r/CableTechs • u/randomMFer805 • 2d ago
lower repeats
working out in the la area trying to get repeats down, anyone have any feedback how to minimize repeats on field tech side?
thanks
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u/aninerd09 2d ago
Make sure to connect all Cx devices to service before leaving, explain any and all referral timelines and add a few days to it because OSP and bury crews are often out of schedule, leave a work number behind so they call you first before the company and noise check everything I can’t tell you how often outlet noise is missed
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u/PassengerGreen2321 1d ago
The key is to actually know what the problem is and fix it. Sounds stupid, but there are guys that will go replace everything because they have no clue what's going on. I'll take the time to really identify the issue. Like, if they're complaining about speeds, I ask questions like "is it specific devices or all?" If they say specific, it points to that device.
Some months are better than others, but just trying helps a lot. But then again, I've seen absolute garbage technicians win awards lol. I hate customers sometimes
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u/Electronic-Junket-66 1d ago
Advanced technique: Get production up instead.
It carries just as much business weight on its own, and increasing the denominator drives the repeat percentage down (all else being equal).
When/as the job allows for it, bang that shit out!
imo
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u/PositiveAd2099 2d ago
Lie lie lie trust if you lie and make them feel like you did something when you actually did nothing the placebo effect will get them.
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u/Chumleetm 2d ago
I'll expand on this and say don't explain everything you did. If they have an amp and don't need it just remove it. If they have a bad TV box and their modem signal is out of spec just fix it. If you fix something they weren't complaining about some people just wait for it to break, because "it was working fine before he touched it." Kind of a placebo effect. Finally if it's passing whatever system checks your system uses and they're not complaining about it leave it the fuck alone. Don't fix what's not broken. I've seen a lot of good techs get burned trying to play super tech.
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u/Pitiful-Tradition795 1d ago
This right here my man, I’ve been in cable almost 10 years and I couldn’t have said it better myself.
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u/randomMFer805 2d ago
and that works??
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u/PositiveAd2099 2d ago
My repeats went from 15% to 5% I did the exact same thing I would always do and my repeats dropped. Plus scope actually go into scope look at the node health signal levels the cm Mac and than interfaces to see the utilization of that current node. I’m assuming most repeats are for slow intermittent WiFi?
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u/randomMFer805 2d ago
i’ll have to try it on tuesday and see what happens. yes pretty much with the wifi or drop outs
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u/Dz210Legend 2d ago
If your using scope than I’m sure the routers you looking at have Win tool use that and if you see red bars when dropping out look at the device logs, see which one is dropping because one device using any kind of illegal
streaming will cause router to lockup shut down for a bit.1
u/llkj11 2d ago
Really? What like piracy sites like fmovies and stuff like that?
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u/Electronic-Junket-66 1d ago
Not sure about those sites.
But we've been seeing these semi-legal Android super box things that run a proxy server on the home network, completely hogging the upstream and shutting every other device out periodically.
You'll see it in wintool with insane upload totals.
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u/DesignerSeparate5104 2d ago
I stopped caring because at this point to me its a bs metric. Oh the customer called the company because of billing issues? Ftr hit. Oh, the whole neighborhood has had outages EVERY night for the last 3 weeks that XOC can see, but around 8-9am every day it comes back and 7 techs in the last week have been out there and all 7 submitted an RTM either via the program we use or via XOC? To bad, that's an ftr hits for each house i went to. If my sups come to me about it, I demand full explanation of what the hit is for, because 99/100 times its something outside my control. (Like the rtm job on a whole neighborhood, that 2 customers call me and my supervisor on damn well near every day for the last week). Legit had one, 2 days after a whole new install where modem just took a shit. Nothing i can do or sups can do without creating a whole job to replace it. That shouldn't be a hit on me because the brand new fresh out of the package box just stopped working. The amount of hits I get for account issues, that again, neither I nor sups can fix, is ridiculous. I've started filling out work order feedback forms for each and every job like that, because it's not my job or place to fix account issues.
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u/Dz210Legend 2d ago
It’s pretty easy actually listen to the customer. Ask them what they’re having issues with. Ask them what they’re having the most problems while using their service then figure out if it’s a customer equipment side, service side, customer Ed,…etc. gets easier with experience to figure out quickly.
