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Comment by Nextgrid | Hacker News Reader

This doesn’t work for technical people, but it works for the other 90% of people who’d rather call and waste not only support’s time, but their own time even if their problem can be resolved by common sense or the first page of the knowledge base.

Companies need to offer an “advanced support” option - a separate number with big scary warnings where every call whose resolution is due to your own fault or something findable on the docs ends up charging the user a fee. In exchange, it directly bypasses all chatbots and first-line support.

I’ve never heard an argument why companies don’t do that, it seems like it would be a win-win for everyone to get the customers to self-triage before reaching out.

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  > due to your own fault or something findable on the docs ends up charging the user a fee.

  | But the plans were on display…”
  “On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
 “That’s the display department.”
  “With a flashlight.”
  “Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
  “So had the stairs.”
  “But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
  “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.
  - Hitchhiker's Guide

I don't see that going well... it presents a completely different "opportunity"

Because "customer support" is supposed to be, at least on its face, friendly and supportive. It's not good business to actively antagonize or challenge your customers.

1 US worker = About 3-8 outsourced workers. Somewhere in there the logic of hiring many US Workers to manage said advanced customer service (they'd have to native speak English) is not worth the cost of the department. Even with the fee.

But I assume they have US-based workers anyway to handle escalations. So the proposal is to simply allow users to self-escalate and pay a fee if they waste time.

Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/806/

I had an experience like this in a real-life non technical situation.

Walking down the street I receive a text to say my glasses were ready to be picked up. I had not purchased any glasses, and the store that I was to collect them from was not in the city I live in. By coincidence I was approximately 30 meters from a branch of the same store in my town. I popped in to tell them that someone had entered a phone number incorrectly and someone might need to told by other means that their glasses were ready.

The response? "Certainly sir, can I have your name, and address". Explaining how this information was not relevant was not fruitful. I was reluctant to provide this information because about the only thing they could have done with it was to add it to the account that matched the phone number. I wasn't in the mood to engage in identity theft for a free pair of glassees, but the conversation was going in circles. Eventually another staff member observed the rising tension and offered to take care of this difficult situation. She took my phone number, and the address of the branch that had sent the text, said thank you for the notification and she would sort it out with the other branch. I was out of the store within 30 seconds of her taking over.

Engaging with employee one, I would've just snarkily said, "This is dumb, can I talk to your chatbot, please?".

An oldie, but goodie.

This may even be from the turn of the century: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI2xK6zbaoI

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7984350

Yep, very much aware of them and a happy customer!

In fact you don’t even need to say “shibboleet” - I don’t think they even have anyone on payroll that doesn’t know at least 2 programming languages.

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