Cutting Off an Over-Demanding End-User? 466
SpaceNeeded asks: "Numbers of you will probably recognize the start of the situation. Because I work with systems, I perform occasional builds. This occasionally crosses over to support (especially where it's my kit I'm asked to support). This isn't a problem, nor is it a problem when I get the occasional support query from someone I haven't supplied a system to, but who needs assistance. This is all well and good, but I've had pretty poor year personally. I've lost two relatives and a third is in a pretty bad way in hospital. An eleven year relationship ended a couple of months back, and I'm now having to perform _all_ the domestic tasks that used to be shared. Between these few things and my regular job I'm finding I have a whole lot less time to allow to support calls. What methods do you know of for gently cutting off someone, support-wise?"
"I have a regular end-user who is the one that we all dread. They have little interest in PC systems for itself, and regularly call up with problems, usually related to Windows spy-ware/Trojans/Viruses. I haven't supplied the systems, which comprises of two Dells and a Tosh laptop. Although I quite like them personally, I really don't need the hassle of their regular calls at the moment.
Before the regular cries of 'Supply Ubuntu' get too loud - that will _not_ work. They aren't up to Windows after a couple of years, and will expect interoperability with Windows systems (through college/employer) and don't have the technical skills to manage a *nix system."
charge 'em (Score:5, Insightful)
Avoid the problem altogether (Score:5, Insightful)
Business is business (Score:5, Insightful)
If the guy takes it badly, that's his problem.
Try telling them the truth? (Score:5, Insightful)
I find that increasing rates also helps, as previously mentioned.
Re:Try telling them the truth? (Score:4, Insightful)
Lucky for you, this is one of those times. Just explain the situation and if they are an understanding friend (like you appear to make them out to be) they will thank you for all the help so far and go find someone else.
of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Mo' money (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know what you charge now, but start upping it fast. Increments of 25% is a good way to wean people off stupid calls. You can always charge less, later. Demanding a 3 hour minimum is a good way to go as well (even 4 hour minimums).
Simple (Score:4, Insightful)
"I have too much shit on my plate right now to take care of your technical problems."
You don't even owe them an explanation, it's perfectly ok to set your boundaries as you wish them to be. If after that they still bug you they're not your friends, they're just parasites.
Good luck with everything man, hang in there.
Easy as ABC (Score:2, Insightful)
a) If they're paying you for support: Bump up the price.
b) If they're not paying you for support: See (a)
c) If they keep asking for support at the new price: Hire someone decent and take a cut!
Re:An idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Offer to help him out if he brings his PC to your house
Definitely works.
They figure its easier for YOU to come over to their place than it is for them to:
I've seen systems sit on the floor for half a year in other people's homes, inoperable, because people are too lazy to bring them over, so they use this as an excuse to buy a new one ...
Wait long enough, and those systems become yours for free. Great for spare parts.
Re:Business is business (Score:2, Insightful)
You: Good afternoon _______, what can I help you with today?
Customer:
You: I understand what you're telling me, but I have to tell you that this is outside of what the management has authorized me to offer support for. I know that I've helped you with these types of issues in the past, but I really have to stick to the guidelines from now on. Is there anything directly related to one of our products I can help you with today?
now that's just an idea, but I think it takes the pressure off of you as a support rep and puts it on the customer and the management in a nice way.
Re:Grow a backbone (Score:5, Insightful)
True enough, although I would never say no to my parents. Cleaning out their spyware is a very small return on their investment. You'll feel better for it too, unless you are a totally hopeless person.
Re:Business is business (Score:4, Insightful)
Between my family and personal relationship life and business life/customers, the later doesn't even rank close.
I wouldn't care if it get around. "I failed to perform to what a customer expected because I had to handle my personal life." is something I can easily live with.
You can ALWAYS get other customers/bosses/co-workers but you can't get another family.
Re:Try telling them the truth? (Score:3, Insightful)
You should be charging a fair market rate for your service. A person who calls you with every minor question is a dead give away that you are charging too little. However, if you can't provide good service due to life constraints at any price then you need to transition them to someone else.
