“the hot water isn’t working” could be understood to mean “the water in the hot water tap is not hot”, but it could also be understood to mean “the water is not flowing out of the hot water tap”.
The picture helps clarify the original statement. OP, this interaction is not nearly as bizarre as you make it out to be. It’s pretty typical of virtually all support requests. It’s incredibly common, when asking for support, that the requester assumes information is obvious when it is in fact not.
It’s still kind of a weird way to request that information. They could have just upfront asked “is the hot water tap not working at all, or is it just not hot?”.
Yep. During my very short (6 mos) stint as a tech support rep for Dell, I’ve learned to assume your customer is an idiot. Even when they’re using techie terms or jargon (and at time more so). Never assume other things besides that or you’ll probably regret it.
You have to be very clear and precise. A single misunderstanding can take a simple problem a lot of time to get fixed.
“the hot water isn’t working” could be understood to mean “the hot water refuses to go out and get a job”, but it could also be understood to mean “the hot water is just sitting around in it’s boxers all day drinking beer”.
“the hot water isn’t working” could be understood to mean “the water in the hot water tap is not hot”, but it could also be understood to mean “the water is not flowing out of the hot water tap”.
The picture helps clarify the original statement. OP, this interaction is not nearly as bizarre as you make it out to be. It’s pretty typical of virtually all support requests. It’s incredibly common, when asking for support, that the requester assumes information is obvious when it is in fact not.
It’s still kind of a weird way to request that information. They could have just upfront asked “is the hot water tap not working at all, or is it just not hot?”.
Yep. During my very short (6 mos) stint as a tech support rep for Dell, I’ve learned to assume your customer is an idiot. Even when they’re using techie terms or jargon (and at time more so). Never assume other things besides that or you’ll probably regret it.
You have to be very clear and precise. A single misunderstanding can take a simple problem a lot of time to get fixed.
“the hot water isn’t working” could be understood to mean “the hot water refuses to go out and get a job”, but it could also be understood to mean “the hot water is just sitting around in it’s boxers all day drinking beer”.