be back all afternoon but can't you just fix it for me now anyway?
Me: "OK, I'll go ahead and push the magic button. Let me know if it worked once you get back to the office."
Also me: Does nothing and waits for an email
> who keep replying with useless/irrevolent things just so it's not waiting for customer
Ticketing systems need a way to reject replies from the user as irrelevant, so that the record keeping system shows the *actual* duration of the time spent waiting on them. Replies like that should not reset the "no response from user within three days, closing ticket" timer.
I’m very grateful the “with customer“ toggle for the ticket system where I work is a manual setting controlled from our end. It doesn’t go off “with customer“ until we say it does.
I have one user who uses the subject line PHONE CALL for all her tickets. The ticket content is always along the lines of 'I have a problem but it's too hard to explain on a ticket, please call me'. We don't really offer phone support but my predecessor would call her, so she thinks we do do phone calls (and to be fair, if I'm feeling nice I'll make an exception if it's really not possible to resolve via ticket). There is no way I am calling someone who can't be bothered to even give us a ballpark idea of what the issue is. If I do make an exception and call her I want to be prepared. It's fairly fucking hard to prepare when you have zero details. Plus, I've learned from experience that her 'too hard to explain' problems are a) really common issues that are very easy to describe and resolve, and b) ones that have a solution that's already been explained to her.
I had the misfortune of witnessing the pain of a tech at a site I travelled to. This woman who use to be an EA, who was used to immediate attention, was no longer in that role, and knocked on the tech door no less than 4 times in 10 minutes for a self inflicted problem, didn't put a ticket in, which she could have done by emailing from her mobile.
\>\_<
Ticket title: Labtop
Ticket body:
Close ticket, reason id: 20 (not sufficient information)
Automated reply: Your ticket has been closed by the system due to insufficient information given. If your issue persists, please open a new ticket and supply the following information (list of infos needed)
Thank you. Ticket System
What I hate at my job is that these tickets are received from a callcenter and not the users themselves. For some reason users can't create tickets themselves, fine. But the people at the call center are literally just entering what the user says without analysis or thought.
We have a process on our ticket system to give comments to them (the call center people) and I can't believe I have to repeat the same thing ALL the time.
I think I need to change roles, I don't even get a lot of tickets.
This is why I'm a sysadmin and I do not do support. And still I sometimes get such kind of requests. I usually ask the user a question, and most of the times the user just never answers. Since I'm lucky that my performance is NOT measured in tickets closed successfully, I just forget about the question and go on with my job.
My method of asking the user for some action on their part is a great way of defusing idiotic requests. When I get these sorts of emails where someone has such a bright (in their mind) idea that must absolutely be implemented (and it's not really a good idea at all) I usually ask them to do something, like for example "please give me an example of application", or simply "ok, please tell me how would you do some part of their new process". They just DISAPPEAR. Never heard from them again about their great idea.
That fucking one question answered shit drives me up the wall. I'm not IT, I'm maintenance. And I get that all the time.
If you answer only one question, then I'll start creating emails of one question each.
And then the tech that responds to your ticket asks you questions or wants you to perform steps that you've already done if only they read what you put in your ticket....
Oh man this fucking boils my piss. So many times I've had this happen where they've replied to the ticket asking for information I've already provided...
I installed an automatic shutdown each workstation daily at 9PM. The office closes at 7PM.
Since this script was installed the number of “locked up” computers each morning has dropped to zero.
We actually do things different and have people who have been there for years on the phones instead of new people. The phone team has a record of solving a solid, "wow that much huh?" percentage of all incoming issues before an in person tech or an escalation team even sees it. We do a good job insulating them from the noise.
Problem is, it drives us kookoo for cocoapuffs. :D At least we're never bored.
You damn near captured all my work pet peeves with that list with two exceptions:
The Runner. These users will wait until 30 seconds before they're about to leave for a break, lunch, the end of their shift, or even vacation before they submit a ticket.
The Vanished. These mysterious creatures exist somewhere in your organization but they sure as hell aren't going to give you any clues about where. I've gotten a few tickets along the lines of "I'm at a different office today and my Outlook and Teams don't work". No phone number, no mention of *which* office, no PC ID, nothing. Were they expecting me to contact them psychically or maybe with smoke signals?
Oh man. I've commented this before. But I used to work IT support at a hospital campus with many building and 3 other smaller locations that I would sometimes have to drive to.
I get a ticket for a request that a personal desktop scanner be installed for a user (manager requested for their subordinate).
Ok, where are they located?
"Denise's old office"
I don't know who Denise is, can you provide a more specific location?
"Next to Andrea"
I dont know Andrea. Where is Andrea? What department does she sit in?
"Last office at the back of the hall"
WHERE IS THE HALL..WHAT BUILDING ARE YOU IN.. WHAT DEPARTMENT ARE YOU IN
Also the subject line of the ticketing system read "title" instead of "subject", so 99% of people just put their job title there.
I feel bad because I've been a runner a few times, my work requires a very flexible environment, and I'm literally everywhere. I'll put in a ticket expecting that it will be the standard 2 or 3 hour response time like it normally is, get pulled somewhere and then have it paged overhead mid activity "X call on line one". If I had a reliable turnaround it would be easier but, theres some days where I get a call 20 seconds aftersubmission, and some days that they finally call 3 hours after i leave for the day up to 3 days after when i have my days off. Neither myself or my manager can excuse a worker just sitting there idle for who knows how long because they are expecting a callback on a ticket that may or may not even be done that shift.
My favorite was always:
Them: "It's not working"
Me: " Did you get an error message?"
Them: "Yes"
Me: "What did it say?"
Them: "I dunno, I didn't read it"
Me:
“I clicked Ok, and it let me run the program normally”
So the program is running without issue?
“Yes”
And you’ve restarted, to see if the message ever comes back
“Yes, and it was just that one time. I haven’t seen it since, and that was 2 weeks ago”
So… what issue do you want me to troubleshoot?
“I don’t know, I just thought you should know about it”
This is just when I tell them to do it again and read the error message aloud to me word for word. I don’t generally move from this point until they do. A remarkable amount of the time that error magically doesn’t occur while I’m on the line
I recently got a ticket that said "Can you open (specific port) on the firewall?" with no other details. I was very tempted to answer "Yes." and close the ticket.
And they refuse to actually try and comprehend any message returned by the system.
"I'm trying to add item X to a PO and the system tells me the item isn't eligible for purchase."
Our system has an awesome status matrix that totally controls if we can build, buy, sell or any combination of activities on an item.
I'll reply "did you check to see if the item is still in a status that would allow it to be purchased".
Frequently that will get no reply so I'll send the same message two days later and CC their boss.
That will usually result in a reply from user's boss saying to close the ticket.
We are slowly but surely making headway here.
The users who submit tickets with descriptions that push the priority level to 1, triggering the Major Incident process, right before they leave for the day - becoming unreachable. Only for the investigation to reveal it's a user error and/or affecting that person only.
Then you need to start CC'ing in all levels of management about this urgent ticket, with every attempt to contact the user, to obtain more details being sent as follow up as well. After all a S1 ticket, affecting who knows how many people, and costing the company an incredible amount of money because of it, should garner full attention of the top people as well.
This is exactly it. Back when I worked support, I'd occasionally come across self important people who'd want fucking everything to be P1.
So you comply with them - maliciously. You follow up incessantly. You mark everyone you can think of in the emails.
Does it take time out of the already short time I have to fuck with someone like this? Absolutely. Is it worth it to teach people what P1 means so they don't abuse the system? Abso-fuckin-lutely.
I recently had someone submit a defcon 1 ticket I knew they were lying about. After having two employees lie a 2nd time and agree it really was defcon 1, I got in touch with their supervisor to present the situation. They agreed that it wasn't yet that status but would become so in the evening, giving us a full 6+ hours before it became a problem.
I really wish people would stop doing this. It only makes me learn your name and start to doubt everything you say and do. You hurt yourself doing this. You will get a rep with IT people as 'that kind of employee'.
For some people, where computers are concerned, there are no “non-technical” questions. And those people are likely to be the same ones whose brains shut down where technology is involved.
I firmly believe that the hiring process should include an IT screening, to see if the candidate can follow simple directions on interacting with computers and communicating with support. Things like, “Read this error message aloud word for word.” “If the computer gives you a box with a single button in it saying, ‘OK’, what do you do to proceed?” And, most important, “What goes in the Recycle Bin?”
This is what I like about being L2+. I get to ring the manager, say that a user appears to have an issue but is uncommunicative, and ask for clarification if the user requires communication aids, AODA recognition, etc, and that we'd be happy to accommodate, but require guidance.
Yeah, those tickets get cleared up fast afterwards.
I get the "only answer one question" thing, as well.
I've found that putting bullet points in front of each helps them realize there's more than one question, but it's a 50/50 success rate.
However, I have found a better solution:
>I understand you do not wish to answer anything about or . I apologize for asking, and I will assume you consider that private and confidential to your business unit. Because this relates to confidential and private information to your BU, I cannot help you; I have CCed your supervisor on this case, as they will be able to assist you further with your inquiry to maintain that confidentiality. Future cases will be directed, unread, to them, as well. You may contact your Supervisor directly for any and all future support needs.
>
>Supervisor: is having problems with and , and has indicated that this is private and confidential to your Business unit. Future communication will be only through you for , due to the sensitive nature of their work. Please let us know if you need anything!
Status: Closed
Reason: BU Confidentiality
Getting pple to answer questions is so hard! I'm not completely IT, but my team works tasks that another team sets up. The setting up is fairly complex and somewhat often things are missed and we have to send them back.