Ah, the classic problem (Score:1, Insightful)
It is very scary.
I'm confused... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:charge 'em (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a feeling that brazenly offending them isn't the solution either.
Depending on how close you are to the person, you might directly ask for help
with your stuff in exchange for the tech support. Cleaning someone's computer
or teaching them how to use it is as time consuming and personal as a lot of
domestic tasks, so I don't see this as being unreasonable.
If they just happen to be a nice customer that you're on good terms with, you
might try pointing them 'gently' toward other resources. That seems to have
worked well with me when I needed some time away from the constant prodding for
tech support.
Re:charge 'em (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Business is business (Score:5, Insightful)
Too true. I did a month stint on a high deadline job a while back and while my wife supported me 100%, it was hard on both of us. I flat out refuse to do it again, and management know this. I've made it clear that no job or project is more important than my family.
Re:charge 'em (Score:3, Insightful)
You're buying the phone # not the PC (Score:2, Insightful)
pass it on (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good idea (Score:2, Insightful)
They either eventually a) figure the problem out on their own, b) call someone else who isn't as busy, c) wait for me to come over/call them back and talk them through it days later. I've found that c doesn't happen very often for me, and if it does, then that's fine with me, since then I can help them out when it's most convenient for me.
Re:I don't understand... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't understand why you're oligated to fix this person's computer.
It's called being considerate [reference.com]. Some people still seem to think that's quite a worthwhile trait believe it or not.
Facetiousness aside, I believe the OP didn't need to be told that 'no' was an option; rather how best to let people down.
Re:Charge others as you would have them charge you (Score:2, Insightful)
As one loqacious contractor likes to say - "bidness is bidness."
The service business ain't no monopoly, any buyer is free to walk away and hire someone else if they don't like the price. If they can't find anyone at the price they want, then they are welcome to either handle it in house (it is open-source after all) or move to another product.
It is hard to get less coercive than that.
Wake me up when you can get a custom kernel patch for Windows - from somebody other than microsoft - for under $100K.
Re:Honesty (Score:5, Insightful)
Communicating the truth to the best of your ability is what I'd suggest. Not everyone needs to know every detail of your life, but being honest that you're going through a rough time and need to cut back on some aspects of your job will work. If they ask what's going on, tell them if you're comfortable; they may be able to offer _you_ some advice or kind words of support, too. If they don't understand at that point then sure, bastards. They're easy to cut off.
Something else you should do as has already been suggested is offer information to another means of support. If there isn't one you're aware of tell them that too, but make sure they know their continued support is a concern for you.
I'm really surprised at the number of people suggesting to raise prices as an only solution to get out of a situation you don't want in at all. If more money would make the situation better for you then sure, it's an honest option but, sheesh. Is directly communicating your needs to another person really scary enough to resort to random manipulation instead?
Recommend end users to buy professional systems (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, this seems heartless or selfish, but the truth is those higher end systems were every bit as good as whatever I could build for them, and not all that much more expensive. In the end they were more happy and thanked me because they had more time to use their computers.
In trying to keep this a non-biased post I will interject just one last observation. The people that I recommended to buy macs and did are still using the same computers from three years ago and are still happy. The ones that went with dell most all got tons of viruses and had a lot of support calls, not quite as happy, but it was their choice.
Work hard, but don't work harder than the patient (Score:5, Insightful)
Tech support clients would be the equivalent of medical patients in my practice, and in any practice we see all sorts of people, including the needy/clingy/demanding type of person who wants everything done for him (== her). "I want an Xray!" "I want better medications!" "I want to see a specialist!" And all this after the patient declines to improve his eating habits and "forgets" to take medicine. (You can envision the equivalent scenario for tech support.)
I will often tell the patient quite frankly: "I will work very hard for you --I will bend over backwards, if necessary-- but I will NOT work harder than you." And I give them homework. Measure your blood sugar twice daily, or do your back exercises every night, or mark on your calendar when you feel the pain coming on, or whatever. Don't come back until you've done that.
Not only would this (hopefully) improve his problem, but it also gives him an appreciation for what you're doing for him. It makes him less whiney because now he doesn't feel as helpless --there's something that he can actually do about it! And, of course, if he's a real loser, he won't see you again because he's not going to do what you asked.