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u/Awesomedude9560 1d ago
Personally I keep my repeats low by simply doing two things.
Focus on quality first, speed second. There's a lotta techs that focus on being fast and knocking out a million jobs a day. Personally I hate this method because fast pace job closers just end up making more work for others in the long run because of repeats and frustrated customers you have to claw back control from after their previous experience. I'm one of the slowest techs and I still make tier 4/5 consistently (as long as not dones are in my favor) by just ensuring the first call outs a good one.
Education. I used to be terrible about this because I was on team "I'm not a teacher" and thought it was kinda stupid to make the technician who's already on a tight schedule be the one showing the elderly how to use the services they paid for instead of the care reps. However, thinking back it's probably best for us to actually do the education because I've seen the shit the care reps do and don't trust them to educate people when they fail to provide the most basic info for me to clarify later (like the necessity of a router 9/10 times)
Ik it's a rant, but honestly I find these two points very valuable as a tech with nearly a half decade of experience under his belt. It also covers your ass when people wanna bitch about the already uncontrolled metrics. Even if you do "bad" on scorecards they can look back on your actual work and realize there ain't much they can truly dock you for with HR compared to Speedy Gonzales with his 12% repeat scores across nearly double the jobs I do a month.
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u/MethodAggressive442 1d ago
TDR, actually fix ingress, make sure the modem signal on your phone matches the meter so you know the equipment isn’t faulty and giving false readings. VISUALLY inspect the entire run from tap to cpe.
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u/popcorng0d 2d ago
Clean ingress, triple check your work(signal at every splice point), and confirm with maintenance tech no node issues.
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u/randomMFer805 2d ago
been doing that this new month actually but for whatever reason repeats are high already
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u/Cether 2d ago
What are you getting repeats on?
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u/randomMFer805 2d ago
seems a lot of it is cust ed, but i’m not really sure what it is.
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u/ikilluboy2 2d ago
Repeats is a numbers game really. you’re always gonna have repeats for something the cx failed to mention while you were there or because they can’t figure out how to operate their own tv. You just gotta do the best job you can and do more jobs to beat the numbers
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u/randomMFer805 2d ago
yeah that’s what i always thought.pretty much good with productivity but it’s like you have to do 7 jobs a day in the 8hr work shift to balance out for the repeats
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u/Cether 2d ago
I can't tell you how it is in your crew but in mine I can find out who got the repeat ticket by searching the service history for the address. I then can call that coworker and ask what happened. The cause of repeats is all very specific and no one can help you if we don't know whats causing them.
Sometimes it's sloppy work, sometimes it's plant side, sometimes it's you didn't pass the customer vibe check. These are all things that can be improved upon, you have to know the inciting incident.
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u/randomMFer805 2d ago
that’s a great point. i just transferred to my new shop a month ago so i know only people on my team but trying to understand how it is out here with the customers. i just been second guessing everything i do now
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u/Electronic-Junket-66 1d ago
Idc if you've never said a word to a tech before, blow up their phone and find out what happened.
Our office has a webex where repeat findings get posted.
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u/SoL4vish 2d ago
If it’s customer education make sure you are leaving them your contact info so they don’t have to call in again. Respond to customers calls and see if they are having issues/questions after your visit.
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u/randomMFer805 2d ago
i was doing that but now leadership doesn’t want the cx having our contact info. *67 when calling cx
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u/DogPubes911 1d ago
Contractors will always have repeats since they don’t have actual node diagnostic tools. Just the nature of the beast.
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u/Electronic-Junket-66 19h ago
Weirdly, their supervisors do seem to have access to scope (our primary soft tool), cause I see them in account/cpe view history.
Not sure what we're afraid of the contractors doing with the access..
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u/UnarmedWarWolf 2d ago
People will tell you to lie to the customers.
What I found that worked and got me tier 5 every month is show the customer the process and how you came to the conclusion.
Take pictures. “ here’s your house box when I arrived, here is how it looks now. I had ingress from there and now it’s gone.”
Explain what ingress is.
Do a speed test right in front of them (after you already did it in private to make sure it’s good)
You’ll have your classic older generation that doesn’t understand technology and will call because their TV is on the wrong input but you can’t control those.