Why tech support (intentionally) is unbearable

Figure: Daniel Stolle

You can consider yourself a balanced person. Unflappable, calm when others lose patience. But this feeling flies into the pipe if you call tech support. First comes irritation. Then the face turns red. In the end, you will start screaming into the phone such words that your mother will be terrified of.

This is called tech support anger syndrome.

You are not alone. If you get into the loop - waiting on the line, interacting with automated systems, talking with a person who reads the useless script aloud from the manual, waiting on the line again - then this specific type of impact on the psyche, according to psychologists, can provoke fury even for the most seasoned person.

Worse: just as you suspected, companies are well aware of the torture that customers are subjected to.

According to a survey conducted last year by the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI), 92% of customer service managers believe that their employees could work more efficiently, while 74% of managers believe that the procedures established by the company prevent technical support operators from providing satisfactory results.

Moreover, 73% of respondents said that the complexity of requests from customers is increasing, because people are better versed in technical issues and can solve simple problems on their own.

Many organizations have implemented a cost-per-contact accounting system. It limits the time that an agent can spend talking with you, hence the agony of switching between specialists and constantly holding a call (“please wait on the line”), explains Justin Robbins, who used to work as a technical support operator, and now holds one of the leading positions in ICMI.

“Do not even think that companies have not studied the question of how far they can go in providing the lowest possible level of service. - says Robbins. - Some organizations even monetized calls. They specifically make it so that you have to wait at least an hour to talk with someone from technical support, and while waiting, you hear messages like “If you want to activate the priority support service, dial this number, and for a certain amount you will be connected to a specialist immediately ””.

The most notorious violators — companies like cable providers, mobile phone service providers, and Internet service providers — are in sectors where there is less competition and whose subscribers are contracted or will experience significant inconvenience if the contract is terminated. Not surprisingly, cable providers and mobile operators have traditionally been among the leaders in the list of companies with the worst user support .

AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon Communications did not respond to our requests for comment.

It’s especially frustrating when talking with tech support is like one-way communication because you don’t understand - you are either trying to communicate with a robot, or with a person who has been trained to speak like a robot. This was done for the sake of perceived quality control or because he knows English so poorly that he is afraid to leave the printed script.


“This is absolutely crazy because the peculiarity of the conversation is that when I tell you something, I assume that I will influence the conversation,” explains Art Markman, professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and co-author podcast " Two guys in your head ." “And when you answer with something that does not make sense, it becomes clear that all the words I said did not have any effect on what was happening.”

When events lose their meaning and the impression of losing control over what is happening, according to mental health professionals, a person instinctively feels a threat. Although you want to think that you can act reasonably in such a situation, in fact, each of us is just a set of nerve impulses and primary reactions. In a threatened state, instincts are pushing for decisive action, but there is nothing you can do about it, because you are stuck on the phone, it provokes anger.

Of course, those companies that have really high-quality technical support often sell goods or services at a higher price or may pay a separate fee for improved technical support, so the cost of assistance is included there, as in the AppleCare and Amazon Prime subscription services .

You can also find great tech support in highly competitive markets, like among domain name registrars where operators like Hover and GoDaddy get high ratings. Also good are “hungry newcomers,” who try to break into markets where traditionally large national companies dominate. Take, for example, regional Internet providers and telecom operators like Logix and WOW , they rank at the top of user ratings.

Experienced technical support specialists and psychologists say that there are other ways to get better support or at least make it more tolerable. Firstly, you should be in control at all costs. Take a deep breath. Count to ten. Letting off steam to a tech support operator is not a way to speed up a solution. Rather, the opposite.

“Definitely, I remember how [while working in support] I found character traits that I didn’t suspect when I got into an annoyed state and used passive-aggressive behavior,” says John Valenti, a video producer from Rochester, He worked as a technical support operator with an Internet service provider from 2007 to 2012, in order to earn money for graduate school. About this he made an absurd filmfor his graduate work at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Valenti, as well as some other support service employees who published confessions on the Internet, reports cases of rudeness when the operator puts the customer on hold for a long time or disconnects him “accidentally”. It also happens that the operator helps to “fix” the momentary manifestation of the problem, but not its cause. Therefore, the next time a person will have to call again on the same issue.

Also, do not bother to call the boss. You will simply be switched to another operator who will be warned in advance that the customer is upset, says Justin Robbins. Also keep in mind that your words are written down, and later can be printed on posters that tech support staff hang on the walls to cheer you up.

“I saw how companies made t-shirts with cruel, horrible words people say,” said Robbins. He added that such T-shirts can be an incentive to improve technical support, because they demonstrate what condition people can be brought to, "but they [t-shirts] can also simply show that some people really got out of the madhouse."

User support experts recommend using social media, including twitter and Facebook, to connect with the company, rather than make phone calls. Through social networks, you can even get an answer faster, not only because fewer people use this channel of communication, but also because your use of social networks indicates that you know a way to convey your displeasure to a wide audience if your Needs will not be met, or convey your praise if good service.

To get the best phone service, it is recommended that you call the sales service number, then you will almost always be switched to a local employee, while technical support is usually located abroad with the corresponding language problems and communication difficulties [Indian technical support is typical for many American companies - approx. trans.].

You can search for help on sites like DialAHuman.com and GetHuman.com about which phone numbers and which numbers to press to quickly bypass the automatic system and switch to a person.

If this fails, there are mobile apps like Lucy Phone and Fast Customerwho are hanging in your place on the line and will give a signal when a living person picks up the phone. There is no need to accumulate anger by listening to an annoying melody on hold .

Addition : From the point of view of the company, it is quite reasonable to keep the client on the line for a while before connecting to the operator. This is a matter of proper balance. If you answer too quickly and too well, the user will not learn, but will start calling for the slightest reason, even about the same problem that occurs repeatedly.