ISP's Slapping Techs For Lending A Hand

Mike writes "Broadband Reports is running a story about how several large ISP's have reprimanded, even fired techs who offer support in BBR's forums in their free time. BellSouth is the latest ISP to forbid any official tech support representation. Instead of sculpting PR guidelines for techs to follow, they're scaring them into submission."

Re:Sounds about right to me

[Anonymous Coward]

If these techs start offering tech support in their "free" time, they're pretty likely to start demanding that it be included in their "paid" time.

Many people understand the distinction between "free time" and "work time". Why not try this solution?

1) Inform employees that responding to inquiries via public forums does not count toward work hours.
2) Having stated that, allow employees to respond.

Employees want to complain? Be my guest. Please see point 1.

FYI, if you read the article, it has more to do with legal actions and public image than employee compensation.

The Samaritan Effect

[pgrote]

I have had SBC DSL since they offered it. I was an early adopter and paid for it heavily with downtime and mysterious router issues. Add to that I actually signed up for static IP addresses and bandwidth guarantees and I feel into the black hole when it came to support.

The techs working undercover on Broadband Reports helped me out and since then, two years, I haven't had a single issue.

This raises the interesting prospect of if they weren't available I would have cancelled and taken my business elsewhere. Where I am located there are multiple companies and solutions available, so I am lucky.

99.9% of the techs on the boards do it for their own gratification. I call it the Samaritan Effect. It's what online support used to be back in the days of the BBS and message networks. Personal handholding on issues that others could learn from.

Each time a tech takes the time to answer a question, solve a problem or offer advice it lightens the load on the overworked phone staff.

The techs enjoy it because they find, gasp, satisfaction that they are making a difference in their jobs. Most of those folks are not customer facing getting their orders from ticket systems, etc. It provides them a chance to make a difference.

Yes, there are negative implications on doing this, but for the most part it works. Providers should read the Cluetrain Manifesto [searls.com] for more exposure to what they should be doing.

Re:Thats the reason I was fired

[FuzzzyLogik]

This is sad, because it's exactly what i did, though i didn't do it on any company time. It's a good recommendation. I used to have random disconnects with a software modem, normally while playing games and such. The cpu just couldn't feed the modem with the information and disconnected me. So i bought a hardware modem fromo USR and never had a problem since. I also did this for other people and it fixed their problems. I don't think it's much of a problem any more with newer computers, but it was a problem on my p166. I just keep moving my USR from new computer to new computer :) and i keep it around in case my cable goes out (good ol comcast)... I too would be glad to not work for that ISP anymore.

Kyle

Things never change....

[KristsInferno]

This also reminds me of a semi-large MSN Tech outsource that did the same thing both on and off the clock. The MSN motto for support was "Get that customer off the phone!" Actually helping the customer fix their issue was frowned upon if it took more than 60 seconds. As an employee, the techs were also forbidden to, in any way, say that they represented MSN in a public forum, even while on the clock! I, for one, still rate a company largely on thier customer relations. Too bad there isn't a big ISP that taps that demographic...

Pretty standard, actually, unfrotunately

[MacAndrew]

BellSouth employees will not be allowed to lend a hand in any official capacity

It is important to be cautious in drawing many conclusions from a single press account. As everyone knows, sometimes the press does a mediocre job.

The key word is "official" -- the company should and must control its employees' official activities, because they are then acting as representatives of the company. This is standard business law. True, the company would get credit for the good things the reps did in their spare time, but it would also get the blame or, worse, monetary liability.

So the employees shouldn't do it if told not to. That might be dumb business logic for the company, but who knows, is is their call. Assuming the reps were doing a good jobs and not generating complaints, their committment sounds laudable. I've avoided calling for tech help of any sort for years b/c of frustration with clueless techs (not always, but too often).

That's the right; but here it *sounds* like the companies here are also being jerks about it and treating their employees reprehensibly. That's a whole 'nother ball of wax, and one for which I am entirely unsympathetic.

FYI

[cioxx]

Here's the announcement thread [broadbandreports.com] on the forums.

Common sense here guys

[Anonymous Coward]

The isp's are just trying to cover their back..

