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From: William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: For self publishing authors on AmazonKDP, Scott Adams Says
Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2024 14:33:44 -0400
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Robert Woodward wrote:
> In article <vdpbq4$anou$1@dont-email.me>,
>   William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Paul S Person wrote:
> 
> (snip of somebody else's Amazon publishing problem)
> 
>>>
>>> But pretty main-stream: my phone company not only has automated
>>> screeners on both its help line and its chat sessions, both of which
>>> are very good at not paying any attention at all to any problem they
>>> were not programmed to recognize, but the phone system, the last time
>>> I tried it, actually offered me the abilitiy to /text/ an assistor,
>>> but not to /speak/ with one.
>>
>> When the phone company installed a defective modem, I spent a total of
>> eleven hours over three days  on chat with various human agents.  They
>> passed my case from one to another, and all tried to repeat the failed
>> attempts of the previous agent.  Whatever I said.   Each night an
>> appointment was finally made for someone to drop by and look at the
>> modem.  Three days in  row, nobody showed up.
>>
> 
> Several years ago, my cable modem lost its connection (BTW, the outlet
> that my TV was connected to was still working). It didn't take me that
> long for the Cable company to promise a technician (but not the next
> day, for the day after that).
> 
>> Finally someone arrived on the fourth day, and he happened to have the
>> required modem in his truck.   Fixed the problem in 20 minutes.
>>
> 
> Who showed up on time and, after a bit of investigation (maybe 30
> minutes total), was able to isolate the problem and fixed it (I live in
> a townhouse complex, my unit is in a building with 4 units - somebody
> else in the building had activated their cable connection and the
> installer disconnected one of my outlets, I think to get access to the
> other unit's wiring, and didn't reconnect).

There are two major TV/phone/internet companies around here.

My previous company, Rogers, had excellent repair personnel who showed 
up when they said they would, and fixed things.  But Rogers's equipment 
broke down with amazing frequency,

I switched to Bell, whose equipment has given me no trouble since that 
installation, but whose repair people don't show up when they should.

I'm not big on corporate mergers, but if the resulting entity combined 
he best of both ... but more likely it would use Bell's technical 
support with Rogers' equipment.

What they both have in common is that they staff their  help desks with 
people trained to fix the top five likely problems (i.e. "is your  box 
plugged in?") and nothing else.  If they face any other problem they 
keep reiterating the five solutions they know, as they cannot consult a 
superior given that they are mostly alone working from home.

But I should note that once in a while I actually contacted someone who 
had read beyond the five problems, and could help.  I learned that I had 
to call Rogers  three times on average to get such a person, and to cut 
the others off rapidly because they *would* try all the things that 
didn't work. Eagerly, in fact.


William Hyde