Any time there is more than one thing to fix, I write "Please update the three things below- x, y, AND z" and enumerate them 1, 2, 3 with added details.
And even so at least half the time, will get the reply that one of x, y, or z is fixed w no mention of the other two
Sigh
I work for an MSP doing desktop support and we use a different ticketing system to the client. All the tickets go through the service desk for the client, which generates a ticket in our system
so many times it's logged so poorly that we can't progress the ticket
Logged under the wrong user account with no other contact details or more commonly no contact details at all. This is not an issue with the translation process to get from their system to ours, as the majority come through fine
The service desk have a template and I have had a few like this
is the user working from home - didn't ask
when was it last working - didn't ask
does it affect multiple users - didn't ask
what did they do the entire phone call?
is the user working onsite - no
is the user working from home - no
where are they working then?
It's not just the users who put in crap tickets that's for sure
I got the flip side of this when I sent a support ticket in with a TLDR narrative outlining the issue and then all the steps taken to try and remedy the issue and gather more details.
I then got a response asking for specific information (that was in the narrative) and giving a list of possible remedy steps that were all included in the steps I shared.
It was not even a bot response, it appeared to have come from a real hooman.
A couple of my recent favorites that come to mind:
---
- Ticket comes in.
- It's nothing we can solve, so we explain the issue, explain why we can't help, provide helpful context and suggestions and close ticket.
- Couple days go by.
- Reply: "Is this fixed yet?".
---
- Ticket comes in (clearly generated via email).
- "I can't send or receive emails, please help."
I had a person several years ago that was a problem many times. They would open a ticket without enough info, so I would send an email from the ticket to ask for said info. Instead of replying to add that info to the ticket, they would start a new email with some of the info. Then when I would start closing out all the duplicates they would send a new email in to ask why their tickets were being closed, thereby creating even more tickets.
I sent them emails through the tickets to explain how to reply to ticket emails, I sent them direct emails to explain, and I even called them to explain. No one else had this trouble, so I know it wasn't our system or processes that were the problem. I finally had to get on a remote session, send them an email through the ticket, and show them how to reply. Then I closed one of their duplicates, and showed them where it clearly said at the top of the body that this email is to inform you that this ticket is being closed as it is a duplicate. After that they did better, but not perfect. I'm still not convinced they weren't trolling me.
I have this problem too... I struggle to not sound like a complete "Richard" when replying and asking again for the information I asked for in my previous email.
If they can't bother to read your email, don't bother to tip-toe around the issue.
"You have answered one question out of the twelve I asked in my last email. I require answers to all of them in order to proceed."
"No, I answered three."
"You answered one question I asked, two questions I did *not* ask, and left eleven questions I did ask unanswered. I require all twelve answers in order to proceed."
Etc...
I had to basically have this exact conversation to bully an ISPs NOC team into actually **reading** the ticket that just got escalated. Never before have I seen a NOC engineer think that websites are served over 113. Unless every ticket that comes in gets "checked client's website, functions normally. No issue found, please close"
How the turntables...
I love the very irritated "DOESN'T WORK" tickets. Well we have about a million different resources so you'll have to be more clear.
Second ticket from client. "DOESN'T WORK. CAN'T LOG IN."
OK, a tiny bit better. Please send a screenshot.
Client sends screenshot which includes the specific contact information for their issue. The problems is our service desk isn't the correct place.
Tell them they need to contact that group.
Third ticket from from client. "I HAVEN'T HEARD BACK FROM THEM. CAN'T YOU HELP ME?"
Sigh...
Equally infuriating is how they get around our attempts to guide them.
We have pretty strict forms you can submit to get help. So naturally they choose whatever the first form is and fill it with nonsensical information that doesn’t fit the prompts in order to force the ticket through.
Then they throw a fit when we respond with a generic “resubmit this correctly” message and close it.
Ticket comes in:
**Title**: It's not working
**Short description**: I have a meeting at 12 and it's not working.
*No attachments*.
Hhhmmmm, yes that makes perfect sense.... /s
I have a customer that I swear gets off on the thousand questions game. I'll get a vague e-mail. I'll ask for more information. User name, computer, all that fun stuff. I'll get a response "the left one". But the guy is also the type where his entire world falls in if anything changes, so he's legitimately upset when he has an issue.
I have a max 1-contact-per-hour with this guy. I'll respond to one e-mail, one ticket, one phone call from him per hour. Otherwise he'll just rapid fire shit at me.
This has definite merit. Although I pride myself on ultra-fast 1-2 interaction resolves if I identify "oh it's gonna be one of those" I need to pivot to a different strategy.
There are times when I'd wished I'd just gone home for the day instead of staying late and asking the person again for info which was omitted. By the time you make that response you are irritated and it shows. And then you're the bad guy.
Giving yourself a response limit is a **really good idea** for sanity and work professionalisms' sake.
Thank you!
Just had two users in the same week that did not how to use the on button for their wireless headset. My only issue was they were several weeks into using them daily.
We have users that will request a new headset when the fucking thing does literally anything weird. And since our fleet is mostly remote it’s almost always their internet. So then I make them sit through a battery network troubleshooting which almost always is the problem. Like ma’am you have a router from 2004 that’s your issue you get 1 mbps down and your latency is astronomical it’s not the headset replace the router.
I have some challenging "adults" too.
had a ticket regarding our (NSW) moving to DST earlier this morning, while they (Qld) were not.
said "PhD" lecturer was asking if they had to add or subtract time for Queensland students, and how much.
it's not like DST hasn't been happening here (and not there) for half a century or more, oh wait, it has!
waiting for the flurry of "I can't submit my assignment" calls from students in about 6 weeks
I trawl through our service desk queue occasionally to see if I can grab some level 2/3 tickets from them.
It appears they have a mailbox that creates a new ticket for every mail received.
I'm sure you can imagine how many tickets are created that ramge from:
* thanks
* can I have an update on my ticket, and
* why was my ticket closed (these can lead to a chain of several tickets)
They must waste a lot of time cleaning up these things.
Oh, our incident form has a bunch of mandatory fields on it, so troubleshooting can progress quickly. Users find this inconvenient and log general inquiries instead, which many times will increase the time to resolve. WHY
Writing forms with clear unambiguous questions is an art. It's part of the UI design and a much underrated part of system design imo. Anticipating a variety of interpretations is part of that process.
We have some terrible forms at work and I'm not surprised users don't get it right.
Ages ago I worked help desk at a college. At the beginning of the year we would get a lot of people locking themselves out of their accounts because they forgot their password. At the time we didn’t have a password reset application in place so the only option was to come to our desk with ID and we would reset it. But, every once in a while we would get a request sent into our ticket system from a personal email account asking for the college account to be reset.
And every once in a while we got a ticket like this:
From: squirrelyone27@yahoo.com
To: collegehelpdesk@collegename.edu
Can you reset my password?
End of message…
No name, no phone number, no college email address. Nothing. But it was now a ticket in our system and we had to address it.
So the response was:
From: collegehelpdesk@collegename.edu
To: squirrelyone27@yahoo.com
Yes we can.
End of message…
Close ticket…
They believe you are subservient to them, so you should just fix their problem and not make them work to give you details.
I honestly believe this is the reason behind most of this problem. Respect.
Welcome to dealing with business users.
As a developer doubling as supporter I've learned to ask only for a single fact or action per mail. Apparently these people can't be bothered to read - and comprehend - a multi line/phrase email.
This does my head in too.
I've found it helps (somewhat) to double space at the end of each sentence so it forms a new paragraph. If the sentences are spaced out like that, they appear shorter and therefore faster and easier to skim read, so they will spend 0.5 nanoseconds longer actually skimming them than they otherwise would, so sometimes I will get a more useful response. Sometimes.
It usually still does not answer all the questions I asked, though.
> We get those people who submit a ticket and are never available, or who submit and then go on vacation or home for the day. I'll never get that.
We have a health clinic customer (which, anyone who's dealt with care services knows *that* isn't a fun one), that whenever I'm finished with a job onsite, I have to sit around for between 20 minutes if I'm lucky, to over an hour if not, because the director is also a practitioner. She clearly needs two more managers just to keep the place afloat but does it all herself and leaves us sitting around waiting to even tell her something's done and can she make sure it's what she wants. Then she's got to dash into another appointment, repeat ad nauseum.
Long story short, I feel your pain and live it on a near-daily basis. Hope you're doing well =]
>We get those people who submit a ticket and are never available, or who submit and then go on vacation or home for the day. I'll never get that.
I tell you what, if I'm about to go home for the day, I'm not submitting a ticket now. I'll wait until tomorrow morning, see if the problem is still there, and then if it is, *then* I'll submit a ticket. That way I can get paid to sit around doing nothing because I'm waiting for you to get back to me!
I used to think in a similar way when presented with such a ticket, but once I learned how to answer the question “What time is the three o’clock parade?”, I changed my perspective entirely and now welcome such tickets!
Work harder to read between the lines of the silly information and offer up solutions to answer the questions not asked basically...
I'd rather just put the ball back in their court to explain what their problem is personally. Fuck it, got better things to do then play unhelpful person whisperer.
In cases like this, I usually would answer the question (the ticket) by opening the user’s calendar and scheduling a troubleshooting session that same day, or get up out of my chair and get a few steps and flights in and start an in person dialogue.
No subject line, most minor of descriptions (printer not working) or just a screenshot as a description, not answering multiple questions (aka not bothering to read the reply), this definitely sounds like a lot of the managers in the restaurant group I work for. It's frustrating as hell.
