[WTF] SERVICE CALLS FROM HELL

[brotherlarry]

Hi I am Brother Larry and I am a recovering Copier Technician.

We have all had them. A simple call turns into a nightmare. You just finished a PM, prints/copies look great then the machine pops an unrelated error code. etc etc.

Tell us about yours, no sniping Please. Because if we were smart we would be Rocket Scientists or Brain Surgeons.

[emujo]

Re: SERVICE CALLS FROM HELL

I went out to service a machine for "brother Larry", guy claims to be an ex service tech......Emujo

[brotherlarry]

Re: SERVICE CALLS FROM HELL

let the sniping begin.

[brotherlarry]

Re: SERVICE CALLS FROM HELL

*******************INTERNET IMMUNITY*************************

I am a tech Woo Hoo (Since 1978) Pierson's Office Supply, Kex-Copysource/Ikon, Xerox, etc..

In the early days of dry toner, yes there was wet toner machines, the office supply house I started at, refused to buy a 3m service vac. Doing a PM on an Oce 1600 needless to say the vacum they provided exploded blowing toner all over the customer office. Not a good day.

[Lagonda]

Re: SERVICE CALLS FROM HELL

I'm fitting a PM kit to a big printer in the out patients ward in a large hospital and the operators were continually moaning on about how the couldn't do with out the printer and they couldn't afford to have it off line for longer then a minute. This printer was so vital that if it stopped working they would have to close the hospital and I would be responsible for the increased death rate, or so they would have me believe.
I kept reassuring them it would only be down for under half an hour while I did some preventive maintenance to ensure that their printer would work faultlessly for the rest of foreseeable time.
I shut the front door, turn on the main switch and...........nothing! The PSU had decided to call it quits. Did we have a spare PSU on the shelf, no! Did we have a spare hot swap printer, no! Could I convince them it wasn't my fault and just a unfortunate coincidence........

[Phrag]

Re: SERVICE CALLS FROM HELL

Did we have a spare hot swap printer, no! Could I convince them it wasn't my fault and just a unfortunate coincidence........

No.

[Lagonda]

Re: SERVICE CALLS FROM HELL

No.

Right on, Phrag!

[Akitu]

Re: SERVICE CALLS FROM HELL

I've posted this story here before I think...

I had an MXC311 an hour away throw up a fuser lock code. Travel to site with a new fuser as it's a common fault on these for the fuser to have the bearings break and then the gearing hits the frame and tears itself up. Get on site, customer tells me they rebooted it and tried to make it work but the noise just got worse. My heart sinks to the bottom of my stomach, I have a feeling I know what it is but I'm praying to the Flying Spaghetti Monster that it's not what I think it is.

It is.

They neglected to call us to tell us they made it worse, so I was traveling all the way there when I could have easily gotten the new part I needed. When they rebooted the machine, it tried to run itself up again, causing the fuser idler gear to destroy itself as well. So naturally, I tell them I'll be back. Drive the hour back to the office, grab this gear and head back to site. Total time: 4 hours and running. With the new gear and fuser in place, I go to boot it up. It's still grinding... wtf? I rip off the back cover and find the drive pack gears have also destroyed themselves as a result of them not listening to simple instructions. I'm the second person in the entire company to ever have the drive pack gears on this little plastic machine disintegrate.

Fortunately I have a slew of them back at the office, so I head back once more to get the drive pack. Return to site and install the drive pack and all is finally well. Between the 3 trips at an hour each way and the work involved in ripping the machine apart and putting it back together, I killed the entire day on one customer. Had they listened in the first place, it would have only been one trip; due to the nature of this and how it all played out, there was no way I could have reasonably expected anything except perhaps the initial fuser idler gear.

I'm sure I have more, but that's the one that'll always stick out the most prominently in my mind.

[copydude]

Re: SERVICE CALLS FROM HELL

Although it sucks for you can you really blame the customer.. one of the things they tell as on A KM machine anyway, is when a code pops.. try rebooting the machine.. it is almost the first question asked when calling it in for service..

[Akitu]

Re: SERVICE CALLS FROM HELL

Although it sucks for you can you really blame the customer.. one of the things they tell as on A KM machine anyway, is when a code pops.. try rebooting the machine.. it is almost the first question asked when calling it in for service..

Ordinarily that is the case, but in this instance they were specifically instructed not to touch it but they did anyways.

[copydude]

Re: SERVICE CALLS FROM HELL

ahh missed that one...

[SargeNZ]

Re: SERVICE CALLS FROM HELL

"Oh, while you are here, we have a totally unrelated problem on an entirely different machine that has been that way for 3 weeks, we just didn't tell you. We thought it would get better by itself. Can we have it going by the end of the day?"

[slimslob]

Re: SERVICE CALLS FROM HELL

"Oh, while you are here, we have a totally unrelated problem on an entirely different machine that has been that way for 3 weeks, we just didn't tell you. We thought it would get better by itself. Can we have it going by the end of the day?"

Standard answer "You will have to call my office and put in a service call." Then explain that your boss frequently has other things planned for you to do based on the calls you have when you leave the office in the morning.

[Zackuth]

Re: SERVICE CALLS FROM HELL

"Oh, while you are here, we have a totally unrelated problem on an entirely different machine that has been that way for 3 weeks, we just didn't tell you. We thought it would get better by itself. Can we have it going by the end of the day?"

I tell customers when they do this that I can take a look at it, but because I didn't know about it, I may not have the parts to fix it, and might have to order them to fix the machine. My personal thought about it is if a problem has been going on for over a week and they didn't call, it can't be that urgent to fix.

[gneebore]

Re: SERVICE CALLS FROM HELL

I tell customers when they do this that I can take a look at it, but because I didn't know about it, I may not have the parts to fix it, and might have to order them to fix the machine. My personal thought about it is if a problem has been going on for over a week and they didn't call, it can't be that urgent to fix.

Yeap and that is the customer that will complain about how long it took you to fix the machine. Had a lawyer customer a while back that did that with an old dc1415 towards the end of life for all parts availability. Poor print quality that had been getting worse for three weeks. I got there to deliver toner and she asked about fixing the copier. It needed a drum and blade. Which we did not have in stock. And was put on back order for two weeks since they weren't actually making the drums regularly anymore. Anyway found out she had not paid the contract renewal for three months so I cancelled the contract anyway.