- Provided telephone support for Internet customers
- Promoted other services
- Initiated a change in service paradigm
The first position that I could find after the .Com Bubble burst was at Frontier Corp. providing phone support for Internet customers. Frontier provided dial-up and DSL services across the country and we were the primary call center from 7 AM until 12 AM from Monday through Saturday.
For this position, we needed to be familiar with the different versions of Windows, networking, and the hardware that our customers utilized. We performed trouble-shooting as well as escalated calls to the Network Operations Center as needed. If it was a local issue, we would schedule service. On occasion the irate customer would call in and there was a large amount of customer care needed as well.
When the opportunity arose, we were tasked with offering other services that Frontier provided.
During my tenure there, the standard measure was “calls per hour”. The higher the number the more “effective” we were. However, I found this to be at odds with many things that I knew so I would take the time to inform and educate the customers as to what the problems were and how they came about (most were related to visiting malicious sites which were more prevalent at the time). My management was always critical of the time spent with the customers but when I asked them if those customers called back with the same issue, they confirmed that they were not. Shortly after I left I found out from a friend that still worked there that they were changing the support model to “help until fixed”. I can only assume that part of the decision was because of what I had shown them would work.