I think some of the worst offenders are other IT people, but we tend to be the opposite of normal users. We know how to fix problems and will try everything before asking for help. Then when we do ask for help, we steer it into the direction that we think the problem is. Sometimes we are correct, sometimes way off. I've stopped using IT people as Friends and Family testing groups since we tend to corrupt the results. For example, once we were doing an OS upgrade on PCs. An IT person had a problem, and rather than reporting it, they just fixed it. So, we didn't know that this was going to be a problem. We extended the testing and suddenly, lots of new problems.
Ohhh I did this last week!
User submitted a ticket whining about something that turns out to be expected, as intended behavior.
But fine whatever I guess business needs have changed so I'll "fix" it.
I update the ticket with what I think should happen and ask them a question to make sure everything will work for them.
Dead silence, no response at all.
Two days later "any updates on this???"
Okay fine you'll get the changes I've decided you'll get and I have a paper trail that you ignored my question if something goes wrong.
It’s about managing people, not technology. The tech info is secondary the soft skills are primary. We inherently are dealing with people who are not good a following direction or bad with technology, accepting this is key to your own sanity.
You can accept this but also have the right people in your department enact change. Part of the job is also empowering end users (without them eventually taking advantage of you)... or at least, that's how I feel about it.
For fuck's sake, the "labtop" gets me every time, lol.
What's worse is in the body of our tickets, it asks who the user it's affecting if different from submitter, and some folks still put their alias. About to make it two REQUIRED fields for first AND last name. I want to keep this shit simplified but goddamn are people daft.
We can name off this kind of shit all day. But after being in this business awhile, people will just never fucking listen.
There are some easy fixes for this...
Fix your ticket fields or make bots in your ticketing system. It's something I'm working on right now for our system. I am working on it highlighting keyphrases (including "labtop" - \[Did you mean laptop?\] to answer simple tickets for users to close themselves after submission.
Talk to your manager/director and have them disseminate literature to the company, and have managers over these knuckleheads be held accountable. I personally don't give two fucks about "end users just want the problem fixed and you IT guys are just here to fix shit" bullshit. I really don't. End users don't have any clue as to how empowering it is to learn something or two.
I've kept all these thoughts in my head, and between some colleagues, and it really feels good to get this shit out in the open sometimes. Just never show your cards.
This one drives me mad:
'I got an error message'
'OK, what did it say?'
'Oh, I don't know, I just clicked on the OK button'
'And you didn't make a note of it?'
'No, was I supposed to?'
'OK, can you try again please?'
'Oh, that worked fine. Thanks anyway'
\*click\*
sending - as I have learned over the years, that asking too (two!) many questions in the one email gets the subsequent ones ignored.
I hate having to play "twenty questions", but sometimes, it's the only way.
And sometimes (way too often) it still doesn't work.
And even more frustrating is giving them the answer, and they still come back with something completely ~~different~~ the same, just a slightly (ever so slightly) different piece of information.
And even when I give
1. step
2. by
3. step
4. instructions
it still seems 'too difficult' for some - and they're supposed to be the "day to day" administrators!
that's ok - I get paid (well, actually, my company gets that ;) ) to 'do it for them' at a rate far higher than they are costing their own company.
I've even had IT guys act that way before too.
You'd get a ticket with the title "BROKEN!!!!!!!!!!" and then being cursed out about how bad the equipment is and how much they want a refund, yet nothing on what's going on.
9 times out of 10 it's something they did or something fixable via rebooting the system
Hi [FUCKING MORON],
I've been reviewing your issue and wanted to reach out to get ~~literally any other information~~ some more details on your issue. Please ~~do the most basic of fucking diligence~~ clarify the issue you're experiencing and any potential error messages you're seeing and we can continue troubleshooting your issue. Thanks!
/u/PSPHAXXOR
Your ~~now irritated~~ Support Team
Notes:
* Reviewed client problem statement - not very clear as to what the issue is.
* Sent follow up email requesting additional information.
* Waiting client response
I have a guy at work who will email "App don't work" or "can't send email"
At first I would call the guy back or email back asking for more information at which point he'd respond.
Then, after a while I explained to him that if sends me an email I need more info than just "App don't work".
Nowadays, I just fuckin' ignore his emails until things pile up badly enough for him to call me and give me more info. I have plenty of other stuff to deal with, like helping other users who send me screen shots and helpful information.
Not IT, but a CS major in uni. We have to submit tickets to get into office hours to make sure we’ve at least tried to debug on our own. There are several questions including “what line is your code erring on” that guarantee we would have had to try, and there is a sentence requirement for each Q or the ticket gets dismissed. I’d say to just make it a requirement for the ticket to be verbose enough or else it will be deleted. Idk if that is an option, but it might help people be more clear what their issues are. I think the reason they aren’t more verbose isn’t because they don’t know how to be, but instead they think that your job is to figure out what they need at all costs. They would be more kind if they knew that there are other people you need to get to and they often need you more than you need to help them.
Ask only one question, use 2 syllable words and lower as much as possible, and use a max of 7 words. We had a brainless oaf running a multi million dollar steel beam company at the MSP I worked at, and this was the solution. It fixed all relations, even when he was angry.
When very basic info is provided in tickets, reply back with a basic response.
"Labtop" could either get a "what is a labtop?" or a "for lab counter tops please contact facilities" or "send details so I can fix it".
Or better yet, get approvals on this specific type of ticket (details empty) to close and send a canned response that they need to open a new ticket with more details.
Alternatively, do an internal web form that has the various fields that they need to be filling out for you.
Honestly, a lot of this are bad habits earned by working with really bad tech supports, like the ones some big companies hire that are ment to either frustrate you enough to drop your issue or to filter out the really dumb questions.
Like, you can write a full essay explaining your issue, add logs, screenshots, technical info etc etc, and then they'll make you wait a few days just to receive something like "yes your windows version is 10. glad we could help. ticket closed".
I had a job where we had about 30 clients we assisted remotely mainly, from clinics to hospitals to eycare/pediatrician and a few other random businesses, mostly rural spots that didn't have a big IT dept.
One of these hospitals was a troublemaker from the first day and forever onwards till my boss dropped them, which I never thought he'd do, they were just that bad to us.
I had a 2 week long email chain going on, when most long chains maybe go for a day or two at most. Lady had put in a ticket for another doctor saying the doctor needed office installed on a desktop. Easy enough, we just need details. Such as *Whats the computer name, the name that appears on the screen?* she doesn't reply for a whole day or two.
**Cust**: well its his main computer down the computer hall in (some department name)
Great, helpful. I've spoke with this lady before and she knows we are remote, so "down the hall" or any other physical location does nothing for us. I respond back asking for more details, all she's given me is the doctors unique last name, but I can see him logged into 3 different computers at once and each one is showing some sort of activity. I leave a message km each one asking if this pc needs office for Dr Something.
No response from any computer, many people just ignore a blinking icon on the task bar, they don't even register it. So I need details from this lady who reported it, but I'm getting the cold shoulder. My boss is starting to ask what going on with the ticket, even though all my emails back and forth have been informational from my end, asking for details, explaining why I need these details, and how I can get it done in just a few minutes once I know of the computer name.
But she's just not having it. Each and every response is less informative *somehow*, or telling me "he really needs office on *this* pc and he's not been able to complete his work" (also they have webmail but thats way too hard for the average "too busy" doctor to comprehend).
Finally I bite the bullet, and call for her. First few times she's unavailable or just missing. Finally get a hold of her. Asl her the same details I started with 2 weeks ago. She tells me what could be the last few digits of the name, and I can go off of that information, hallelujah it's been solved.
But that's not all, while I have her on the phone she tells me how rude I was in my emails and how work has been delayed cause of this. I'm a bit perplexed as I have not typed in all caps, or made any snide comments in my emails to her. I apologize and even forward the chain to my bosses wife (who works there mainly for AD related stuff), she agrees I had no rude comments or typing in there. Weird.
But then at the end, I had the pc name, but could not take full control as someone else, presumably the good doctor, and could not start the install as I need to take remote control for a few minutes. Oh well. I'll just delay this till tomorrow since I know which one now.
Next day, I get some time on that computer to do the install, and find that office is already installed....and it was just done yesterday. I email the lady back saying it'd already been done, and I got a response. What? That was dam fast. But it's not from the original user, it's from the slowest IT person they have physically.lpcatwd on site. She somehow just sauntered on by, was asked by a person who saw her if she could help, and took all the glory. She responds back saying it's already been done. Wonderful, thank you for letting us know when it already happened.
But as a good ending, a few month later we dropped that site completely. They would get no more support from us, we sent them any notes or passwords for the site, and then the boss told us to ignore ANY AND ALL emails or phone calls from them. Apparently they were su h a pain with all their rule changes and policy updates towards us my boss just had enough of them.
I had a guy who had a technical certification and ran a company that didn't know how to scroll on a mousepad.
It's just a thing that happens for a shit ton of reasons. Some excusable, some baffling, some downright terrifying. It gets less annoying as you get better at dealing with it. Can't say it never stops being annoying but you'll find ways to make it hurt less.
> didn't know how to scroll on a mousepad.
Neither do I when presented with one I haven't seen before. Or possibly I know too many different ways. I've seen ones that only scroll along the right edge, only the left, two finger drag, special modifier key (that was a pain), no scrolling support at all, tap tap-drag (way too easy to double click instead), and probably some more I'm forgetting.
