[Grrr...] Is Tech Support Designed to Enrage You? - Comments Page 2

I worked for a big company and had to occasionally call the corporate helpless desk to work with user problems that were out of our local support realm.

There was no preferential treatment, believe me so don't feel that this behavior is for consumers only!

Time to put in a good word for ZT computers, sold through Walmart and pretty reasonable. They're built like tanks, so I've rarely needed tech support. But when I did have a problem I benefited from the permanent 24/7 guarantee that accompanied the computer.

Tech support is in India. Nonetheless, every call I made got answered quickly and the people on the other end almost always knew my computer and how to fix it. They seemed willing to take as much time as was required to solve the problem. On the one occasion the problem stumped the support guy he referred me to a higher-up in New Jersey, who solved it.

I worked in Tech Support for Gateway in the 90s. I came IN with computer knowledge, so it wasn't nearly as bad as it was today. But would I do it again? NEVER. There are people who shouldn't OWN a computer in the first place, because they are TOO STUPID!

I've owned Dell products since the early 2000s. I've only had to call them twice, thank God. Talking to Bombay does my sense of humor no good at all. But they never believe that I KNOW my way around a computer. No, I had to jump through hoops for an hour and half before I could get a unit replaced that I KNEW was bad. THAT pisses a person off, believe me!

Dell products are pretty good overall, but I try to avoid calling Tech Support EVER.

Worst I've ever experienced was from eBay. Calls go to a call center in the Philippines to be answered by agents who barely speak English and know nothing but their script cards.

I had a dispute with a seller who had shipped the wrong item, then a defective one (value ~$500). The seller cleverly tricked me into handling the issue off eBay's site and paying for the return shipping with promises to repay me. No such luck.

To make a long story short, eBay cares NOTHING for buyers; their only interest is in keeping the flow of listing and final value fees coming in, and that means keeping sellers happy. They work very hard to avoid helping buyers in any way that costs sellers money or results in a refund or sale cancellation.

I eventually got my money after leaving scathing negative feedback for the seller, but not until I did a little trickery of my own. The seller tried to blackmail me into changing my feedback to positive by offering the refund he owed anyway. I agreed, got my money, and added a warning about the blackmail to a feedback update comment.

I still use eBay, but not for anything that costs more than I'd be willing to burn.

Today's Blondie comic strip is apropos.

http://blondie.com/comics/july-7-2016/

I purchased two years ago a Cybertron Computer made in Kansas City with windows 8.1. When I upgraded to windows 10 I had a small problem with the sound driver and its sound rack. It simply would not bring up the rack at all. There was no fix and even with new drivers the player rack where you adjust sound, bass etc would not work and still does not. But I put in DFX and that fixed it better than it was before the upgrade.

However, even though there was no real fix for the problem as the sound driver company (Taiwan) was not very cooperative, the Cybertron people did all they could to help me and I helped them, they were very kind, very helpful and went out of their way to try to do the right thing, it was in fact not a bad experience at all, they did the best they could and were friendly about it also.

I have had no trouble with their computer at all outside of the sound driver of which I fixed with DFX. I indeed will buy another Cybertron in time as their tech support is one of the best and it is for as long as you own the computer, it does not disappear within one year, their computers all that are in them are guaranteed for a full year and their guarantee's are honored, I found out with a new video card. They have Dell and HP beat by a 100 miles for courteous and kind support where as HP is nearly non existant and Dell is useless in helping most people as I found out. So there you have it... I bought my computer from Amazon and they also, are very very good... I recommend Cybertron Computers..

The most important thing to do is when speaking to anyone on an issue, DOCUMENT DOCUMENT DOCUMENT EVERYTHING! I cannot emphasize this enough. When you file a complaint or finally talk with someone that can actually do something for you, their tone dramatically changes when they realize that you have everything documented. And when/if you do file a complaint, you have all your ducks in a row and are ready to do battle.