I realize that the OP was referring to cutting off support completely, not helping his client improve the problem. On this, I would agree with other posters who have suggested telling him the truth, and then setting him up with alternative means of support, telling the client up front that he probably won't get as good support from Geek Squad or whatever, but you can't support him any more.
Then set a deadline to cut off support: "I can support you for two more weeks, and then that's it." This is important. Tie the deadline to some milestone so that he won't push you to change it: "I start my night classes in two weeks, so that's why I can't do this any more after two weeks." (It is irrelevant whether this is the true reason; you just don't want the client to say, "Aww, how 'bout 3 weeks? How 'bout 4?")
And then if that doesn't work then
Re:Grow a backbone (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have a relative who's a car mechanic, do you expect them to fix your car for free?
What, you think handymen don't have these "support" problems? How many times hasn't my dad fixed peoples' cars, changed the tires, changed the brakes, changed their oil, do some engine work etc... How many times haven't I witnessed friends of mine help other friends install a car stereo system, "tint" the windows etc? How many times hasn't my uncle had to help someone in the family install or fix a sattellite dish + receiver, how many times hasn't another one of my uncles helped people fix broken electronics? You know shit other people don't, and if they're friends or relatives, they often expect you to come help them for free. The good guys offer something in return; I have this kind of relationship with my sattellite dish uncle: I regularly help him with his computer, and he helps me with car stuff (most of my family knows a fair bit about cars since they all work at the Ford Motor Company plant in Genk, Belgium).
If you have a relative who is an airline pilot, do you expect them to give you free rides?
That's different; the airplane ain't his, the tickets aren't his to give away. But I suppose most airlines have this policy of letting their pilots' relatives fly cheaper, so yeah, even there you get something out of it. This question should be rephrased as "If you have a relative who's a pilot, would you expect him to give you free lessons when you learn to fly that little sports plane? I'm assuming the rental fee is yours to pay, of course; the lesson is free, but you don't expect them to spend their money to do you favors. Rephrased like this, it becomes quite similar to "if you have a relative who has a driver's license, do you expect them to teach you for free?" Gosh, well... isn't that how most of us learned to drive?
If you have a relative who is a prostitute, do you expect, umm, well anyway...
No, but I have a relative who's a hairdresser. She even offered me to cut my hair for free on several occasions. I said no, because I don't like to owe people favors. But to answer your question: if it were a good looking relative, and not too closely related (a sister would be kinda yuck, a cousin would be awkward, but your brother's wife's sister would be OK) I see no reason why I wouldn't take advantage of her services. I wouldn't expect a discount, but I'm sure I'd be getting better service than most of her other customers...
Oh God, what am I saying??? I can't betray my poor Fluffy like this! Ignore that last paragraph!
Anyway, last installment in the saga of my dad's life: a cousin of my mother came by the other day, funny how you hardly ever see them unless they need something done, but they're OK, so it's allright... Anyway, he wanted my dad's help laying new floor throughout his house. It was something like "I got a favor to ask; if you have time, could you help me lay new floor throughout the house? The old floor is busted, my tax return will come in pretty soon, and I thought of investing it in a new floor. I know you can do it since I saw you put in new floor in your own home, so if you would have some time somewhere next month, you think you could help me out? Or just show me how it's done so I can do it myself, 'coz I got no clue on how to do it myself...
Note that last part: he doesn't mind doing the work himself, but he just doesn't have the experience, and understandably doesn't want to mess up a project with this kind of expense involved. He doesn't expect my father to do all the work. My father has the choice of either coming to help, while the guy does part of the work as well, but with lesser risk of screwing up because someone knowledgeable is around to keep an eye on his work, or just teaching the guy how it's done, telling him what he needs to keep in mind while doing it. Those are the best kind of "support calls": these people know you have your own life and respect the fact that you want to manage your own time. Also
If I was the customer, and you explained.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Sometimes honesty is a good policy. If it's too personal maybe leave out some of the intimate details, but it sounds like you're going through a hard time and the individual might even offer some personal support or words of advice (or a nubile relative, as I saw suggested earlier) in return for all the free technical support over the years.