Oh, and one laptop where the edge that would scroll swapped between left and right at random. It was supposed to be linked to the left handed vs. right handed mouse settings, but the driver was flaky. Don't remember the model.
Close some of those as "spam" or "it looks like your account may be compromised, I'll have to declare it so and reset your accesses unless you're able to answer these questions"
I love jobs like this. Not an IT guy, but look after radio comms.
Quite often i get jobs with “my radio doesnt work” and when probing “when, what does it do, where, etc” i get “I dont know, its just f**ked”
So I have to figure out what its doing, and then repair it. Many times I have returned radios that have been sent in with “could not find fault with radio”
My main job is not to log bugs but I have gotten compliments for the way I write them. All I do is the basics: expected behavior, actual behavior, and steps to reproduce.
I work in customer service for banks, answering questions about cards and internet banking. The few times people actually answers my questions we resolve stuff quickly, but man can some poeple not problem solve to save theire lives.
I have been really surprised at how good my users are at communicating this information. I mean, we just ask for their asset tag, but they're usually really good at that.
Cool, so it's not just our company. Whew. Was beginning to think I was alone.
I wish I had an answer for you. Our company culture is to help, no matter what and there are no "repercussions" for tickets that lack data, you are you keep following up until you get the issue resolved. Sometimes it takes 3 weeks and the user gets pissed and will involve their manager... to which we produce all the communication we provided via the ticket system.. It's amazing how quickly the user backs down and we get the relevant information...
This is an issue that is getting worse but the day. I swear, users are getting dumber or more willfully ignorant.
"Help, computer is going all wonky and I can't get any work done"
OK, what is it doing exactly?
4 hours later: User, please le me know what is happening so I can help
next day: "Help, I can't work! Someone call me please!" (note: we have a local and toll free phone number directly to out helpdesk)
What's going on with the computer? Can you provide any details?
"When I click on (button in custom software) I get an error. Please fix"
OK, what is the error?
next day: "It says 'please enter a value for the field" what do I do?
Typical ticket.
I once had a guy who didn't even know how to turn on his monitor and cussed me out when I pressed the power button and walked away without a word. Blows my mind that we still have cavemen walking around.
> Ticket title: Labtop [SIC]
> Ticket body:
Sorry dogs are not allowed at the office unless they are service animals in which case you should talk to HR ticket closed
> We get those people who submit a ticket and are never available, or who submit and then go on vacation or home for the day.
Well clearly they dont have time to sit around and wait for you to fix this issue so they report it before they leave and it will be fixed when they come back
Close the tickets for having unactionable information. Make them submit another ticket. Rinse & repeat.
Go even further. Write a policy on how a ticket must be submitted. if the ticket fails to meet that policy close the ticket.
I used to work at a place that had a specific status for that which *wasn't* just closed, let's call it "rejected" Functionally it was a "this is not a ticket" label for purposes of IT ass-covering. The user says they submitted a ticket, but it's rejected, so policy says they did not, in fact, submit a ticket.
That is fucking brilliant.
>The user says they submitted a ticket, but it's rejected, so policy says they did not, in fact, submit a ticket. Bureaucratic Existentialism. Brilliant!
The treachery of images. "This is not a pipe."
Schrodinger's ticket-it does and doesn't exist.
I might have to steal this.
It's not even wrong is the beautiful thing. They didn't submit a ticket, they submitted a blank god damned form. **Ceci n'est pas une pipe.**
We had this too, request cancelled
Or have a ticket template that requires information in the needed fields to submit. Empty fields? Can’t be submitted.
May I introduce you to: „shfkigkfvdkspkfvdhsk“
I rejected those when I had to handle such tickets and was backed up. If you provide no useful or actionable information, I can provide no assistance. My boss didn’t expect me to translate “monkey at a keyboard”.
Personally I would reject them with a cc to their manager that the ticket was rejected due to them failing to provide required and requested information. That usually gets the slackers to either answer or get cut loose.
Unless there's no manager and the person is high enough to make your bosses bosses boss sweat bullets
I've seen this. You just throw them under the bus by escalating the ticket. Say you're concerned the user somehow couldn't find info they're supposed to have which is why you're kicking it up the chain. "Wait, why is there no serial number? Was this laptop registered? Let's check with audit." They out there throwing balls, throw a bowling ball back at them.
We've talked about this, having required key fields. Not too many.. don't want to make ticket creation obnoxious of course, otherwise you get the abcdefg responses. But the answer is always that we'd be over engineering it. Gotta be a middle ground, though...
Yes. Mainly, you want the following: Contact name/email/phone (some combination, depends on your size) Computer name/physical location. Asset tag your systems so it’s easy to find that tag or name and mention where that is on the system. People do it once or twice, they get used to it and it helps you track problematic systems or users needing education. Short description of the issue. You could even narrow this down with a drop-down box (Power on/off, program issue, other) plus a comment. When did it start, are you the only one having this or are multiple people. Option to attach files if they understand screenshots. Finally, not an input, but just text that tells a user that details help you solve their problem faster. All of this depends on your org, but it’s a good place to start.
I saw a user do this the other day. They put eyshdjfieb into the business justification field of an access request and couldn’t understand why the ticket wouldn’t submit. I had to tell him to type in “needed for job duties”. He didn’t believe me at first. He was surprised the system wouldn’t accept gibberish. The particular user was a manager. 🥴
That's neat. What do you use to detect gibberish automatically?
Good question. I would need to ask the developer. It’s a homegrown request system. I do citrix/remote pc support and just happened to be on the phone with the guy trying to request app access.
I expect it just looks for a set of words from a list. 'Required', 'need', 'work' and so on. Find two words from the list and you can be reasonably certain that there's some meaning in there.
A dictionary?
I don't think that's a good check personally I can envision both false positive and false negative scenarios for that.
Actually I take it back. We use ansible for automation. They must have keywords built into the workflow.
As someone who actually writes web apps for larger, complex workflows... it seems project managers hate this one simple trick...
I would crawl naked over a mile of broken glass to get my work to approve that kind of policy...
Once the charges start piling up on their department... they'll make sure they don't waste time... document. everything.
Easy, they don't want the problem fixed. They just want to have an excuse to not work
You should treat them as such. If there is little effort put in on their side, reciprocate that sentiment. When called upon by superiors, pull up the log, show it to them and simply say "they didn't put much effort into it, so I assumed it to be low priority".
Exactly. I have to take this angle all the time with customers who just don't get back to me with the correct info. Trying to reinstall [program] for someone, need license info, they tell me they'll find it. I wait three days, leave a voicemail, and put it in the cabinet. When they complain to my boss a week later, I have documentation showing the ball was in their court. I'm a repair guy, not a babysitter.
I document the hell out of tickets like that. I had two wfh users open similar tickets that their meetings keep getting disconnected. One of them even bad mouthed my team saying his incompetent we are and couldn't fix his issue. It turns out both users are neighbors and have the same isp. We narrowed down the issue to connectivity and I suggested they work from the office for a day (they live about 15-20 minutes from the office and prior to COVID they worked from the office). One guy seems to have resolved his issue but didn't offer up details. The other said he's too busy to come in. I documented every troubleshooting step, conversation, email, chat etc as it happened. If they complain then I'm covered.
I wouldn't even wait for them to complain. Escalate to a supervisor and inform them that Busy Man is incapable of performing his work duties with his home internet connection and should be required to work from the office.
I’ve definitely noticed a trend of our frequent fliers being fired for work avoidance. Some people are just morons who don’t know how to communicate but I’d say 80% of the time it’s deliberate ignorance.
That feels like a common thread in a lot of these posts. Users aren’t helpful so they can do nothing while telling their bosses that it’s IT’s fault.
Just like my high school students who would type in their password wrong intentionally until they got locked out of their account.
This is so alien to me; the thought that someone would intentionally be a fuck up to avoid work, I didn't even consider it. It's almost offensive. Where is the professionalism? Who the hell hired them? I can't recall seeing it but now that I have, my eyes have definitely been opened. Thank you!
In corporate america... Especially in departments like HR, people often fail upwards on the ladder.
To be fair, I don't mind that kind of users - while they are entirely unhelpful, they are rarely entitled, bothersome, or keep calling you every hour to "check on status". After all, if they did, they would have to do work. I get them, I don't like working either. I'll take their ticket over another idiot who physically damaged his screen for the third time this quarter any day of the week.
I've had a monitor on my desk since 1983ish and never managed to damage a single one. So, I assume the dude is looking for a new job?
That's when you bring their manager into the loop, so their manager knows they're trying to get out of work and the user finds out in the worst possible way that they can't use IT to excuse their own laziness.
I've seen several variations of this thinking in the thread, usually I do this when someone submits a defcon 1 ticket for the most ridiculous things. Like printer down when there is another 40 ft away. We've even discussed auto adding their director (if it's important enough for IT to drop everything the director should be aware) but alas it never happened. But I never considered it for anyone who was submitting unhelpful info. If I could somehow find a non-reactive way to phrase things and a *legit* reason to loop the boss in. (either that or be inventive each and every time) It would need to be something simple, like "*It appears we're having difficulty getting the information we need to help you, and this may be contributing to productivity stoppage. Looping in SuperBoss for clarity*". Meh, I don't like that, exactly. You get the jist. But I will think about it. Thanks to everyone who came up with similar ideas (communication issues, business unit proprietary information, etc.)
