Heaven help you if you need tech support

J

Jhbgirl

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I logged a call with sentech at 8 yesterday morning and the guy just came back to me. He tells me the reason I can't connect is because there is no coverage in our area (I am connected at the moment by the way) Only after I tell him where we live did he look it up and see that infact we do have coverage. Then I ask him, for interest sake, why we can't connect to the tower closest to us and without him even asking which tower he says the tower is probably not active. Then I tell him it is because I know people that's connected to it. He asks me if they are further away from the tower than me and I say yes. He says aaah, it's because we are too close to the tower, again without asking how far or anything. We are 3.9km away from the particular tower.

*venting*
 
It's pretty much the same with any helpdesk "tech" support.

They aren't trained to "think out of the box" and can only really answer basic "how to connect my modem" questions - leastways, that's what I reckon having dealt with "technical" helpdesk people before.

Your best bet is to get hold of head office and demand to speak to someone who knows what they are talking about.

In all my dealings with Sentech, I've gone through the fourways main office number and not the 0860 help line number.

Oh - actually, I did call the help line number once (It only took me 40 minutes and about R200 air time to get through) :-

ME: Hi, I need some help with my modem, it's not connecting - windows tells me the device is not plugged in or the signal is not strong enough.
HELP: Yes, that's a problem with windows 98
ME: I'm not using windows 98, I'm using XP
HELP: Ah - yes - that's also a problem with windows XP.
ME: So what is the problem
HELP: Erm, (i hear him asking someone else) yes - it's the power to the USB cable, sometimes windows doesn't see it.
ME: See what ?
HELP: The USB connection
ME: Ahhh (loosing faith and trying not to laugh), ok, so what should I do ?
HELP: Switch your computer off and back on again.
ME: Ok (giving up, about to ROTFL) thanks for your help

Needless to say, turning the computer off and back on again didn't help :)

A re-install of winXP did the trick.
 
LOL, thanks for that, made me laugh :)

I've given up on calling sentech. I've learnt much more here on the forum and have solved my own problems 99% off the time by just reading here.
 
Mat bb it was probally just the USB drivers that needed to be re-installed, can also be fixed by aplying service pack1 to your computer.

Keep Surfing
 
it looks like that water tower on golf club terrace in constantia kloof has got equipment on it, dont see the tower though (its number 12 if im not mistaken, and can only pick it up in one corner of my room @ 35% without an antenna)

think it's suppose to be the flora cliffe one... might try and connect to it again *sigh*
 
Yes, Sentech Customer support is almost as useless as Telkom customer support. I have a pet hate for them. By the way, I still cannot connect even though I get a 28% signal. They are not interested in helping me (almost 4 weeks now) and keep on spewing the following:
Sentech:"Sir, you are in a partial area and we cannot guarantee a connection."
Me: "But one of mny neighbours have no problem connecting."
Sentech: "Ah, but he probably has a big tree that blocks your signal."
Me: "Ok. My account is currently frozen. How can I test if I can connect? Will the modem connect and just tell me that my account is frozen?"
Sentech: "Sir, you have to reactivate your account. Otherwise you'll get a 'Remote Computer did not respond' error."
Me: "So, how will I know that I can connect?"
Sentech: "Get your neighbour to bring his modem over to your place and test it."

Stupid fools!
 
There is support, you could have fooled me, I though it was a funny centre, you called there to make you laugh ! [:(!]
 
He he he, well i have one of the sentech IP support guys telephone number..,.. so i get first hand support-- those guys at the tech-support center are a bunch of n00ls -: some guy told me that if i move the modem from one coverage aria to another the modem still tries to connect to the previous tower.. and i have to go back to reset the thing to be able to picup the new zone.. well after a lot o swearing i got this guys number. and we found a huge problem with their vertual hosts on their network.. lol

but in any case swear at them and thy will listen.

May the source be with you!
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">

but in any case swear at them and thy will listen.