I personally hate talking to a machine, so I quite often keep hitting the zero button or just punching random numbers. This usually gets me to a person because the "voice" says "I see you are having trouble, let me connect you to someone that may be able to help you" :) I make full use of the BBB and consumer protection depts in my state of Vermont, sometimes even the Public service board. That worked well with Comcast after speaking with 16 different people and getting no where.

But my best one was HP, after purchasing two desktops over the course of a two year period and both of them had issues, I went to twitter and made remarks about their lack of customer support. I got responses from the sales dept. I got the number for the main office in California and said, "I have two questions, Are you in America? and Do you have the authority to give me a new computer to replace the one I have? First answer was "yes", second was, "I can connect you to someone that can decide that". Then with everything documented, the guy listened for at least five minutes to my "whole story" and said would get back within 24 hrs. The next day I received an email saying they would replace it and gave me a computer that was way better than what I had bought.

I have to agree with Jilby. Microsoft tech support spent 15 hours over four different sessions to solve two issues.

By far the worst support has been from HP for their computers.

Verizon is good once you break out of the automated voice system. The AVR doesn't seem to understand plain English.

I use AT&T as my ISP (I tether my flip phone to my laptop as a modem). I'm techy enuf to solve most problems,but when I get a complex problem, I call "tech support". What I get is a truly know-nothing very young person who has a database of problems to consult. He/she doesn't even know the vocabulary of technology,no less the technology, and the database has NEVER contained info on my problems, presumably only the easy ones that I can figure out myself. As a result, my service is permanently slow and undependable

Wow, can Jilby and Bart please share their secret to good service at Microsoft? The last time I talked to them, they wiped out my system and it took me most of the next day to re-build my system.
I don't think it serves a purpose for tech support to say,"thank you for that information" every time you answer a simple question. That is disgusting.
It should be mandatory for tech support facilities to read these comments that everyone is submitting.
Good idea, Bob, to address this subject. It needs addressing more!!!!!

By far, THE worst is ebay. Seller has zero rights. I exchanged 4 messages with a buyer and ebay said I didn't respond, AND, even though I specified, "No Returns," they confiscated my paypal and took the return. They constantly lie and let buyers do whatever they want. In my experience, the best has been Canon, who has all USA cutomer support people, all gracious and knowlegealble.

The Agony of Tech Support extends to Banks, Airlines, you name it. My wife cancelled an account on a service because she could not get them on Support to sort out a problem (after numerous calls and lengthy waits). Equally challenging is to go to the suggested website to cancel a service and be unable to find that button that they told you to go find. One bright spot-Verizon Chat is pretty prompt and responsive.

Sounds like not much has changed since back in the 90's when I discovered online user forums and never dialed another tech support number again. When solving my customers' computer issues, I simply found that phone calls weren't a productive use of my time and generally yielded little or no positive results...

Even wrong advice quite often, like, "You'll have to reinstall Windows from scratch, all the programs and all the data." Can't tell you how many times I heard THAT one. (I only did it once back then and it didn't solve the issue. From then on, I'd hang up on anyone who used that phrase, since they obviously didn't know what they were talking about.)

I've been programming and troubleshooting devices for over 25 years. I'd advise that when your fingers get an itch to use the phone, DON'T DO IT! Instead, fire up your favorite search engine and you'll get the answer faster and with less aggravation.

Luckily I am above average technically compared to most computer users and can usually fix stuff myself with the help of Google, calling most of the large company tech support lines is an exercise in frustration. http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-03-01

Apple is frustrating -- they're so nice & will chat for hours via Chat or on the phone. But they don't have a Support mindset. Usuallly, the first 10 minutes of any communication is spent telling me that their products are invincible and nothing's wrong.

There's no "taking a history" or looking at the diagnostic logs for anomolies. My phone got messed up by an unfortunate combination of my unknowingly misusing Apple Family, having two IDs on a device and then hitting a bad website while having apps with vulnerabilities. (There were a boat-load of security vulnerabilies ACROSS the internet between October & February.)