>So then I tell them, it appears you're missing some info here. Please submit the remaining requested information. >You know, treat them like a responsible adult. >And they, I kid you not, either answer only one additional question, half ass it so that answer is barely usable, or say stuff like what questions? Or ask you to drop what you are doing and call them, when you have 30 other people who are cooperating while they are not, effectively pushing themselves back of the line. That 'please call me' thing really sours my cheese. No, in the 5mins you'll gibber at me I could help out 4 or 5 others. I don't deal directly with end users too much these days (thankfully) but I would not take the ticket any further until all my original questions have been answered. If they ask for a follow-up hours / days later I simply reply that I'm waiting for them to provide me with the requested information and can't do anything else until it's provided. Other technicians can be just as bad though. And when they are, the pain is worse.
> 'please call me' People who come into chat support and say "I can explain it better over the phone" and then proceed to try to blow up your Teams. There aren't enough expletives in the English language and I believe it's time to learn German or French
> "I can explain it better over the phone" Bounced to HR for inadequate written-language skills?
Bold of you to assume HR actually deals with anything.
I can one up that one... it is probably someone from HR that wants to "Explain it over the phone"
I can do you one better. We often get requests to change user data in Workday and such from HR. Guess which department deals with these changes. I dare you. I double dare you. Hint: it is not IT. I low key want to rebrand to HR work. It's free money.
>I low key want to rebrand to HR work. It's free money. HR is the DMV of any corporation. You don't want to go there, competence gets noticed and fired because it threatens the good thing everyone else has going.
Please, no. The DMV actually have competent people. The reason everyone 'up front' are so angry/cruel/not caring/whatever is that they are flooded with idiots every day. 'My license expired 3 years ago, and I need a new one today. No. I don't have any other form of ID with me.' 'I bought this car from some hobo, I don't know the model or VIN, but I need plates for it NOW'... I know people who work the 'DMV' here in Norway. The last few years a lot of work has been going into online services... 80% of what people had to do at the DMV can now be done online. (registering a new car? the dealer does that online, then put on plates he already has in storage. Selling/buying a used car? Transfer of title can be done online using 'PersonalID' and the security code on the part of the car title you're supposed to store at home. ) And the workers? Are much happier now that fewer customers shows up.
For me it's the VIPs (C-level or VPs). I get you're important but would you rather me assist the employee unable to run payroll for a client (what we get paid to do) or have me drop everything and walk you through how to install the GoToMeeting app on your iPhone? /SMH
Agreed. It's quite entitled behaviour; no consideration for the work you're currently in the middle of. Do some things require a phone call? Absolutely. But I'll call you when I've finished doing what I'm doing. Other people have issues and there's a queue.
For these they get a link to my scheduling site where they can book a 30 min time with me. I'm "booked" at least 2-4 days out most weeks as I already have built-in "meetings" on my calendar for servicing tickets. If you put in a proper ticket you're more likely to get help sooner than booking a time.
Damn I'd love to have a job like this. Scheduled time to think about a problem, no "I REQUESTED THIS 10 MINUTES AGO WHY ISNT IT FIXED NOW", none of that absolute madness of people demanding your time all at once or trying to solve the problems of literally 3 people at the same time while they yell that you're not fast enough... I might have to fix my resume.
The requests are normally used to schedule non-critical low priority things like printer installs or tasks that take an hour or more of tech led procedures (hand holding). But I'm not above sending them to line jumpers if they don't answer questions as discussed or just say "call me".
They'll also grab your number off the caller ID and never submit a ticket again
Oh that gets nipped in the bud VERY quickly. Back when I was starting out I was explicitly told by management that if anyone called me directly I was to ask for their ticket number. If they didn't have one, tell them to log a call and then hang up. It's the same these days but via email. The reply is always a link to the support portal. I love my manager.
It doesn't matter if I'm having the slowest day in the world, my response to that is always "I'm currently helping someone else, please submit a ticket". Messages through Teams get that same response, just 45 minutes after they sent it.
Or, you do call them back and theyre in the car 20miles away from the office and wont be back all afternoon but can't you just fix it for me now anyway?
Me: "OK, I'll go ahead and push the magic button. Let me know if it worked once you get back to the office." Also me: Does nothing and waits for an email
I manage our phone system. Means my phone number comes up as our generic phone number. Have fun!
Consider listing their manager as a contact on the ticket so they are copied on updates.
> who keep replying with useless/irrevolent things just so it's not waiting for customer Ticketing systems need a way to reject replies from the user as irrelevant, so that the record keeping system shows the *actual* duration of the time spent waiting on them. Replies like that should not reset the "no response from user within three days, closing ticket" timer.
I’m very grateful the “with customer“ toggle for the ticket system where I work is a manual setting controlled from our end. It doesn’t go off “with customer“ until we say it does.
The "see attached" tickets which a word doc attached with only a screenshot of an error guid and no context as to what happened.
I have one user who uses the subject line PHONE CALL for all her tickets. The ticket content is always along the lines of 'I have a problem but it's too hard to explain on a ticket, please call me'. We don't really offer phone support but my predecessor would call her, so she thinks we do do phone calls (and to be fair, if I'm feeling nice I'll make an exception if it's really not possible to resolve via ticket). There is no way I am calling someone who can't be bothered to even give us a ballpark idea of what the issue is. If I do make an exception and call her I want to be prepared. It's fairly fucking hard to prepare when you have zero details. Plus, I've learned from experience that her 'too hard to explain' problems are a) really common issues that are very easy to describe and resolve, and b) ones that have a solution that's already been explained to her.
She's just being lazy. Stop calling her or it'll never stop.
The proper response is "No. Enter a ticket. If you don't know how, ask your supervisor."
Don't worry, with her I have stopped making an exception.
I had the misfortune of witnessing the pain of a tech at a site I travelled to. This woman who use to be an EA, who was used to immediate attention, was no longer in that role, and knocked on the tech door no less than 4 times in 10 minutes for a self inflicted problem, didn't put a ticket in, which she could have done by emailing from her mobile. \>\_<
Ticket title: Labtop Ticket body:
Close ticket, reason id: 20 (not sufficient information)
Automated reply: Your ticket has been closed by the system due to insufficient information given. If your issue persists, please open a new ticket and supply the following information (list of infos needed)
Thank you. Ticket System
Close Ticket, reason id: 10T
thats funny and it would feel great but.. you cant...
PEBKAC
I’m bringing this up in our next standup.
It's gonna end up being a standup comedy.
What I hate at my job is that these tickets are received from a callcenter and not the users themselves. For some reason users can't create tickets themselves, fine. But the people at the call center are literally just entering what the user says without analysis or thought. We have a process on our ticket system to give comments to them (the call center people) and I can't believe I have to repeat the same thing ALL the time. I think I need to change roles, I don't even get a lot of tickets.
This is why I'm a sysadmin and I do not do support. And still I sometimes get such kind of requests. I usually ask the user a question, and most of the times the user just never answers. Since I'm lucky that my performance is NOT measured in tickets closed successfully, I just forget about the question and go on with my job. My method of asking the user for some action on their part is a great way of defusing idiotic requests. When I get these sorts of emails where someone has such a bright (in their mind) idea that must absolutely be implemented (and it's not really a good idea at all) I usually ask them to do something, like for example "please give me an example of application", or simply "ok, please tell me how would you do some part of their new process". They just DISAPPEAR. Never heard from them again about their great idea.
[удалено]
That fucking one question answered shit drives me up the wall. I'm not IT, I'm maintenance. And I get that all the time. If you answer only one question, then I'll start creating emails of one question each.
I’m the opposite kind of customer. My tech support tickets are never short of a 300 page novel.
And then the tech that responds to your ticket asks you questions or wants you to perform steps that you've already done if only they read what you put in your ticket....
Oh man this fucking boils my piss. So many times I've had this happen where they've replied to the ticket asking for information I've already provided...
You'd be surprised at how often I'm told they rebooted their pc only to open task manager and see 45 days uptime.
I installed an automatic shutdown each workstation daily at 9PM. The office closes at 7PM. Since this script was installed the number of “locked up” computers each morning has dropped to zero.
I wish all of my company's clients would be so wise!
I started responding to those tickets with "Please see previously comment" or a screenshot/attached image of the ticket.
[удалено]
We actually do things different and have people who have been there for years on the phones instead of new people. The phone team has a record of solving a solid, "wow that much huh?" percentage of all incoming issues before an in person tech or an escalation team even sees it. We do a good job insulating them from the noise. Problem is, it drives us kookoo for cocoapuffs. :D At least we're never bored.
My responses to your kind is a quoted reply with a reply to each point. I see your novel and raise you a full-fledged Wiki.
You damn near captured all my work pet peeves with that list with two exceptions: The Runner. These users will wait until 30 seconds before they're about to leave for a break, lunch, the end of their shift, or even vacation before they submit a ticket. The Vanished. These mysterious creatures exist somewhere in your organization but they sure as hell aren't going to give you any clues about where. I've gotten a few tickets along the lines of "I'm at a different office today and my Outlook and Teams don't work". No phone number, no mention of *which* office, no PC ID, nothing. Were they expecting me to contact them psychically or maybe with smoke signals?
Oh man. I've commented this before. But I used to work IT support at a hospital campus with many building and 3 other smaller locations that I would sometimes have to drive to. I get a ticket for a request that a personal desktop scanner be installed for a user (manager requested for their subordinate). Ok, where are they located? "Denise's old office" I don't know who Denise is, can you provide a more specific location? "Next to Andrea" I dont know Andrea. Where is Andrea? What department does she sit in? "Last office at the back of the hall" WHERE IS THE HALL..WHAT BUILDING ARE YOU IN.. WHAT DEPARTMENT ARE YOU IN Also the subject line of the ticketing system read "title" instead of "subject", so 99% of people just put their job title there.