If a tech on their spare time, gives out the wrong information, that say causes the computer to crash and need to be reformated, the customer can go and try to sue the ISP.

I cant say I blame the ISP

Re:Truly horrible

[The Madpostal Worker]

Employees volunteering time falls under a very gray(well actually not that gray) area of the Fair Flabor Standards Act(FLSA). The general consensus is that empolyees cannot volunteer time to their employer: almost always this falls under the definition of Hours Worked. The ISP is most likely worried that some point down the road their Tech (who was originally doing this of their own free will) will demand compensation ( and the requisite overtime) for their "voluneered" hours.

You know if I was the employer, I would do the same thing.

The Department of Labor Elaws [dol.gov] has some easy to understand interpretations of various FLSA previsions.

Doin' us a favour

[mrobinso]

I think it's a boon to consumers that big ISPs refrain from offering any support whatsoever. Most of the so-called 'support technicians' are nothing more than snotty-nosed highschoolers plugging catchwords into a support system and reading back the ensuing script. Half the time the support doesn't help at all, and the other half of the time it does more harm than good. Cogeco is notorious for hiring nobrain ninnies who don't know ether from ethernet.

If anything, the stuff they say or post is exactly what NOT to do. When it's all said and done, it's always the customer's fault anyway, so what difference does it make if they offer support or not.

There's a whole slew of really good self-help sites out there, like PracticallyNetworked.com [practicallynetworked.com] and homenethelp.com [homenethelp.com]; the ISPs are actually doing the average broadband consumer a disservice by offering their screwed up support.

perhaps they lose money?

[jkcity]

I am nto familiar with that isp but my isp ntl world in the uk charges 50p a minute for support costs, its pains me to have to ring them to ask why cable modem ain't working, but I suspect they do make a profit from it.

Re:Truly horrible

[The Madpostal Worker]

Again a possilbe gray area. Generally a salaried employee is still eligible for overtime unless they fit the "White Collar Exemption"(Here are more common overtime exemptions [dol.gov]).

The two best fits in the whitecollar exemption are(from http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/whdfs17 .htm [dol.gov]:

"Administrative Exemption

Applicable to employees who perform office or non-manual work which is directly related to the management policies or general business operations of their employer or their employer's customers, or perform such functions in the administration of an educational establishment; who regularly exercise discretion and judgment in their work; who either assist a proprietor or executive, perform specialized or technical work, or execute special assignments; who receive a salary which meets the requirements of the exemption; and who do not devote more than 20% of their time to work other than that described above (40% in retail and service establishments).

Professional Exemption

Applicable to employees who perform work requiring advanced knowledge and education, work in an artistic field which is original and creative, work as a teacher, or work as a computer system analyst, programmer, software engineer, or similarly skilled worker in the computer software field; who regularly exercise discretion and judgment; who perform work which is intellectual and varied in character, the accomplishment of which cannot be standardized as to time; who receive a salary which meets the requirements of the exemption (except doctors, lawyers, teachers and certain computer occupations); and who do not devote more than 20% of their time to work other than that described above."

Now IANAL, but there is a great deal of room for interpretation in there. A front-line (or even higher up) tech support person most likely doesn't meet the adminsitrative exemption (beacuse they won't be seetting management policy) and possibly the professional exemption

The FLSA is a big complex mess designed to stop employers from screwing employees. Sometimes in the process they limit worker's choices too. People run into this same issue in other areas too. Volunteer firefights in many counties have to resign from their volunteering position if they take a within the Fire/Rescue department of that county (even if there is no overlap between jobs). The problem is that in general many "volunteered" hours to companies aren't voluntary.

They're only hurting themselves

[ThatDamnMurphyGuy]

DSL Reports' SBC/Ameritech telco forums has a few techs helping in the forums in an OFFICIAL capacity.

I've suffered through SBC's DNS servers being setup incorrectly, a bad router, and a line problem, NONE of which I would have gotten solved without the help of the OFFICIAL tech support by SBC in those forums.

I literaly spent 5 days in phone queues and Tier 1 hell to try and confirm and get fixed reverse DNS problems with NO luck. IT was only after the official tech in the forums looked into the issues or made calls that I got things fixed.

It is clear the forums/usenet support is more efficient than phone suppport in most case IMHO.