Also, it might be a bit personal, but I almost feel like this question was asked to get a few details of the painful personal circumstances out in the open, without directly asking for support. A long term relationship just ended for me and I found I did this sometimes when I needed support - it was very important and invaluable for me to find someone I could talk to directly about the emotional issues I was experiencing at that time. Then again I'm a gimp sometimes, and I wouldn't want to tar you with the same brush.
I hope you find the solution to your problem, and all my best for the future - shit happens, and it sounds like you're going through the worst of it, but I firmly believe if you survive with a positive attitude things can get better.
Incomprehensible (Score:3, Insightful)
I had to read that about 3 times before I figured out what he was saying. I feel very sorry for the poor end users who have to decipher his techno-geek jargon. "Kit"? "Builds"? Speak english, man!
A better translation:
Because I work with computers, I occassionally build them for people. Sometimes, I end up having to support the people using those computers. Sometimes I support people using computers that I didn't build myself. And I don't mind one bit!
Re:Avoid the problem altogether (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Avoid the problem altogether (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe she didn't really need help, but just wanted some involvement with you on some level?
Re:Grow a backbone (Score:3, Insightful)
Hell, it's your investment on your inheritance, keeping those keyloggers at bay. ;-)
Force them to value your time (Score:3, Insightful)
The best ways that I've found to do this are:
1) Make the person bring the PC over to your home or other location for service.
Most of these types of people can't even be bothered to unplug a PC, let alone bring it somewhere; if they can't spend 5 minutes, why should you spend hours?
2) Force them to sit next to you and watch while you perform the fix.
Better yet, sit beside them and force them to do, while you walk them them through it. They may even learn something, and if not, at least they have an appreciation of the effort required.
3) Be blunt with them.
With these sorts of people, its usually not fixing a range of problems so much as the same problem multiple times (usually virus or malware problems). Explain that once you fix a certain type of problem once or twice, its no longer your responsibility to get the user out that type of jam.
Re:Avoid the problem altogether (Score:0, Insightful)
Stop all support, all of it (Score:2, Insightful)
I decided the only way was to stop all of it, period. I support the machines in my household, my dad's PC, and it ends there with no exceptions. My girlfriend sometimes gets frustrated becasue I won't work on her parents stuff, but I don't care, I won't put up with it all again. If they want support they can pay for it from a PC shop or their vendor.
If they wanted to save a few bucks on the cheapie support contract with their vendor or don't want to invest the time to learn that isn't my problem.
I support exactly 4 PC's (2 are mine, 1 is GF, 1 is my dad), outside of that I don't care if Jusus rises again for the sole reason of asking me how to change his screen resultion, he can get bent.
Re:charge 'em (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a good suggestion, as long as he charges enough to either make it painful for the customer, or to make it worthwhile for him. I'm thinking of the book "freakonomics" by Steven Levit, in which he talks about using money as a way of curbing negative behavior. In his example, it backfired.
A day-care center was concerned about the number of parents who showed up late to pick up their children. The center should have been closing, and everyone should have been going home, but somone would always have to stay late and wait for so-and-so's mom to show up. So, they instituted a policy that if you are late, then you get fined a dollar. The problem is that, before, their __implicit__ policy was "never be late! Our employees want to go home", and afterward, their implicit policy was "for a small fee, we'll allow you to be late".
Beforehand, guilt was one of the few things preventing parents from being late. After the policy had been announced, however, people could use the fee to justify being late, and so, therefore, the frequency of parents showing up late increased dramatically, when the policy was meant to decrease it.
Anyway, the 55-65 dollar fee sounds like it may be a reasonable amount, but I just wanted to warn the poster of the original article about a problem that could arise, if he's too generous with the pricing.
Re:Avoid the problem altogether (Score:2, Insightful)
I run a tiny cluster in a lab doing MD sims and electronic-structure calculations.
