Barrister - Estee Lauder Call - Anyone have these?

[tankman1989]

I had a call yesterday for Barrister at an Estee Lauder store. They needed to have a memory upgrade on the managers machine. This was my first Barrister call and it went well. When I arrived on site I asked about the problem and realized that the original diagnosis was probably not correct. The problem was that the Back Office application was taking about 8-10 minutes to load from the server. This had been going on about a two weeks or so.

Well I installed the new memory and restarted the machine and the problem persisted. I talked to the manager a little more and figured out that the problem was either with the server or within the network somewhere. They were using and old HP server and a very old Intel 8 port hub (with the collision light on constantly). I called the Estee Lauder tech line and told them my diagnosis and said I was leaning towards the hub. He had me power off the hub and disconnect all the cat5 cables and plug them back in. After that it was back up and running like it used to!

So my first call with Barrister was a mis-diagnosis yet I still managed to resolve the problem on-site. I have done work for a few other call-out tech companies and it seems the diagnosis are wrong about 50% of the time. Is this about what any of you guys have found or is this uncommonly high?

[krash2k]

Yup, sounds about right.

I have completed a good handful of work orders for other companies where the initial diagnostic was off base. Some were better than others. From my experience your 50% mark is about right for my area as well.

[Appleby]

I've rarely had a diagnosis actually be right when I got onsite. And my problem is this....the 3rd party company (at least in my case) will only pay me the flate rate, so they want me to call them, talk to their tech support guys and try to diagnose the problem and repair while there for no extra money or a few dollars at best. That is why I don't like the flat rate pay. I understand, from their standpoint, why they must do it, but it's a no go for me.

[dipper]

It's only about 66% of time I see the same problem reported to me on the phone as to what is happening when I attend onsite. It also doesn't matter as to whether it is the end user calling or going through a 3rd party outsourcing company.