Why do sales people try to get themselves involved in tech support?
We have a new site up on the middle of nowhere in Scotland (which is pretty much anywhere except Glasgow or Edinburgh, to be honest) who have a “server”. The quotes are there because it’s a ******* Windows 98 machine with virtual bloody desktop running. Madness.
On this “server” is one application which means they can’t upgrade the O/S to something actually useful and two printers. Well. One and a bit. The Toshiba one doesn’t work because the drivers are screwed. You can’t remove the printer (you can delete it, but it reappears on reboot) and you can’t replace the drivers because the files are currently in use.
So one of our sales guys gets involved and tells the customer that the “server” needs an upgrade. Top notch. Bloody right it does.
By adding more memory to it.
So. We had a Windows 98 machine with 128Mb of memory in it that didn’t work. We now have a Windows 98 machine with 300Mb+ of memory in it that doesn’t work. And a customer who now thinks his problems will be solved because he’s thrown money at them.
For ****’s sake.
You’ll probably find it even harder to get the customer to upgrade as he’s done exactly as advised, and now it’s up to you to do your part.
That’s life, that’s what the people say…………
The worst bit is that all the PCs arrived with WinXP on a year or two ago. They were *downgraded* to 98 to remain compatible with some software package or other. Now the customer won’t upgrade without us doing it for them at no cost.
Hey ho.
Make the salesperson the tech for that customer. Problem solved.
Hell, no. Cos I get his fallout. I’m second/third line support.