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Sound Reinforcement - Forums for Live Sound Professionals - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Live Sound Forums => Installed Sound/Contracting => Topic started by: Don Gspann on May 18, 2017, 05:03:26 PM

Title: Service Call of the Day Award goes too......
Post by: Don Gspann on May 18, 2017, 05:03:26 PM
Got a call from one of our retirement community customers today, that a CD they need got lost inside of the CD player somehow.
It's a slot-load Denon, and the only time I've seen a CD get inside of a unit, is when it's physically picked up and tilted back.
So, my tech goes down, pulls the CD player out of the rack and opens it up, no CD inside!
Somehow, he spots it in-between two other pieces of rack-mount gear!

You can't make this stuff up!
Title: Re: Service Call of the Day Award goes too......
Post by: MikeHarris on May 26, 2017, 04:28:28 AM
When you bill them, Include at n/c a pair of drug store 'readers' on a old school tether held in place with a rack screw.
Title: Re: Service Call of the Day Award goes too......
Post by: Ivan Beaver on May 26, 2017, 07:39:11 AM
A friend of mine got a call from a customer saying their CD player was not working.

He asked if it was turned on, they said yes.

So he drove 4 hours to the job site.

The CD player was NOT on, just the standby light was lit.

He showed this to the customer, they got embarassed and said "Well just send a bill for your time".

When you troubleshoot over the phone, there are "certain assumptions" you make based on the customers answers to your questions.

When they give you a wrong answer, you can easily go down the wrong path.

I have done it many times.  And when you show up on site, the actual problem had nothing to do with what was discussed over the phone.
Title: Re: Service Call of the Day Award goes too......
Post by: David Allred on May 26, 2017, 07:52:05 AM
A friend of mine got a call from a customer saying their CD player was not working.

He asked if it was turned on, they said yes.

So he drove 4 hours to the job site.

The CD player was NOT on, just the standby light was lit.

He showed this to the customer, they got embarassed and said "Well just send a bill for your time".

When you troubleshoot over the phone, there are "certain assumptions" you make based on the customers answers to your questions.

When they give you a wrong answer, you can easily go down the wrong path.

I have done it many times.  And when you show up on site, the actual problem had nothing to do with what was discussed over the phone.

Trouble shooting Rule #4 - If it is not working.  Turn it off , Wait, Turn it back on.

Maybe the customer would have seen a change in the process and said, "What are all these lights when it is off?".
Title: Re: Service Call of the Day Award goes too......
Post by: David Allred on May 26, 2017, 07:56:50 AM
Trying to figure out the CD loading process in my car, I had a disc disappear.  It is a factory 6-disc changer.
I one point it said wait, and I didn't.  All 6 slots work, but somewhere in the guts is a 7th disc.
Title: Re: Service Call of the Day Award goes too......
Post by: John Roberts {JR} on May 26, 2017, 09:40:56 AM
The flip side of "stupid" customers, is when you have to lie to get the service call.. A few years ago my phone based DSL was intermittently dropping out. Not a typical customer, I looked at the carrier signal with my scope and could see the weak signal coming and going...   The phone service was a little noisy but still worked.

When I called the service line, whenever I mentioned DSL problem I got switched to a phone center in Bangalore, India (my speculation). Where they would tell me to reset the modem.   :o

I finally had to lie that my phone wasn't working, as I spoke to them on my phone.  ::) They said they would send out a repair truck but if they didn't find a problem I would have to pay for the unproductive service call.

Within a few minutes of arrival he found where a squirrel had chewed through the wire insulation up on the pole 50 yards from my property. Because the wire problem was so close to my house, their readings from the switch office didn't have enough resolution to differentiate from a good measurement. Measuring backwards toward the switch office from my house revealed that the wire break was close to my end.

JR
Title: Re: Service Call of the Day Award goes too......
Post by: James Hicks on June 04, 2017, 02:38:02 PM
My favorite customer comment is when they say "this thing never has worked".

So you're just now calling it in, three years after it was installed?
Title: Re: Service Call of the Day Award goes too......
Post by: Hal Bissinger/COMSYSTEC on June 08, 2017, 12:17:34 AM
My favorite customer comment is when they say "this thing never has worked".

So you're just now calling it in, three years after it was installed?

Yes, and it's an emergency...

-Hal
Title: Re: Service Call of the Day Award goes too......
Post by: Dave Garoutte on June 08, 2017, 04:02:34 PM
My friend who repairs refrigerators always asks if it's plugged in.
They invariably say yes.
He says If I come there and plug it in, you pay for a full service call, at which point they actually check.
It's unplugged more times than you would imagine.
Title: Re: Service Call of the Day Award goes too......
Post by: Michael Ardai, N1IST on June 12, 2017, 09:11:25 PM
My friend who repairs refrigerators always asks if it's plugged in.
Long ago, I learned to ask them to unplug it and plug a lamp or radio into the outlet instead to check it out.  That gives them an out to say "it must have been a bad connection".  The response to "is it plugged in" is always "of course; do you think I'm an idiot?" without even looking.
Title: Re: Service Call of the Day Award goes too......
Post by: Geoff Doane on June 14, 2017, 10:28:48 PM
It's unplugged more times than you would imagine.

That "air gap" will get you every time.

GTD
Title: Re: Service Call of the Day Award goes too......
Post by: David Allred on June 15, 2017, 08:16:36 AM
That "air gap" will get you every time.

GTD

That's why we should be using a minimum of 40,000 volts.  That "gap" becomes less of a factor.