When you work in tech support, you know that many customers who call in won’t actually do the troubleshooting you tell them to do.

Sometimes, that can make it a lot more difficult to fix a problem, but in this case, it also costs the client thousands of dollars in wasted travel fees.

The tech support professional in this story had to dispatch out to the client’s facility during a major holiday for a problem that the client could have fixed in 10 seconds if they followed instructions.

10 seconds for US$10,000

This story happened when I first joined my current company, and while I was not the one that actually had to deal with the problem, I was by-standing and heard the juicy parts from my mentor himself.

Outages before major events are a huge deal.

Exactly 2 days before a major festive celebration, we get a call from $user who is panicking because one of his equipment failed and production had been come to a screeching halt.

Now, I work in a company that services critical process equipment in a country with a distinct west half and east half, separated by the sea (important as we are based in the western half).

The petroleum industry is massive.

The Client was a major refining plant for the petroleum industry.

As we normally do, we go through the usual troubleshooting steps – did you this turn on, is this connection active, yadaa yadaa but the only only answer coming from $user was “yes yes yes” with nothing seemingly wrong.

They want this fixed now.

This went on for about half an hour when suddenly our boss comes in. The Client’s Head of Production ($head) had just called him and was apparently livid.

It turns out the machine had stopped working for more than an hour, and the production was severely interrupted until the problem got fixed.

Some systems are extremely valuable.

Now everyone was in panic, as every hour the production was interrupted, the Client was losing money in the tens of thousands (US$) and the Client had the right to sue us for any damages that occur as a result of equipment downtime.

$head was not happy that the their internal team was not able to fix problem, and $user was not making any headway in fixing the problem via phone.

Dispatching to the site sounds like a smart move.

To resolve the issue, $head demanded that support be performed immediately onsite.

Coming back to my earlier points – 1. It’s the festive season 2. they are across the sea, traveling was a bit of a problem but $head said money was not an issue and they would pay anything for immediate onsite support.

He understands the urgency.

Cue $M my mentor who was handed the unsavory task of handling the emergency. Immediately he grabbed his tools, and sped off to the airport to grab the next available flight.

At the same time, his wife had to pack some clothes for him from home and rushed to pass it to him at the airport.

Wow, that’s an expensive flight.

Due to the festive season, $M didn’t have choices for flights so in the end he had to take a US$1000 business class flight (normally flights to where the Client is located costs ~US$80, we’re a developing country, so yeah).

Upon arriving, $M was whisked from the airport with a driver, sent immediately to the refinery and granted immediate security clearance to enter plant (anyone working in petroleum would know how big a deal this is).

I’m sure the customer was irate about losing this much money.

By this time, a good 6 hours or so had passed since we received the call and well into the night.

Greeting him in front of the equipment was $head, $user and various other senior managements personnel all anxious to see what the problem is.

Let’s get to the bottom of this.

$M is a guy with no chill, and he was also the one originally speaking to $user on the phone. He recounts this part so I’m paraphrasing him:-

$head: So what is it the problem?

$M: Wait, let me take a look (starts to go through the normal troubleshooting checklists, but stops almost immediately)

Oh boy, what did he find?

$M: $user are you sure you checked everything I asked you to?

$user: Yes! Everything, word for word!

$M: Are you absolutely sure?

$user: Yes!

You know he missed something.

$M: Do you remember what was the third thing i asked you check over the phone?

$user: Why does it matter? just fix the problem!

$M: The first thing we normally check is to make sure the PC is turned on (points at the CPU LED indicator)

$M: The second thing we check is to make sure the equipment is on (points to the machine LED),

And here it is.

$M: The third thing (he brings his hand to a gas control valve, rotates it, and a loud hiss is heard as the gas line pressurizes, and the equipment beeps) is to make sure the gas is on.

$user:….

$head:….

$everyone else in the room:….

$M: I would like to go have dinner now

Hey, he fixed the problem.

After more awkward silence, $head thanks $M for his effort and asks the driver to bring $M somewhere for dinner.

You’d think the story ends here, but there’s more!

This is becoming a very expensive trip.

By the time $M finished his dinner, it was well past midnight so he checked himself into a hotel for the night.

The next day he went back to the airport and found out that all flights were completely sold out for the next 4 days due to the festive traveling.

Wow, I’d be thrilled.

He called my boss to inform him that he was basically stranded, and my boss just coolly said to him “Well $M, consider this as having a free holiday paid by the Client”

So $M checks into the most luxurious hotel in the area, spends the next 4 days basically on vacation before coming back to work.

Hopefully, the client has learned their lesson.

In total we billed the client for ~US$10,000 for the flights, hotel, emergency arrangements, allowances etc. all for 10 seconds to turn check LEDs and turn a valve.

This is not including the losses from halting the production.

They will never forget this.

It’s still one of our most memorable stories that we recount to new hires or clients in our industry.

Sometimes we wonder what happened to $user but he was transferred out if his role not too long after this incident.

That worked out really well for the guy who fixed the problem, but not so well for the client.

Let’s see what the people in the comments say about this fun story.

I’m sure this wastes lots of valuable time.

Oh wow, what a waste.

Always follow instructions.

Yup, just walk through the steps.

People just can’t help themselves.

If they had followed instructions, this could have been avoided.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.