Need tech support scenario

[Killer_Rubber_Ducky]

I am at work and have been selected to create a customer support scenario for Dell training on Alienwares. I need some good scenarios that will challenge the agents here at work. I am supposed to pose as the customer. It has to be a technical problem but can also be a PEBKAC issue too.

[FordGT90Concept]

Computer won't turn on. The challenge is in determining how long you try to talk to the customer before deciding to have them send it in or send a technician. Important because both of those options are expensive to the company but so is wasting time talking about something that likely can't be fixed over the phone.

[twilyth]

If you want to be a real dick, give them a heat intermittent chip problem.

Basically, you would have a pc that was a few years old and had never been cleaned. Plus you've got a 2 dogs and a cat so there's always dust and fur flying around. It turns out that your heatsink is clogged and whenever the temp gets over 80F, the system becomes unstable. Sometimes it shuts down very close to 80 if you're playing a game or doing something cpu intensive like video encoding. Sometimes, it can get up to 85F with no problem if you're just surfing.

If they don't have a lot of experience, that might be a mean trick to pull. But if they've been doing this for a while, I'd hit 'em with it.

[jmcslob]

Make it something simple to do with a customer that has limited to no Tech skills.

I'm a tech support and I can tell you that the issue itself is never a problem, It's getting the customer to do what you need them to do in order to resolve the issue that's always the problem..

Ive literally had to spend 3 hours on the phone with someone teaching them how to turn it off...then another hour getting them to understand how to get it back on...

Issues will have an answer on the system or a case will be filed...so the answer is never a question..It's always getting the end user to do what they need to do.

[xfire]

Xp won't boot cause boot manager is corrupt. Now, all you have is an xp cd. Should rescue it without formatting.

[theJesus]

Computer blue-screens trying to load windows, but restarts too fast for the customer to see what it says or hit pause/break. Booting into safe mode stops at a black screen with just a mouse cursor. The only thing customer is able to do at that point is turn on sticky keys.

This is an actual problem I've come across at work. It's caused by a corrupt nvidia driver for an old onboard gpu after doing windows update. Just turning off windows updates or hiding the specific update doesn't prevent the issue from happening again, because the customer has Vista without SP1 and the driver is installed every time they try to update to SP1.

To be honest, my coworker and I have been unable to find a permanent solution for this beyond just getting a dedicated gpu and disabling the onboard video.

[DrPepper]

Terrorists have planted a nuclear device in your pc. It has a 3 minute timer and they need to deactivate it and rigged the side panel as a trigger if they try open it. They are also under attack from Nazi Zombies and have 2 minutes til the zombies breach the building.

[theJesus]

Terrorists have planted a nuclear device in your pc. It has a 3 minute timer and they need to deactivate it and rigged the side panel as a trigger if they try open it. They are also under attack from Nazi Zombies and have 2 minutes til the zombies breach the building.
Cut the case open, remove the nuclear device, toss it at zombies, run like hell.

[Papahyooie]

The customer's "friend" has gotten his tongue stuck in the intake fan. However, the customer seems to have a strange accent and you can barely understand him. Moreover, he insists that this issue needs to be resolved very quickly, due to his "friend" looking at pornography on his computer, and he only has a few minutes before his mother gets home.

[theJesus]

The computer is trying to kill the customer.

[yogurt_21]

this is so easy, have the customer tell them that they are getting a bsod. then have them try and talk the customer through the problem.

since customers never describe things accurately the actual error happening is an internet explorer sys-webforms 12029 error. See how long it takes them to get to the conclusion that what the customer describes is not accurate and then see how long it takes them to coach the customer into giving an accurate on screen description.

should take all year.