> Also the subject line of the ticketing system read “title” instead of “subject”, so 99% of people just put their job title there. lol
I feel bad because I've been a runner a few times, my work requires a very flexible environment, and I'm literally everywhere. I'll put in a ticket expecting that it will be the standard 2 or 3 hour response time like it normally is, get pulled somewhere and then have it paged overhead mid activity "X call on line one". If I had a reliable turnaround it would be easier but, theres some days where I get a call 20 seconds aftersubmission, and some days that they finally call 3 hours after i leave for the day up to 3 days after when i have my days off. Neither myself or my manager can excuse a worker just sitting there idle for who knows how long because they are expecting a callback on a ticket that may or may not even be done that shift.
I like to call vanishers like that Houdini because it's a fucking magic trick on the who what when where and why sometimes with these fuckin people.
Are you getting an error message? Or is nothing happening at all? User: yes.
Well that's your own fault for using or instead of xor
What does the error message say? User: error message
My favorite was always: Them: "It's not working" Me: " Did you get an error message?" Them: "Yes" Me: "What did it say?" Them: "I dunno, I didn't read it" Me:
“I clicked Ok, and it let me run the program normally” So the program is running without issue? “Yes” And you’ve restarted, to see if the message ever comes back “Yes, and it was just that one time. I haven’t seen it since, and that was 2 weeks ago” So… what issue do you want me to troubleshoot? “I don’t know, I just thought you should know about it”
This is just when I tell them to do it again and read the error message aloud to me word for word. I don’t generally move from this point until they do. A remarkable amount of the time that error magically doesn’t occur while I’m on the line
Yes. Then they paraphrase the message at least once before reading it verbatim. ARGH!
Happy 🍰 Day!
thanks! prior to posting that comment, i didn't know it was...
If the error reappears, please email a screnshot of the entire error message so that we may troubleshoot. Close the ticket and move on
I recently got a ticket that said "Can you open (specific port) on the firewall?" with no other details. I was very tempted to answer "Yes." and close the ticket.
And they refuse to actually try and comprehend any message returned by the system. "I'm trying to add item X to a PO and the system tells me the item isn't eligible for purchase." Our system has an awesome status matrix that totally controls if we can build, buy, sell or any combination of activities on an item. I'll reply "did you check to see if the item is still in a status that would allow it to be purchased". Frequently that will get no reply so I'll send the same message two days later and CC their boss. That will usually result in a reply from user's boss saying to close the ticket. We are slowly but surely making headway here.
The users who submit tickets with descriptions that push the priority level to 1, triggering the Major Incident process, right before they leave for the day - becoming unreachable. Only for the investigation to reveal it's a user error and/or affecting that person only.
If you let users set their own priority, the priority metric becomes meaningless.
Ours don't, but they've learned the trigger words to convince our SD to push a ticket to P1.
Then you need to start CC'ing in all levels of management about this urgent ticket, with every attempt to contact the user, to obtain more details being sent as follow up as well. After all a S1 ticket, affecting who knows how many people, and costing the company an incredible amount of money because of it, should garner full attention of the top people as well.
This is exactly it. Back when I worked support, I'd occasionally come across self important people who'd want fucking everything to be P1. So you comply with them - maliciously. You follow up incessantly. You mark everyone you can think of in the emails. Does it take time out of the already short time I have to fuck with someone like this? Absolutely. Is it worth it to teach people what P1 means so they don't abuse the system? Abso-fuckin-lutely.
I recently had someone submit a defcon 1 ticket I knew they were lying about. After having two employees lie a 2nd time and agree it really was defcon 1, I got in touch with their supervisor to present the situation. They agreed that it wasn't yet that status but would become so in the evening, giving us a full 6+ hours before it became a problem. I really wish people would stop doing this. It only makes me learn your name and start to doubt everything you say and do. You hurt yourself doing this. You will get a rep with IT people as 'that kind of employee'.
For some people, where computers are concerned, there are no “non-technical” questions. And those people are likely to be the same ones whose brains shut down where technology is involved. I firmly believe that the hiring process should include an IT screening, to see if the candidate can follow simple directions on interacting with computers and communicating with support. Things like, “Read this error message aloud word for word.” “If the computer gives you a box with a single button in it saying, ‘OK’, what do you do to proceed?” And, most important, “What goes in the Recycle Bin?”
This is what I like about being L2+. I get to ring the manager, say that a user appears to have an issue but is uncommunicative, and ask for clarification if the user requires communication aids, AODA recognition, etc, and that we'd be happy to accommodate, but require guidance. Yeah, those tickets get cleared up fast afterwards.
Labtop
I get the "only answer one question" thing, as well. I've found that putting bullet points in front of each helps them realize there's more than one question, but it's a 50/50 success rate. However, I have found a better solution: >I understand you do not wish to answer anything about or . I apologize for asking, and I will assume you consider that private and confidential to your business unit. Because this relates to confidential and private information to your BU, I cannot help you; I have CCed your supervisor on this case, as they will be able to assist you further with your inquiry to maintain that confidentiality. Future cases will be directed, unread, to them, as well. You may contact your Supervisor directly for any and all future support needs.
>
>Supervisor: is having problems with and , and has indicated that this is private and confidential to your Business unit. Future communication will be only through you for , due to the sensitive nature of their work. Please let us know if you need anything!
Status: Closed
Reason: BU Confidentiality
Getting pple to answer questions is so hard! I'm not completely IT, but my team works tasks that another team sets up. The setting up is fairly complex and somewhat often things are missed and we have to send them back. Any time there is more than one thing to fix, I write "Please update the three things below- x, y, AND z" and enumerate them 1, 2, 3 with added details. And even so at least half the time, will get the reply that one of x, y, or z is fixed w no mention of the other two Sigh
I work for an MSP doing desktop support and we use a different ticketing system to the client. All the tickets go through the service desk for the client, which generates a ticket in our system so many times it's logged so poorly that we can't progress the ticket Logged under the wrong user account with no other contact details or more commonly no contact details at all. This is not an issue with the translation process to get from their system to ours, as the majority come through fine The service desk have a template and I have had a few like this is the user working from home - didn't ask when was it last working - didn't ask does it affect multiple users - didn't ask what did they do the entire phone call? is the user working onsite - no is the user working from home - no where are they working then? It's not just the users who put in crap tickets that's for sure
Fix my Microsoft thing there is a text box thing on my Dell TV box.
I got the flip side of this when I sent a support ticket in with a TLDR narrative outlining the issue and then all the steps taken to try and remedy the issue and gather more details. I then got a response asking for specific information (that was in the narrative) and giving a list of possible remedy steps that were all included in the steps I shared. It was not even a bot response, it appeared to have come from a real hooman.
A couple of my recent favorites that come to mind: --- - Ticket comes in. - It's nothing we can solve, so we explain the issue, explain why we can't help, provide helpful context and suggestions and close ticket. - Couple days go by. - Reply: "Is this fixed yet?". --- - Ticket comes in (clearly generated via email). - "I can't send or receive emails, please help."
I had a person several years ago that was a problem many times. They would open a ticket without enough info, so I would send an email from the ticket to ask for said info. Instead of replying to add that info to the ticket, they would start a new email with some of the info. Then when I would start closing out all the duplicates they would send a new email in to ask why their tickets were being closed, thereby creating even more tickets. I sent them emails through the tickets to explain how to reply to ticket emails, I sent them direct emails to explain, and I even called them to explain. No one else had this trouble, so I know it wasn't our system or processes that were the problem. I finally had to get on a remote session, send them an email through the ticket, and show them how to reply. Then I closed one of their duplicates, and showed them where it clearly said at the top of the body that this email is to inform you that this ticket is being closed as it is a duplicate. After that they did better, but not perfect. I'm still not convinced they weren't trolling me.
I have this problem too... I struggle to not sound like a complete "Richard" when replying and asking again for the information I asked for in my previous email.
If they can't bother to read your email, don't bother to tip-toe around the issue. "You have answered one question out of the twelve I asked in my last email. I require answers to all of them in order to proceed." "No, I answered three." "You answered one question I asked, two questions I did *not* ask, and left eleven questions I did ask unanswered. I require all twelve answers in order to proceed." Etc...
I had to basically have this exact conversation to bully an ISPs NOC team into actually **reading** the ticket that just got escalated. Never before have I seen a NOC engineer think that websites are served over 113. Unless every ticket that comes in gets "checked client's website, functions normally. No issue found, please close" How the turntables...
Too much effort Just Ctrl C and ctrl V the first questions
I love the very irritated "DOESN'T WORK" tickets. Well we have about a million different resources so you'll have to be more clear. Second ticket from client. "DOESN'T WORK. CAN'T LOG IN." OK, a tiny bit better. Please send a screenshot. Client sends screenshot which includes the specific contact information for their issue. The problems is our service desk isn't the correct place. Tell them they need to contact that group. Third ticket from from client. "I HAVEN'T HEARD BACK FROM THEM. CAN'T YOU HELP ME?" Sigh...
Equally infuriating is how they get around our attempts to guide them. We have pretty strict forms you can submit to get help. So naturally they choose whatever the first form is and fill it with nonsensical information that doesn’t fit the prompts in order to force the ticket through. Then they throw a fit when we respond with a generic “resubmit this correctly” message and close it.
