Crappy Customer Service: Example 1

I'm getting REALLY tired of poor support and customer service. I'm going to start posting (until I get sued, at least) examples of crappy customer service and tech support including businesses that don't reply to your emails and don't call you back and treat you like dirt.

Today's story, boys and girls, is about TECH SUPPORT. I think that companies use support as the item they can adjust to affect price since so many things, especially computers, have such low margins because the competition is so great. It's good to be given a choice; say, faster CPU vs. faster hard drive. We, the customers can decide how much we want to pay by comparing features. But you can't compare support quality. It's something you find out the hard way, too late. How can you choose between 2 different products when one has good support and one has abysmal support; it's not something they place in the tech specs:

POWER: 110VAC 60Hz
WEIGHT: 30 lbs
SUPPORT: terrible

I don't think that companies should be saying to themselves "we can lower this price on THIS product line by reducing the level or support". This is exactly what happened with my Dell Inspiron laptop; (beside that fact that the unit was in the shop 3 times in 2 years) the support was terrible. Someone once told me that Dell's business model for the consumer lines is to, essentially, keep the customer with the problem at bay long enough that they'll eventually go away and PAY to have the warranted unit serviced out of frustration. Well, even though Consumer Reports shows their desktop support to be better than their laptop support, I'm basing my impression of Dell as a whole on this one product. My last 2 server purchases were HP and IBM (didn't even consider Dell) and for this new laptop purchase a Dell was never considered. I will NEVER recommend Dell products for my IT customers. You blew it, Dell.

It's not fair for manufacturers to be messing with a parameter we can't test or compare. When someone says "support" that's got to mean something we can count on. Maybe the FTC should standardize 3 levels of "support" so we can pick which we want:

• TOP: "Treat It Like It Was Our Own Problem" Support
• MIDDLE: "Treat It Like It Was An In-law's Problem" Support
• BOTTOM: "Wait For Customer To Threaten Bodily Harm First" Support

The Example For Today

HP has a nice support system where they can interrogate your machine via an ActiveX control over the Web so that the agent knows what you've got then responds to you via a text interface on their web page. It loses its benefit when they take an hour twenty to pretty much do what you already did. I recognize that these folks have to switch tracks quickly and often from one case to another and I couldn't do it well but that's why I'm not doing it. I also realize that many customers are just CLUELESS and the tech needs to be sure nothing got skipped. But I think this example shows how silly it can get.

The "issue" (I hate that term in this context; how about problem or error or even "challenge", if you must) was that my brand new laptop's Synaptics Touchpad wouldn't do its cool "scroll" action on some I.E. web pages and all Firefox pages.

The names have been changed since my intent is not to be mean-spirited or personal; other than that I swear that I have edited nothing.

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[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:06 PM] -- Status Message
Your request has been received by the Technical Support Center, and has
been put in the Abandoned queue until a support analyst is available.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:07 PM] --
For reference, your Case ID is 3211122582

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:07 PM] -- Status Message
Support analyst "First Agent" has been assigned to your request.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:07 PM] – "First Agent
Hello Mr. Sane, thank you for contacting HP and for your interest in our Active Chat online support. My name is First Agent, and I see you have a question regarding your notebook. I'm going to take a few moments to
review your information and will message you back, very soon.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:07 PM] -- "First Agent"
Since when are you facing the issue?

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:08 PM] -- Noam Sane
Since the unit arrived

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:08 PM] -- "First Agent"
Does the issue occur in safe mode?

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:10 PM] -- Noam Sane
I don't know. It is working right now on your web page but if I close IE
and reopen a web page it will not work. I also have Firefox open and
it's not working there, either.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:10 PM] -- "First Agent"
Please check if the issue occurs in safe mode?

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:11 PM] -- "First Agent"
To enter safe mode follow the below steps:
1. Start your computer and then press and hold down F8 until the Windows
Advanced Options menu appears.
2. Use the up arrow and down arrow keys to select safe mode, and then
press enter.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:13 PM] -- Noam Sane
How do I find you again? I'll have to close this session

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:14 PM] -- "First Agent"
Please add this page to your Favorites so you may come back to this
conversation. [remember this for later]

[I rebooted in Safe Mode then rebooted back to Normal boot]
[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:30 PM] -- Noam Sane
When I used SafeMode the Synaptics driver didn't load so the scroll function didn't work ANYPLACE. [why did they make me do this if the driver doesn't load?]

