Self Advocacy

How to “throw away the script” to Technical Support

Clickford, Steven M.

People call technical support and say

“It doesn’t work”

[You’re the genius, you know everything, fix it!]

In reality these people are not as technical as you think. Technical support is not some fantasy, cinematic with Star Wars like CGI projected displays.

They are offices, with generic Herman Miller or Steelcase cubicles, with generation or two old enterprise class desktops probably running Enterprise class Windows 7, and telephones that are DCP or ISDN, two wired landline like terminals functioning as Automatic Call Distribution as the telephone.

When you call a technical support, you go to Tier 1, and depending on your rap sheet with your brand (or vendor) it may route you to a better or worse “agent” because the special PBX and the computer that handles the number and your case history are plugged together.

How do you “throw away the script”?

SPECIFIC INFORMATION REQUIRED

  • When did the issue occur? Was there another incident prior to?
  • What happened at the time of the incident? Did this happen at the same time?
  • Can you reproduce this problem?
  • Can you elaborate the way of reproducing the problem?
  • If this is an Internet provider and you don’t have access to the “internet”, can you “Ping” through a “console”, “terminal” or “command line prompt” to Google’s Well Known IP Address of 8.8.8.8? Do you see success or error messages?
  • If you have any understanding of any technical matters, mention that.

If you can be coherent and explain things in a thought out manner without acting like wishy-washy or “well something is working, but I am not sure, because I dunno something may not work but I do not know for sure” will delay the line of communication to the goal of restoration.

Answer those specifics, you can get to Tier II or III. Tier III for most vendors Tier III is developer, engineers, the VIP circle. They will highly respect you if YOU continue Proper Line of Communication of Specificity. Acting like girl in Clueless back to Tier I in less than New York Second!

 

Assume all call centers are not local. The agent doesn’t now East Manchester, NH to Manchester, California. They don’t have access vital information to the “last mile boxes” or the cell tower, or the code in Office 365. You want the keys to the VIP, you prove yourself to show you know something.

Take responsibility. The Vendor has no right to treat a high schooler full access support if that high schooler minded person cannot explain themself. It’s called advocacy. Consumer class people, under-informed (do not confuse this as under-educated), people living in poor communities, are not fully aware that enterprise class companies are at larger scale and are unfortunately less “neighborly” and is not as fully intelligent to basic levels of technology.

Act like an adult, talk logically, think methodically. Filter yourself. Think about what is going on at the “agent’s” end. Ignore the TV commercials of what contact center looks like. Think boring thoughts. That’s how society works in an Enterprise World.

#EnterpriseYOURself

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Autism/Political Regression

Clickford, Steven M.

The Autism rights movement is very non-existent in my area. I do not see any changes effecting my state related to me. I had been active in some self-advocacy in the past. There are too many older people of elderly age who have their views on “developmental disabilities”; and their views are not up to par in the 21st century. We also have too many direct support professionals who are in the institutional mind and skillset but yet we are supposed to be out in the community all day long because being exposed and being seen will fix all the intolerant issues. Sadly I know enough conservatives who do not tolerate my group at all.

I have spoken to heads of state agencies, to bureau heads, to department employees and they have refused to take my concerns into consideration other than generic acknowledgment  type of statements. I tried to show people in my own county for an example what autism can be for all, not just some limited restrictions for whatever excuses the older generation wants to believe.

Autism Awareness will always be the month to denote the signs, but we will never, ever, EVER be appreciated or accepted. I will be treated like a wallflower, just a voice that wants to only be heard in their minds.

I’ve accepted the facts that I will not be respected like any other thirty year olds in this circle. It is politically incorrect to be high functioning and be part of various special needs support circles, they want to only support the ones who allegedly cannot speak for themselves. Some are threatened by me because I’ve broken some glass barriers to the point they’d be laid off because a little known fact is that some families can speak for themselves! Which means some family advocacy groups could be out of a job, but they blame me for speaking truth to power; but they can be as  crass as they want to be. (This is the concern of the power addiction that some Concord types have a problem.)

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