Anyway, my phone is still flaky & I've been struggling to fix it myself, because hours of experience communicating with Apple have proven that Apple can't handle complex problems (mine is a combination of device issues, messed-up iCloud/AppleID, and messed up 3rd-party accounts associated with my AppleID and/or phone number.)

The really sad thing is that the Apple Store SHOULD be on the alert for early clues of bigger problems. But because the employees have been trained to believe that problems with Apple products are as likely as winning the Mega-Lotto (and that all will be well after a phone firmware reset), they don't take notes nor tell each other about what they're seeing -- or post useful information on their website to help customers avoid tech support.

I use Ting for cell phone service and they have the BEST customer service I have ever encountered. Real people who know their stuff. And one agent called me on a Sunday in response to an email I had sent (even though it wasn't an emergency situation for me) because he thought I shouldn't be phoneless over a weekend!

Some random comments.

The Blondie cartoon is very accurate. All too frequently I encounter support people who have no knowledge at all about their products. They follow a pre-written script. If they get interrupted somewhere down the list, they have to start all over with the first item. The last item on the list is “We are aware of the problem and will have it fixed shortly”.
I’m a natural troubleshooter. I gather all the information I can before contacting the non-support people. Unfortunately, most of these people have no clue what to do with the information. For example, I was having a problem with my Internet connection. I did a tracert to find where the problem was. After 6 contacts (via e-mail/chat – I gave up on the automated phone system years ago*) over a 2 month period, I managed to get someone who asked me to send the tracert, which I did. The person was quite honest in saying she didn’t understand any of it, but sent it to the technical department anyway. Two days later the problem was fixed. None of the other reps knew what to do with the information provided – it wasn’t on their checklist/script.

Automated phone systems, technical/customer/member support/service people are a company’s firewall to protect them from the customers. If a customer can somehow manage to get through the firewall, to someone who knows the product/service, it can be resolved quite quickly. I am reminded of a cartoon I saw about 20 years ago. It showed a person telling a customer: I don’t know how you did it, but you reached someone who can handle your problem on the first try. Please hand up and call back.

All too often e-mail and website based complaints get a response that has absolutely nothing to do with the problem reported. For one survey company I submitted a compliment for something their developers had done. I got a response that I could not complete the survey due to not meeting the qualification requirements. [I responded that they need to get better trained chickens or re-write their automatic computer responses. Obviously what I submitted had not been read by a human.]

Having provided customer support (retail and technical), I can somewhat understand why companies use a customer firewall. Too many customers have problems, often caused by themselves, which they can easily fix. Companies track these calls to make their checklist/scripts. Others call making totally unrealistic demands. [During a major snow storm a customer called because his package wasn’t deliver as stated, and demanded it be delivered immediately. The company rep asked the customer if he went to the store that day, and was told he couldn’t get out of the house. To which, the rep replied that if he couldn’t get out, the delivery van couldn’t get in.]

Even though I can somewhat understand a company setting up a customer firewall, there is no excuse for untrained people handling the “help” desk. Knowing the product or system, and knowing who handles what type problem should be basic requirements for employment, or included in personnel training. However, with over 20-years’ experience I find this to be a very rare occurrence.

* I do not like having to call a company several times to find how to finally get in touch with a human to handle a problem not covered in the automated system. Punching random keys may end up terminating the call. At least chat gets to a person right away – even if the person doesn’t understand the problem or how to do something about it. Also, chat conversations can be saved for later use.

first... always select Spanish not English. Most all the systems have a bilingual person to pick up the call.
second... always check to see if they have online chat. Every time I have had to deal with a problem, the fastest and easiest solution was through the online chat. Banks, vendors, whatever, the best solution was online chat. Verizon was great.

I call TracFone with not getting service on my cell phone. The first person asked questions and ran test, no solution. Second person, same route, then the person talked to a Manager. The manager said I could not use a phone in my area with a SIM card, and to buy a phone without one. I did, problem solved. I was really happy with my experience.

Now don't get me started about AT&T....

To get more personal with person on the other end of the line, I will try to engage them in a conversation about the town they are in. I ask things like, "What should I do when I come visit your city?"