We have budding PhD's here who "run" these simulations on the cluster. Each has a dual-boot desktop. they "run" linux. (pointy-clicky) They are supposed to "work" on unix clusters without knowing how unix works. They want to know where their files are without looking for them. They want to be able to write MPI programs in Fortran90. They want to use mkisofs and cdrecord without a fucking clue about what a
They want everything on a golden platter, complete with the candles. They're too fuckin lazy to figure out paths and will go to great extents not to have to type a path. they probably have a score of aliases (well, maybe 10. i don't give a shit)
They want to know how to do all sorts of stuff that root does (building programs, libs and stuff) but don't want to make an effort to learn. They just want it handed over to them. They don't know what goes in to building great software, and they will never know.
Still, they don't know till date how to follow instructions. They will NEVER, ever invest any attosecond of their lives reading a man page. They don't have a f'ing clue to what unix is like, but they still love to brag about their "experience" with computers. They WON'T follow the documentation, and CONSTANTLY pester you when a typo in their command removes any chance of a command running.
They remove (comment out) offending lines (ya, they know line nums) in F77 code and EXPECT it to run. YAY!!
And this is something you won't even want to fucking believe. I'm told by one of these so-called phd-wannabes to build some unix software (autoconf) with a windows-based compiler.On a windows box. Mmm, tasty.
These people are not gonna pay for a decent compiler ever. they want all the free fuckin stuff without a fuckin clue as to why its fuckin free. they don't care about gnu, they just want their job done whatever it takes. And will step over anyone/anything except their own ignorance and stupidity to get there.
They're wannabe PhD's simply without the motivation to learn. (*oxymoronometer going off*) They're dripping wet of incompetence, stupidity, laziness and they're not willing to change. makes me puke.
Yes. You. Read. That. Right.
WTF will these peabrains do when they're getting their peeHD's? their post-docs?
Boy i'm sure as hell gonna enjoy it when the shit hits the fan
Re:Avoid the problem altogether (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't mean to be insulting, but I've seen this problem over and over and more often than not it boils down to that stereotype that is proven true time and again: techies often have poor people skills and don't realize it and end up blaming other people because they don't teach the points well or communicate clearly.
One major point I learned as a teacher: it is the responsibility of the teacher to present the material appropriately to the student, not of the student to figure out poorly presented teaching.
Which is fine but why is the techie at fault for not having teaching skills any more than the non-techie is for not having computer skills? Being a good teacher, being able to identify what someone is failing to understand, why and how best to explain it is a whole set of non-trivial skills in itself. I'd've thought as a teacher you wouldn't under-value those skills by referring to them as generic "people skills".
Find the right customers (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Avoid the problem altogether (Score:2, Insightful)
charge 'em 0.00 and invoice it (Score:5, Insightful)
Make sure your rates are posted on it.
It will list all the work you have done for them in hours and when you charge them for the next call, they have nothing to complain about. Also by charging them they will call less.
Never ever do anything for free. charge them $0.00 for it so it shows up on the invoice. always send an invoice for work done, even if its at $0.00. That shows them how much you are worth to them and they are more willing to pay for the stuff you do charge for.
I don't get it (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't get how you got into this in the first place. You sell handbuilt systems, but you provide free support for people who don't have your systems. As a friend, apparently, but these people aren't friends. I've got friends too - I fix their computers - and when I had deaths in the family, they put me up and took care of me, and didn't ask me to fix their computers.
The way to get yourself out of this situation is always to give them someone else to call. There's a million nice ways to do it. In this case maybe you say, I'll give you a hand when I have time, but this week's bad and next week doesn't look good either. If you want it done quick, a buddy of mine had a good experience with the help guys at X store, if you need it done quickly, give them a call - but let me know how it goes, eh?
Recently I had to duck out of a contract job after an introductory meeting because I didn't like the smell of the job. Sounded like too much work and not enough money, and not interesting. So I asked around and got two names of friends who were hungry (so I was doing them a favor) and contacted the contractee - they didn't like those guys, some of the best people I know (better, for this job, than me). So I said I'd keep asking around, but I'm not going to bother. They can't tell quality when they see it, which means they'll be a problem customer. I've kept a good odor, though, and if I do get hungry, I can come back to them.