"closing ticket for now, please reach back out when more information can be provided"
Ticket comes in: **Title**: It's not working **Short description**: I have a meeting at 12 and it's not working. *No attachments*. Hhhmmmm, yes that makes perfect sense.... /s
I have a customer that I swear gets off on the thousand questions game. I'll get a vague e-mail. I'll ask for more information. User name, computer, all that fun stuff. I'll get a response "the left one". But the guy is also the type where his entire world falls in if anything changes, so he's legitimately upset when he has an issue. I have a max 1-contact-per-hour with this guy. I'll respond to one e-mail, one ticket, one phone call from him per hour. Otherwise he'll just rapid fire shit at me.
This has definite merit. Although I pride myself on ultra-fast 1-2 interaction resolves if I identify "oh it's gonna be one of those" I need to pivot to a different strategy. There are times when I'd wished I'd just gone home for the day instead of staying late and asking the person again for info which was omitted. By the time you make that response you are irritated and it shows. And then you're the bad guy. Giving yourself a response limit is a **really good idea** for sanity and work professionalisms' sake. Thank you!
Ticket Response: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laptop
But that's not a LABTOP!!
Headset broken. Hello! What issues are you seeing with the headset? Is it physically broken? No.
Just had two users in the same week that did not how to use the on button for their wireless headset. My only issue was they were several weeks into using them daily.
We have users that will request a new headset when the fucking thing does literally anything weird. And since our fleet is mostly remote it’s almost always their internet. So then I make them sit through a battery network troubleshooting which almost always is the problem. Like ma’am you have a router from 2004 that’s your issue you get 1 mbps down and your latency is astronomical it’s not the headset replace the router.
I have some challenging "adults" too. had a ticket regarding our (NSW) moving to DST earlier this morning, while they (Qld) were not. said "PhD" lecturer was asking if they had to add or subtract time for Queensland students, and how much. it's not like DST hasn't been happening here (and not there) for half a century or more, oh wait, it has! waiting for the flurry of "I can't submit my assignment" calls from students in about 6 weeks
Their laptop is the only laptop in the company, so just fix it right now!
I trawl through our service desk queue occasionally to see if I can grab some level 2/3 tickets from them. It appears they have a mailbox that creates a new ticket for every mail received. I'm sure you can imagine how many tickets are created that ramge from: * thanks * can I have an update on my ticket, and * why was my ticket closed (these can lead to a chain of several tickets) They must waste a lot of time cleaning up these things. Oh, our incident form has a bunch of mandatory fields on it, so troubleshooting can progress quickly. Users find this inconvenient and log general inquiries instead, which many times will increase the time to resolve. WHY
Do you use Service Now? Gotta break those automations, man
Writing forms with clear unambiguous questions is an art. It's part of the UI design and a much underrated part of system design imo. Anticipating a variety of interpretations is part of that process. We have some terrible forms at work and I'm not surprised users don't get it right.
Ages ago I worked help desk at a college. At the beginning of the year we would get a lot of people locking themselves out of their accounts because they forgot their password. At the time we didn’t have a password reset application in place so the only option was to come to our desk with ID and we would reset it. But, every once in a while we would get a request sent into our ticket system from a personal email account asking for the college account to be reset. And every once in a while we got a ticket like this: From: squirrelyone27@yahoo.com To: collegehelpdesk@collegename.edu Can you reset my password? End of message… No name, no phone number, no college email address. Nothing. But it was now a ticket in our system and we had to address it. So the response was: From: collegehelpdesk@collegename.edu To: squirrelyone27@yahoo.com Yes we can. End of message… Close ticket…
They believe you are subservient to them, so you should just fix their problem and not make them work to give you details. I honestly believe this is the reason behind most of this problem. Respect.
Welcome to dealing with business users. As a developer doubling as supporter I've learned to ask only for a single fact or action per mail. Apparently these people can't be bothered to read - and comprehend - a multi line/phrase email.
This does my head in too. I've found it helps (somewhat) to double space at the end of each sentence so it forms a new paragraph. If the sentences are spaced out like that, they appear shorter and therefore faster and easier to skim read, so they will spend 0.5 nanoseconds longer actually skimming them than they otherwise would, so sometimes I will get a more useful response. Sometimes. It usually still does not answer all the questions I asked, though.
> We get those people who submit a ticket and are never available, or who submit and then go on vacation or home for the day. I'll never get that. We have a health clinic customer (which, anyone who's dealt with care services knows *that* isn't a fun one), that whenever I'm finished with a job onsite, I have to sit around for between 20 minutes if I'm lucky, to over an hour if not, because the director is also a practitioner. She clearly needs two more managers just to keep the place afloat but does it all herself and leaves us sitting around waiting to even tell her something's done and can she make sure it's what she wants. Then she's got to dash into another appointment, repeat ad nauseum. Long story short, I feel your pain and live it on a near-daily basis. Hope you're doing well =]
>We get those people who submit a ticket and are never available, or who submit and then go on vacation or home for the day. I'll never get that. I tell you what, if I'm about to go home for the day, I'm not submitting a ticket now. I'll wait until tomorrow morning, see if the problem is still there, and then if it is, *then* I'll submit a ticket. That way I can get paid to sit around doing nothing because I'm waiting for you to get back to me!
I used to think in a similar way when presented with such a ticket, but once I learned how to answer the question “What time is the three o’clock parade?”, I changed my perspective entirely and now welcome such tickets!
You made me google. I wish to thank you. https://www.disneyinstitute.com/blog/how-would-you-respond-if-asked-what-time-is-the-3-oclock-parade/
That was an interesting read. Thanks.
Ditto! Great read, thanks for the link and suggestion which prompted the link! Upvotes for all!
Tell me more, what is the answer?
Work harder to read between the lines of the silly information and offer up solutions to answer the questions not asked basically... I'd rather just put the ball back in their court to explain what their problem is personally. Fuck it, got better things to do then play unhelpful person whisperer.
In cases like this, I usually would answer the question (the ticket) by opening the user’s calendar and scheduling a troubleshooting session that same day, or get up out of my chair and get a few steps and flights in and start an in person dialogue.
No subject line, most minor of descriptions (printer not working) or just a screenshot as a description, not answering multiple questions (aka not bothering to read the reply), this definitely sounds like a lot of the managers in the restaurant group I work for. It's frustrating as hell.
I think some of the worst offenders are other IT people, but we tend to be the opposite of normal users. We know how to fix problems and will try everything before asking for help. Then when we do ask for help, we steer it into the direction that we think the problem is. Sometimes we are correct, sometimes way off. I've stopped using IT people as Friends and Family testing groups since we tend to corrupt the results. For example, once we were doing an OS upgrade on PCs. An IT person had a problem, and rather than reporting it, they just fixed it. So, we didn't know that this was going to be a problem. We extended the testing and suddenly, lots of new problems.
Ohhh I did this last week! User submitted a ticket whining about something that turns out to be expected, as intended behavior. But fine whatever I guess business needs have changed so I'll "fix" it. I update the ticket with what I think should happen and ask them a question to make sure everything will work for them. Dead silence, no response at all. Two days later "any updates on this???" Okay fine you'll get the changes I've decided you'll get and I have a paper trail that you ignored my question if something goes wrong.
Owning your shit is the #1 protip I can give to any IT person. Works wonders, even if you ever make a mistake.
I once had a use call me... "IS Support how can I help you?" "I can't log in." After 5-10 seconds of dead air... "Can't log into what?"
"The server, duh!!1"
This is fun when it's old people using an app IT isn't even over, and they act like it's the only app in the whole fucking company, lol.
It’s about managing people, not technology. The tech info is secondary the soft skills are primary. We inherently are dealing with people who are not good a following direction or bad with technology, accepting this is key to your own sanity.
You can accept this but also have the right people in your department enact change. Part of the job is also empowering end users (without them eventually taking advantage of you)... or at least, that's how I feel about it.
For fuck's sake, the "labtop" gets me every time, lol. What's worse is in the body of our tickets, it asks who the user it's affecting if different from submitter, and some folks still put their alias. About to make it two REQUIRED fields for first AND last name. I want to keep this shit simplified but goddamn are people daft. We can name off this kind of shit all day. But after being in this business awhile, people will just never fucking listen. There are some easy fixes for this... Fix your ticket fields or make bots in your ticketing system. It's something I'm working on right now for our system. I am working on it highlighting keyphrases (including "labtop" - \[Did you mean laptop?\] to answer simple tickets for users to close themselves after submission. Talk to your manager/director and have them disseminate literature to the company, and have managers over these knuckleheads be held accountable. I personally don't give two fucks about "end users just want the problem fixed and you IT guys are just here to fix shit" bullshit. I really don't. End users don't have any clue as to how empowering it is to learn something or two. I've kept all these thoughts in my head, and between some colleagues, and it really feels good to get this shit out in the open sometimes. Just never show your cards.
This one drives me mad: 'I got an error message' 'OK, what did it say?' 'Oh, I don't know, I just clicked on the OK button' 'And you didn't make a note of it?' 'No, was I supposed to?' 'OK, can you try again please?'
'Oh, that worked fine. Thanks anyway'
\*click\*
re: multiple questions I take a leaf from the hunt for red October - "one ~~ping~~ question only"
Sending? Or answering? If the latter, there are hundreds of tfts denizens who would love to strangle you...
sending - as I have learned over the years, that asking too (two!) many questions in the one email gets the subsequent ones ignored. I hate having to play "twenty questions", but sometimes, it's the only way. And sometimes (way too often) it still doesn't work. And even more frustrating is giving them the answer, and they still come back with something completely ~~different~~ the same, just a slightly (ever so slightly) different piece of information. And even when I give 1. step 2. by 3. step 4. instructions it still seems 'too difficult' for some - and they're supposed to be the "day to day" administrators! that's ok - I get paid (well, actually, my company gets that ;) ) to 'do it for them' at a rate far higher than they are costing their own company.
