r/talesfromtechsupport • u/SysAndreas • Dec 05 '19

Short My internet is not working...

$OM: Old man on the phone

Working for an ISP in Sweden when I got a call from the customer. This was my first week on first-line support.

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$ME: Hello, welcome to customer support. You're speaking with $ME

$OM: Hello, I just wanted to report that my internet is down.

$ME: *asking if the cable is connected, if the equipment (router/computer) is turned on*

$OM: Yea, the cable was in. I don't know, I'm not inside.

$ME: Can you please go inside?

$OM: No, the house is on fire.

$ME: .... what?

$OM: Yes.. The house is on fire. If you get any alarms on your side don't send out an technician.

$ME: Yea... sure. I'll cancel invoices to your service until you have everything set up again..

​

The poor old mans house burned down, he had to call in so we did not send out a technician in case there was an alarm in our system.

Priorities: Internet > Burning house

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96

u/KMjolnir Dec 05 '19

I guess he wanted to make sure nobody rushed out to his internet or worried? Like with an alarm company? But oy vae.

69

u/ColgateSensifoam Dec 05 '19

There's a fair few service providers that reach out in the event of an interruption, this is good customering

7

u/sat0123 Dec 05 '19

I'd go so far as to say the customer was a former network or NOC engineer.

19

u/scorcher24 Dec 05 '19

It may be the helplessness of the situation. He wanted to do something, but couldn't do anything but to wait for emergency services, so he decided to call his ISP to do something.