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Comment by johnchristopher | Hacker News Reader

It's really weird how it's the total opposite for call centers for ISP/Cable companies. The job of the operator is not to solve your problem but to keep you as a client.

I rephrase it: the first and main goal of the support person is to keep you as a client, not to solve your problem.

I learned that when I applied for such a job, was given half an hour of sitting next to a support person and listening in to conversations between customers and that support person.

Then I got a 5 minutes interview where I was asked what I thought was the purpose and first objective of the job I was applying to: "Before passing the door I'd have said to solve customer's problems but now I can see it's more like... 90% is to keep the customers from leaving, 10% solve the problems. It doesn't matter if the problem gets solved.". The recruiter/head of service and my eyes met and we instantly both agree it wasn't a place for me ^^.

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You were lucky. CS is hell. Inverse your findings: "How many customers actually want their problem solved?". You'd be very surprised, it's not many.

I did CS for networking hardware. Very easy to troubleshoot, plus I have all Cisco Certs. I could tell immediately what was wrong, within seconds of the call. Still you needed to dance around with the (angry) customer for 6-20 minutes, sometimes hours. Yes, hours. It was company policy to never hang up. Bad policy. That got them very high employee churn and costs.

It was torture when all you want to do is to just solve the problem. It's way more than that.

Surely if the customer is prepared to go to the trouble of calling you up about their problem they're likely to leave if you don't solve it? At least unless you have a monopoly?

It’s just lip service in the US. Most people have only one option for decent Internet, and the ISPs know it.

It's not quite that drastic. Anywhere I lived I had at least two, often three options. But switching, especially if you have physical wiring and figured it out and working the way you want, is a hassle, so I would not do it lightly. My 2c.

I've generally had two choices: 5-12Mbps DSL or cable. A couple times I was able to get Google Fiber, but I'm sure you know how limited the availability of that is.

There at most 2 wired internet options at every address I’ve seen. You have wired cable internet via coaxial from TV company, and fiber to the home from the telephone company, if you’re lucky (a very small percent of homes have this option). Most people just have the option of cable internet from TV company.

And wired DSL with 3Mbps from phone company doesn’t count as broadband internet, in my opinion.

There aren't a lot of ISP/cable companies around and it can takes weeks and fees (for breaking contract) before moving to a clone of that company (and most likely suffer downtimes during that time).

I am really looking forward to StarLink. Even if it is expensive many ISPs outside the cities that are now just monopolies will find they will have to improve customer service.

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