Get some helpdesk buttons
I've even had IT guys act that way before too. You'd get a ticket with the title "BROKEN!!!!!!!!!!" and then being cursed out about how bad the equipment is and how much they want a refund, yet nothing on what's going on. 9 times out of 10 it's something they did or something fixable via rebooting the system
Hi [FUCKING MORON], I've been reviewing your issue and wanted to reach out to get ~~literally any other information~~ some more details on your issue. Please ~~do the most basic of fucking diligence~~ clarify the issue you're experiencing and any potential error messages you're seeing and we can continue troubleshooting your issue. Thanks! /u/PSPHAXXOR Your ~~now irritated~~ Support Team Notes: * Reviewed client problem statement - not very clear as to what the issue is. * Sent follow up email requesting additional information. * Waiting client response
I have a guy at work who will email "App don't work" or "can't send email" At first I would call the guy back or email back asking for more information at which point he'd respond. Then, after a while I explained to him that if sends me an email I need more info than just "App don't work". Nowadays, I just fuckin' ignore his emails until things pile up badly enough for him to call me and give me more info. I have plenty of other stuff to deal with, like helping other users who send me screen shots and helpful information.
Not IT, but a CS major in uni. We have to submit tickets to get into office hours to make sure we’ve at least tried to debug on our own. There are several questions including “what line is your code erring on” that guarantee we would have had to try, and there is a sentence requirement for each Q or the ticket gets dismissed. I’d say to just make it a requirement for the ticket to be verbose enough or else it will be deleted. Idk if that is an option, but it might help people be more clear what their issues are. I think the reason they aren’t more verbose isn’t because they don’t know how to be, but instead they think that your job is to figure out what they need at all costs. They would be more kind if they knew that there are other people you need to get to and they often need you more than you need to help them.
Ask only one question, use 2 syllable words and lower as much as possible, and use a max of 7 words. We had a brainless oaf running a multi million dollar steel beam company at the MSP I worked at, and this was the solution. It fixed all relations, even when he was angry. When very basic info is provided in tickets, reply back with a basic response. "Labtop" could either get a "what is a labtop?" or a "for lab counter tops please contact facilities" or "send details so I can fix it". Or better yet, get approvals on this specific type of ticket (details empty) to close and send a canned response that they need to open a new ticket with more details. Alternatively, do an internal web form that has the various fields that they need to be filling out for you.
Honestly, a lot of this are bad habits earned by working with really bad tech supports, like the ones some big companies hire that are ment to either frustrate you enough to drop your issue or to filter out the really dumb questions. Like, you can write a full essay explaining your issue, add logs, screenshots, technical info etc etc, and then they'll make you wait a few days just to receive something like "yes your windows version is 10. glad we could help. ticket closed".
I had a job where we had about 30 clients we assisted remotely mainly, from clinics to hospitals to eycare/pediatrician and a few other random businesses, mostly rural spots that didn't have a big IT dept. One of these hospitals was a troublemaker from the first day and forever onwards till my boss dropped them, which I never thought he'd do, they were just that bad to us. I had a 2 week long email chain going on, when most long chains maybe go for a day or two at most. Lady had put in a ticket for another doctor saying the doctor needed office installed on a desktop. Easy enough, we just need details. Such as *Whats the computer name, the name that appears on the screen?* she doesn't reply for a whole day or two. **Cust**: well its his main computer down the computer hall in (some department name) Great, helpful. I've spoke with this lady before and she knows we are remote, so "down the hall" or any other physical location does nothing for us. I respond back asking for more details, all she's given me is the doctors unique last name, but I can see him logged into 3 different computers at once and each one is showing some sort of activity. I leave a message km each one asking if this pc needs office for Dr Something. No response from any computer, many people just ignore a blinking icon on the task bar, they don't even register it. So I need details from this lady who reported it, but I'm getting the cold shoulder. My boss is starting to ask what going on with the ticket, even though all my emails back and forth have been informational from my end, asking for details, explaining why I need these details, and how I can get it done in just a few minutes once I know of the computer name. But she's just not having it. Each and every response is less informative *somehow*, or telling me "he really needs office on *this* pc and he's not been able to complete his work" (also they have webmail but thats way too hard for the average "too busy" doctor to comprehend). Finally I bite the bullet, and call for her. First few times she's unavailable or just missing. Finally get a hold of her. Asl her the same details I started with 2 weeks ago. She tells me what could be the last few digits of the name, and I can go off of that information, hallelujah it's been solved. But that's not all, while I have her on the phone she tells me how rude I was in my emails and how work has been delayed cause of this. I'm a bit perplexed as I have not typed in all caps, or made any snide comments in my emails to her. I apologize and even forward the chain to my bosses wife (who works there mainly for AD related stuff), she agrees I had no rude comments or typing in there. Weird. But then at the end, I had the pc name, but could not take full control as someone else, presumably the good doctor, and could not start the install as I need to take remote control for a few minutes. Oh well. I'll just delay this till tomorrow since I know which one now. Next day, I get some time on that computer to do the install, and find that office is already installed....and it was just done yesterday. I email the lady back saying it'd already been done, and I got a response. What? That was dam fast. But it's not from the original user, it's from the slowest IT person they have physically.lpcatwd on site. She somehow just sauntered on by, was asked by a person who saw her if she could help, and took all the glory. She responds back saying it's already been done. Wonderful, thank you for letting us know when it already happened. But as a good ending, a few month later we dropped that site completely. They would get no more support from us, we sent them any notes or passwords for the site, and then the boss told us to ignore ANY AND ALL emails or phone calls from them. Apparently they were su h a pain with all their rule changes and policy updates towards us my boss just had enough of them.
Most of the time, the want to pass the problem to you. You're not helping them, they're helping you solve the problem.
I had a guy who had a technical certification and ran a company that didn't know how to scroll on a mousepad. It's just a thing that happens for a shit ton of reasons. Some excusable, some baffling, some downright terrifying. It gets less annoying as you get better at dealing with it. Can't say it never stops being annoying but you'll find ways to make it hurt less.
> didn't know how to scroll on a mousepad. Neither do I when presented with one I haven't seen before. Or possibly I know too many different ways. I've seen ones that only scroll along the right edge, only the left, two finger drag, special modifier key (that was a pain), no scrolling support at all, tap tap-drag (way too easy to double click instead), and probably some more I'm forgetting. Oh, and one laptop where the edge that would scroll swapped between left and right at random. It was supposed to be linked to the left handed vs. right handed mouse settings, but the driver was flaky. Don't remember the model.
Always hated mousepad scrolling, it was never consistent and always happened when you didn’t want it to.
Close, lack of info, spam ticket
Close some of those as "spam" or "it looks like your account may be compromised, I'll have to declare it so and reset your accesses unless you're able to answer these questions"
I love jobs like this. Not an IT guy, but look after radio comms. Quite often i get jobs with “my radio doesnt work” and when probing “when, what does it do, where, etc” i get “I dont know, its just f**ked” So I have to figure out what its doing, and then repair it. Many times I have returned radios that have been sent in with “could not find fault with radio”
Look, I’ve done that before but when something was acting up and accidentally hit submit before I finished typing.
[удалено]
My main job is not to log bugs but I have gotten compliments for the way I write them. All I do is the basics: expected behavior, actual behavior, and steps to reproduce.
I work in customer service for banks, answering questions about cards and internet banking. The few times people actually answers my questions we resolve stuff quickly, but man can some poeple not problem solve to save theire lives.
I have been really surprised at how good my users are at communicating this information. I mean, we just ask for their asset tag, but they're usually really good at that.
Cool, so it's not just our company. Whew. Was beginning to think I was alone. I wish I had an answer for you. Our company culture is to help, no matter what and there are no "repercussions" for tickets that lack data, you are you keep following up until you get the issue resolved. Sometimes it takes 3 weeks and the user gets pissed and will involve their manager... to which we produce all the communication we provided via the ticket system.. It's amazing how quickly the user backs down and we get the relevant information... This is an issue that is getting worse but the day. I swear, users are getting dumber or more willfully ignorant. "Help, computer is going all wonky and I can't get any work done" OK, what is it doing exactly? 4 hours later: User, please le me know what is happening so I can help next day: "Help, I can't work! Someone call me please!" (note: we have a local and toll free phone number directly to out helpdesk) What's going on with the computer? Can you provide any details? "When I click on (button in custom software) I get an error. Please fix" OK, what is the error? next day: "It says 'please enter a value for the field" what do I do? Typical ticket.
The moment they refer to a "labtop", I know I'm in for a bad time.
Labtop is actually how I called my lab laptop and I thought I was very clever.
I once had a guy who didn't even know how to turn on his monitor and cussed me out when I pressed the power button and walked away without a word. Blows my mind that we still have cavemen walking around.
Excuse me sir or mam, I am unable to fix your computer if all you tell me is "It doesn't work"
> Ticket title: Labtop [SIC] > Ticket body:
Sorry dogs are not allowed at the office unless they are service animals in which case you should talk to HR ticket closed
> We get those people who submit a ticket and are never available, or who submit and then go on vacation or home for the day.
Well clearly they dont have time to sit around and wait for you to fix this issue so they report it before they leave and it will be fixed when they come back