[TriLUG] OT: Earthlink Tech Support

[Michael Thompson]

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Christopher L Merrill wrote:

| Maybe you've missed the point.  Anybody insulted by that statement
| is not a potential customer.  They don't want them (you?).  They want
| people who laugh at AOL users (me, for instance).

Don't get me wrong, I laugh at AOL and their customers all the time, but
not in their faces.  Computer illiterate people put food on my table.  I
try my best to treat all my customers with respect and always try to
remember that just because I'm a computer geek it doesn't make me
smarter than anyone else.  I do my job, they do theirs.  If they did
know how to do my job, then I'd have to find another line of work.  I've
had customers that have proven too illiterate to work for and waste too
much of my time, I just politely refer them to one of the local computer
shops for service since my schedule is "full", which is true in most
cases anyway.

Regardless, people who laugh at AOL customers may also have problems
with their access due to failures at the ISP end, and I expect attitude
problems with a company that starts the business relationship with a "we
don't want idiots as customers" message on the signup page.  This may be
an incorrect assumption on my part, but thats a failure in their
marketing.  There's nothing wrong with being selective about the
customers you want to service, but in my opinion there is something
wrong with the "we're doing you a favor by allowing you to keep us in
business" attitude.

Luckily, I don't need dialup access or hosting anyway.  I'm just fed up
with dealing with attitudes from businesses that expect my patronage,
whether its an ISP or the McDonalds up the street.  Those guys may be
the nicest people in the world, but their site tells me they think
they're smarter than everyone else and if I were in need for dialup
service I'd shop somewhere else.  Whats wrong with providing good
technical service and showing some simple respect?  Guess I'm just old
fashioned.

But hey, thats just my $.02.

:)

- --mike




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