I think most users just aren't competent enough to know when it's warranted or not, and unfortunately most organizations don't train, equip, or trust their reps with access to the real good tools. For questions about features or functionality I understand your point, I just think the asymmetries created by lots of orgs having obtuse multi-tier support trains customers to put little faith in reps across the board.
I usually couch it like "look, I appreciate it but I'm pretty sure this can be resolved by escalating", like a recent issue I had with a pay card which is tied to a transaction processor but issued by a 3rd party bank. Usually the card is automatically present during an online checkout process, but a replacement issued when the previous card expired, after activation, was missing and could not be added like a normal pay card, failing with an error message.
Word. Customer Support reps for big corporations are basically human shields the Corpos put between themselves and the public to soak up all the hate and vitriol. Getting screamed at until you break down is the real job, not helping people. Then you get thrown in the trash and replaced with a new warm body.
I think most users just aren't competent enough to know when it's warranted or not, and unfortunately most organizations don't train, equip, or trust their reps with access to the real good tools. For questions about features or functionality I understand your point, I just think the asymmetries created by lots of orgs having obtuse multi-tier support trains customers to put little faith in reps across the board.
I usually couch it like "look, I appreciate it but I'm pretty sure this can be resolved by escalating", like a recent issue I had with a pay card which is tied to a transaction processor but issued by a 3rd party bank. Usually the card is automatically present during an online checkout process, but a replacement issued when the previous card expired, after activation, was missing and could not be added like a normal pay card, failing with an error message.
Word. Customer Support reps for big corporations are basically human shields the Corpos put between themselves and the public to soak up all the hate and vitriol. Getting screamed at until you break down is the real job, not helping people. Then you get thrown in the trash and replaced with a new warm body.
this was my first real job when out of high school, I didn't last too long once I started to piece it together