The customer can't always describe their problem

Customers often will describe specific problems they are having, but one of the best ways to improve how fast we can fix their issue is to make sure we understand their problem by asking some extra questions before we jump into troubleshooting.

Customers don't know as much as we do about their issues so it's important to have a full understanding before we jump into fixing their issues

What do customer problems sound like?

Customers may have only noticed part of the problem or have trouble describing or determining the cause of the problem themselves. Customers will say things like

• My internet is slow

• My video keeps pausing

• My internet is broken

• The devce won't connect and I've tried everything

• I can't call my friend

Translating "customer" into action

There are several themes these problems can be sorted into, but you may need to ask some follow up questions to determine where the customer's problem fits. If you can find out where their problem fits in, you will be able to fix it much more quickly and directly.

Slow Speeds (Every Device)

Customers describe slow speeds in several ways, usually by symptom:

• "I ran a speed test and it is lower than I pay for"

• "My video keeps pausing or buffering"

• "My internet is slow"

• "Facebook is slow"

It is important to figure out if the problem is affecting every device in the home, because in that case the problem is likely something that affects the overall network and that is where to focus troubleshooting as opposed to troubleshooting a specific device or area of the home.

This could be things such as:

• Router position

• Congestion

• Too much bandwidth being used

• Router needing to be reboot

Slow Speeds (Specific Devices)

Similar to the previous exmIt is important to figure out if the problem is affecting only some of the devices in the home we can focus our troubleshooting on those devices.

This could be things such as:

• Rebooting the devices

• Having poor coverage in that area of the home

• Needing to connect the devices to the 2.4GHz network

Devices Disconnecting

Devices that disconnect (also known as "intermittent connectivity" or "dropping") are often because the customer's WiFi Coverage isn't enough for the size of their home. As well, slow speed issues may be described by the customer as devices disconnecting as the devices may sometimes just be so slow that they don't work properly.

Customers may say things like:

• "My laptop drops off the network"

• "I lose connection in my bathroom"

• "Sometimes it buffers"

Asking questions to see if they actually see the devices disconnect (i.e. the devices have a message that they are not connected to WiFi) when the problem occurs can help determine if this is really a device dropping issue or really if it is a speed issue. Also asking about where the problem happens in the house can help the customer understand that the problem is only in certain rooms.

No Internet

"No Internet" issues are very commonly misdiagnosed and can be very expensive mistakes! Before sending out technicians to homes, we want to make sure the customer really has no internet on ALL their devices and that the internet is not just very slow, which (just like with device disconnections) can appear to be a no internet problem.

More commonly a customer has messed up the wiring of their router or is only testing one or two devices and calling to yell that they have no internet! Making sure that we are certain of the network name and password, and testing other devices thoroughly can help minimize mistakes.

Device Setup Problems

Device setup problems are typically caused by customers messing up their SSID (network name) or password. Sometimes a factory reset or password reset is the fastest way to fix these.

As well, devices sometimes require specific encryptions or frequencies to connect to a router and that can block setup if they do not match. We will cover these concepts later.