I had a client call me today to tell me her email was not working. Usually what I do is establish if they have internet. If they do, I will initiate a remote connection to their computer and diagnose the issue.
My first question was “Do you have internet”.
Client: “No, the send and receive does not work”.
Me: “Actually, to determine if you have internet access, the easiest way is to open your web browser and type a web site name like www.google.com and if the site appears, then you have internet. Can you try that?”
(I can hear typing and mumbling going on over the phone.)
Client: “That does not work and I still cant send and receive email”
Me: “Well I am afraid I cant really help you because I don’t provide your internet access, only the email service itself and you need internet first before you can connect to the service, hence the error when clicking send and receive, becasue you have no internet”
Client: “So what do I do?”
Me: “Check all your cables are connected correctly etc and that your router is on, if you have done all of that and still no internet, then you need to contact the company that provides your ADSL service”
Client: “Contacting the provider is useless, they are slow and take ages and I need my internet now, what other options do I have?”
Me: “You can always find a local IT company to diagnose the issue.”
Client: “Yes but they will charge me for that. As soon as I walk through the dorr they will charge me 25 euros to fix it, in fact even they are going out of business because no-one wants to pay them for fixing their computer issues”.
(I am thinking at this point the client is a bit mental)
Me: “Do you have a friend who is knowledgeable in troubleshooting internet connection issues who can come over and look at your setup?”
Client: “No, and I dont know how to do it myself”
Me: “I am sorry but the only options are the ones I have given you. If you had internet I could probably assist you via remote connection, but without it, I cant do much from here”.
Client: “Okay. I will try and fix it myself and if I have problems I will let you know”
Yeah….ok…….try and call me……thank goodness for call screening!