Lessons learned from recent experiences with AT&T

My boss explained something to me last week I hadn't really thought of. To paraphrase, is it's most users feel powerless. And to best help them, we need to acknowledge it and do our best to make them feel comfortable. We need to be able to explain without throwing jargon, go out of our way to troubleshoot in their space and always make them feel important. (To paraphrase.) Because they are important.

It's all too easy as an IT worker to become disillusioned. Password changes, malware, 5 GB desktops, porn on the fileserver and last minute requests are all things we've experienced. After the 50th password change and the 10th time a married instructor moved one of your PCs so he could chat to hookups on a dating site, you can get angry and burned out.

I don't think a lot of us connect what it's like to call the support departments at places like AT&T or HP with how we treat our users. But it's the same. My recent experience with AT&T left me feeling stupid, dis-empowered and uninformed. As it is, the flaky data returned this afternoon, putting me back squarely at Wednesday.

This is the timeline of events, taken from an e-mail sent to one of their employees from a Facebook complaint. (We'll see if this is more productive than calling!)

- Thursday of last week I stopped being able to get to the Android
market from my phone. And then I could I discovered that I couldn't
download any apps.

- My 3G connection started flaking out about the same time. The only
way to get it working again was to reset the network settings on my
phone (turn off data and SMS, turn it back on again.)

- It worsened on Saturday where I could browse for maybe 10 or so
minutes before having to reset. This was in various places in Portland
at probably a 5 mile radius.

- By Wednesday the problem persisted. I called AT&T customer service
and was told to turn my phone on and off again so they could "do
something at their end." I was promised a call back within 10 minutes
that never happened. (And was never documented.)

- I called back 30 minutes later and spoke with someone else who
wanted me to turn my phone on and off again. After about a half an
hour he submitted a network ticket on my behalf. Telling me I should
get a response by the 8th of November.

- On Thursday morning I woke up and didn't have voice. I called again,
from the phone I purchased specifically for calling AT&T (because
apparently turning my phone on and off is integral to
troubleshooting.) The customer service agent, after having me turn my
phone on and off again, transferred me to a different team. The issue
suddenly resolved itself and I could receive voice. This was after a
text message welcoming me back to AT&T. I was told my phone had a
pending authorization and that it had likely gone through. (Turning
off my voice for however many hours, though I noticed from 7:30am PST
to 11:30am PST. I wasn't made aware this was a possibility, as I am on
call this week and could have made other arrangements.)

- Last night, though my phone is now keeping my data connection and
the 3G download/upload errors appear, webpages and other data reliant
services like Pandora stopped working. This was in places where I'd
previously had a reliable data connection.

- I called again last night to report my problems. I was told to turn
my phone on and off again. After about 20 minutes of the CSR messing
around in the background she discovered there were general network
problems, there was no ETA and the previous ticket was closed.

- I'm still experiencing patchy data connectivity, though it has
improved since Saturday. I am still unable to download any apps from
the Android market.

Each time I contacted the CSR I explained I'd already done a soft
reset or restarted the phone. Because that's what you do when you have
problems right? Each time I was told they were doing something
mysterious on their end. Each time it failed to resolve the problem,
as I told them it would. For many of the calls it took over 30 minutes
for your CSRs to admit that yes, there was something wrong on your
end. Each time the CSRs asked me what kind of phone I had. Each time
the CSRs gave me bad information until I pointed out what I knew the
previous CSR had done.

The rest of the e-mail descends into an analysis of how they went wrong and a positive experience with Netflix I had over their recent outage. But that isn't the point of this post. Shamefully, I can say I've done all of the above to my users and that is the point of this post.

* I didn't listen to them or their concerns.
* I had them turn it off and turn it back on again every time there was a problem.
* I ask them, too frequently, for their PC number though I have it in an asset tracker.
* I don't check closely into their issue unless several users complain.
* I often don't track their issues to completion.
* Due to my lack of preparedness I've wasted their time and mine.
* We can often become separated from our users due to technical knowledge.
* Sometimes it takes special effort to get me to fix something!

None of the above is consistently a problem. But when the creeping feeling comes in that you're put upon, above anything at all or that the users are burdens, that's when you start treating them badly. And that really is not ok because it's my job to facilitate their relationship with technology and make that experience comfortable. Everyone is doing the best they can. That's the important thing to remember. If you're one of my users reading this please believe I'm truly sorry. Though sometimes I feel unfairly put upon it isn't your fault or your issue, it's all mine. You have the right to expect the best and I have the duty to provide it.

An overall rigid procedure is equally alienating. I came across this article about Nordstrom's customer service model. It proves that the ability to resolve things with your own sense of right and wrong is just as important as consistency.

Fortunately I have a boss that trusts me to do the right thing and abide by his course corrections (if there are any to correct.) And it's apparent to me that AT&T employees don't have that trust from their superiors. And that's why I'm left feeling angry and disappointed with my experience. The result is, I'm going to do my best to make sure my users don't feel the same way.