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I've found the opposite is true.
Be nice to people, but persistent.

If I was a support dude and someone started shouting at me, first thing I'd do is hold the phone away from my ear and say to my fellow workers "we've got a live one here !" and I'd be as unhelpful as possible.

Remember, the support staff are not responsible for company policy.

If you really want action, be polite to the support and try to get a number of someone who can actually help you or is accountable !
Swearing at the support staff won't get you anywhere !

Having said that, if they put you onto the dreaded recorded message service, then curse and swear like a bastard from hell - I did ! :)
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
Having said that, if they put you onto the dreaded recorded message service, then curse and swear like a bastard from hell - I did ! :)
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Hmmm. Wonder whether they keep on recording when your'e on hold?[}:)]
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by bb_matt</i>
<br />
I've found the opposite is true.
Be nice to people, but persistent.

If I was a support dude and someone started shouting at me, first thing I'd do is hold the phone away from my ear and say to my fellow workers "we've got a live one here !" and I'd be as unhelpful as possible.

Remember, the support staff are not responsible for company policy.

If you really want action, be polite to the support and try to get a number of someone who can actually help you or is accountable !
Swearing at the support staff won't get you anywhere !

Having said that, if they put you onto the dreaded recorded message service, then curse and swear like a bastard from hell - I did ! :)
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Correct, and the support person have all the right in the world to tell you to stop swearing at him/her or they will drop the line. You might even end up in court over defamation of character...so treat the support guys the way you'd want to be treated if you were in their shoes...

--
 
Keep in mind that in certain situations they have something that yo dont, ie. connections. For example, one day I couldnt connect to my tower. So I called them and they assured me nothing was wrong and I must move the modem around. Now I wouldnt phone them <i>before</i> moving the modem around but thats not the point. Anyways.. so I ended the call and voila within about 15 mins the tower worked again as if they quickly phoned the tech dudes and got it repaired.

If they are obviously incompetent then something should be done for sure. So far, it seems to me that most of the staff at the call centre are quite ok when it comes to support. Remember, this is not Telkom.
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by greedyflyza</i>
<br />Keep in mind that in certain situations they have something that yo dont, ie. connections. For example, one day I couldnt connect to my tower. So I called them and they assured me nothing was wrong and I must move the modem around. Now I wouldnt phone them <i>before</i> moving the modem around but thats not the point. Anyways.. so I ended the call and voila within about 15 mins the tower worked again as if they quickly phoned the tech dudes and got it repaired.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I have the disappearing signal thing about once a day. Signal disappears, and after a few minutes, comes back again. Somewhat annoying.
 
Somewhere way back in the forum messages, when I was one of the first to be going through the joys of dealing with Sentech call center folks, I wrote a lengthy 'how to operate with call center folks by being friendly and yet insanely firm about what you want' type of message, which still applies..

In other news though, I have heard a vicious (and probably totally untrue) rumour that Sentech Call Center people were being used by the US military, to help them with their current strategy in Iraq :P
 
Originally I tought there was no one worse than TELKOM, at first Im not a windows user.. My problem with them started with the MTU packet sizes for UNIX and dailing PPPoE ajusting your MTU packet sizes work s but not all that well (quick fix)... So I phoned SENTECH support who did not know the first thing on UNIX systems, but ok I can live with that....what I could not live with is that it took me a whole month to get a tech-support guy out to my offices "just to come and look at my problem... Ok the guy showed up but he did not know what was going on he was baffeld - he couldent even get it working on a windoze machine... So after a week a IP support guy came out looked at my problem and realized that it was a problem... On their virtual servers.... if you have not noticed the IPs of the gateways are not 10.11.0.1/3 anymore coz that caused a problem with their network infrastructure, but to say the least -

I think all the tech-support guys & girls at sentech should become PornStars.... because thy do not come or is it cum?[:o)]

May the source be with you!
 
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