When I used the FAVORITES link to return here it didn't work. I did a screenshot of the JavaScript error if you want it. [This is what I wanted you to remember; their web site has JavaScript errors]

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:30 PM] -- Status Message
Support analyst "First Agent" has been assigned to your request.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:31 PM] -- "First Agent"
Hi Mr. Sane, my name is First Agent with the Instant Support group and I will be
taking over your case from here. Please give me a few moments to review
your case and I will be with you shortly.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:34 PM] -- "First Agent"
Uninstall the mouse driver and install the Synaptics Touchpad Driver
from the following link:
http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/hpcpqnk/us/locate/64_6132.html

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:35 PM] -- Noam Sane
ok. do u want that error screenshot?

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:36 PM] -- "First Agent"
Sure!

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:36 PM] -- Noam Sane
how do i email it to u?

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:37 PM] -- "First Agent"
You can send it to first.agent@hp.com

[I returned after loading the latest driver in a brand new laptop; the date on the new driver was months ago]
[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:49 PM] -- Noam Sane
I think IE is OK but Firefox still doesn't work. Any other ideas?

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:50 PM] -- Status Message
Support analyst "Second Agent" has been assigned to your request.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:50 PM] -- "Second Agent"
Hi Mr. Sane, my name is Second Agent with the Instant Support group and I will be
taking over your case from here. Please give me a few moments to review
your case and I will be with you shortly.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:54 PM] -- "Second Agent"
Mr. Sane please give me 3-5 minutes to research on this issue.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 10:58 PM] -- Noam Sane
The Mozilla web site says:

Synaptics Touchpad Scrolling

Mozilla supports synaptics touchpad scrolling, but it may not be enabled by default with older drivers. You can upgrade your driver at the synaptics download page.

But I have the latest driver. Not sure what else could be wrong

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:00 PM] -- "Second Agent"
Mr. Sane please give me 3-5 minutes to research on this issue.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:06 PM] -- "Second Agent"
Does the issue occurred in Safe mode? [The case log he's theoretically been reading since 10:50 says that's the first thing we did]

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:09 PM] --Noam Sane
no because the driver doesn't load in safe mode

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:09 PM] -- "Second Agent"
Does it gives any error message?

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11doesn't] -- Noam Sane
no. it simply doesn't scroll, primarily in Firefox

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:12 PM] -- "Second Agent"
Have you uninstalled the synaptics driver?

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:13 PM] -- Noam Sane
you already had me install the latest driver

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:14 PM] -- "Second Agent"
Have you performed a system restore to a previous date when the notebook was working fine? [This reminds me of the Dell "tech" who was asking me kindly to be plugging the computer into the wall outlet. This is one of those things they have you do to get you off their back]

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:16 PM] -- Noam Sane
no because i just got the notebook. the scroll has never worked fine

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:17 PM] -- "Second Agent"
In order to eliminate the possibility of Operating System causing the
issue, I recommend reinstalling the Operating System from the CDs
shipped along with the notebook. [This is ANOTHER one of those things they have you do to get you off their back. Reinstall the OS because a mouse driver isn't working properly]

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:18 PM] -- Noam Sane
No. I will email Synaptics for advice. [This is an example of where the customer is frustrated and goes to handle it on his own as he should have done from the beginning]

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:20 PM] -- "Second Agent"
You could check with Synaptics and perform the reinstallation if required.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:24 PM] -- "Second Agent"
Is there anything else I can assist you with?

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:24 PM] -- "Second Agent"
Mr. Sane for some reason I am stepping out of my desk. I will assign this
chat to my colleague. [Up to now I have refrained from making fun of different cultures' use of English but I just couldn't resist pointing this out. It has nothing to do with support, just humor and I couldn't have come up with that if I'd tried]

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:25 PM] -- Status Message
Support analyst "First Agent" has been assigned to your request.

[ Mon, Jun 13, 2005 11:25 PM] -- "First Agent"
Hi Mr. Sane, my name is First Agent with the Instant Support group and I will be
taking over your case from here. Please give me a few moments to review
your case and I will be with you shortly.

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[Ultimately, I went to Synaptics' web site and got the generic v8 driver vs. the v7 driver HP had. This fixed the problem but introduced an minor new quirk: when WinXP boots, the touchpad doesn't work at the login page! Once I login it's OK. Just for the geeks a'wonderin'.]