It seems like almost everything is "broken"  - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Jester
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2022, 05:37:06 pm
content: Perhaps this is more of a made in Canada phenomenon?It seems like near everything customer service related (especially by phone) is basically not functioning. For example I called the TI support phone number today and it goes directly to Muzak, no actual message just Muzak for 45 minutes and nothing else. This is not unique it seems like the new normal. Why have a customer support phone number if they have no intention of answering the phone?My call was to ask what is the difference between the F280049CPZS and the F280049PZS?Perhaps it's buried in the datasheet somewhere but not obvious to me, I can get one but not the other.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2022, 06:25:37 pm
content: No offense, but you clearly didn’t look very hard, because it took me under 1 minute of skimming the datasheet to find it. It’s literally explained before you reach the table of contents. I recognize that datasheets very often make it very hard to figure out such differences, but this isn’t one of those cases.(I 1000% share your frustration at companies being unresponsive to communication. It’s disrespectful.)

author: Jester
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2022, 06:57:33 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on September 13, 2022, 06:25:37 pmThanks, found it InstaSPIN-FOC and CLB

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2022, 08:51:09 pm
content: It is getting harder and harder to get a human on the phone, companies hide behind IVR ( interactive voice response) and chat bots. Here in Canada for phone calls it is often a trick is to press 0 to get a human. They do not prompt you to do so though. Just have to try and see if it works.

author: Vincent
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2022, 01:23:42 pm
content: If I call to get a service, it's because I completely ran out of options. And then, I dial and hope I'll get to speak to a human by the time I retire!When possible, I am my own customer support, if that makes any sense.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2022, 02:04:25 pm
content: Quote from: Bud on September 13, 2022, 08:51:09 pmThat used to be the case in USA, but people became so accustomed to just pressing 0 to circumvent the IVR that now, it usually just shunts you into the same damned menu, just with robo-lady saying “before I connect you to a representative, …”

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2022, 07:48:16 pm
content: Quote from: Vincent on September 14, 2022, 01:23:42 pmThat has become pretty common, and, not saying this about you - I don't know - but in general, when people say they are their own customer support, they mean they are hunting for information/help on internet media, which makes other customers the actual customer support.While being autonomous is great, I do not like the fact that the above is becoming more and more the norm which makes companies get away with not providing any kind of serious customer support at all.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2022, 08:02:40 pm
content: Whether it applies to this case or not, piss-poor customer service has become an epidemic. Amazon has always bragged about being customer obsessed but even they have deteriorated. You can't email them anymore and it can be difficult even to use the stupid chat, everything tries to funnel you to cookie cutter canned automated responses. If you think that's bad, try getting in touch with a human at any of the social media companies or huge tech companies like Google or ebay, it's essentially impossible. What few companies do have phone support are almost all call centers in India staffed by low wage workers who don't know much and don't care.

author: Vincent
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2022, 08:32:28 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on September 14, 2022, 07:48:16 pmYeah that's pretty much what my "self-support" looks like most of the time.I can't help but feel this is almost an immutable trend. A sort of vicious cycle if you will. At least, until the majority of people decide that enough is enough and demand better customer support service.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2022, 06:18:11 pm
content: Quote from: Vincent on September 14, 2022, 08:32:28 pmAs much as I hate government regulation, this is one of those things that might require regulation in order to make it happen. I don't know how that regulation would look, but I do think it would be nice if all companies were required to have live phone support available. Pretty hard to require it to be useful though.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2022, 07:18:51 pm
content: I don't think that should come from regulation though. If the mass of customers is happy with how it works now, so be it. I am not, but I reckon that's my own problem, even though it's objectively f*cked-up. That's how democracy and free market are supposed to work. This will stop when the mass of customers will stop buying and make it clear it's the reason why. I'm not holding my breath.Regulation meddling though would only make things worse IMHO. What would happen is just that companies would increasingly deploy support from developing countries (that's already a plague) with employees not knowing jack shit about the products but just reading out predefined scripts. And then what? Another set of regulation to force companies to have local customer support with only fully qualified people? I'd be curious to see that. It's not gonna happen. Ever.So I guess it's unfortunately best to let this system die, or something. Not quite sure.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2022, 07:22:29 pm
content: Nobody seems happy with it, but what can be done? There are not many choices, at this point customer service already sucks everywhere.

author: eugene
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2022, 12:55:51 pm
content: In the case of cell phone providers, you can get a human by saying "add user."

author: armandine2
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 19, 2022, 08:57:44 pm
content: i thought my Kewtech 1052 was broken - for longer than you'd want to admit

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 19, 2022, 09:32:54 pm
content: QuoteClose my account

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 19, 2022, 09:39:31 pm
content: Quote from: themadhippy on September 19, 2022, 09:32:54 pmYes, the only times you have some human interaction and without even asking for it is when you terminate the subscription.Or when you haven't subscribed yet.They've found out that human interaction is still best for selling people shit. You tend to get more easily tricked.

author: armandine2
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2022, 09:17:01 pm
content: not much "human interaction" in the supermarket this evening to prevent me from buying another too cheap to be any good multimeter

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2022, 04:48:45 am
content: I am actually observing a slight improvement trend. Of course it varies widely over companies, but I am encountering more humans, and actually humans who know their job well enough to be helpful. Also the robotic answering machine menus are improving, and are sometimes actually useful. The overall average is still pretty bad customer service, but better than it was a few years ago.