Impossible customer support - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 14, 2019, 04:38:31 pm
content: I think we should make a blacklist of companies that have impossible customer support.Like customer support exists, but they make it so inconvenient, that you just give up.First is Scarlet, Belgian Internet provider. I called them several times, waited 30 minutes for someone to pick up the phone. One time after 45 minutes, they managed to pick it up, asked them if they speak English, the person said no, and disconnected. I could organize a replacement modem in 3 weeks time (no internet meanwhile) when during working hours I had to be the entire day at home, cause they couldn't say a more concrete time when a technician could manage to come to fix my internet. Ah, and first they just called me at 17:00 that they are sorry, but can I also stay at home tomorrow.Ryanair. I managed to find how to get a refund for a ticket. You have to send a physical mail with the claim to an address in Ireland. I should've sent a tracked mail, because somehow it got lost. Now they have online refund page online, which doesn't work.DHL: Tried contacting support."If the shipment status has not changed for more than 6 working days, you can request an investigation. If you are the recipient of the shipment, we recommend that you first consult with the sender of the shipment. This generally results in a quick fix for you."Guess what information do they need to even pick up your claim of lost package. Yes, everything. They have a form with 40 questions, including the senders address, your address, the contents, their price in EUR, proof of invoice, your banking info, that you need to fill in. Most of this info is attached to the tracking number. I, for example dont know what adress the seller used when sending a package. But they need all this, to even look into it. It's not like they have computers that can do a simple " if status unchanged for 6 days, than (write an email that we are verry sorry, lost your package)". No. I mean, it is not like I payed for their services. Ah yeah, and the form is only available in german.You know what's going on? If it is too inconvenient people will give up.The list of companies goes on.You want to develop an AI? Make one for dealing with customer support.

author: onesixright
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 14, 2019, 05:59:12 pm
content: Maybe it’s quicker to make a whitelist.Most companies simply don’t give a shit, once they got your money.Sent from my X using Tapatalk

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 14, 2019, 06:03:37 pm
content: QuoteInterestingly enough there are some companies that are attempting to do this, even IBM is poking into this IIRC. Maybe we will finally enter a time when customer support passes the Turing test.

author: jmelson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 14, 2019, 07:21:18 pm
content: Quote from: NANDBlog on August 14, 2019, 04:38:31 pmUgh. I have a few, but the all time worst was VMWare - virtual machine environment. Their product is simply AMAZING, and a bit better than the others in a few small ways.But, their customer support is the worst I've ever experienced. I ran a variety of Windows virtual systems under a Linux system. After some time, I started getting "blue screens" when booting the Windows VM. Customer support was TOTALLY clueless. I even had to pay for a license upgrade, and they still couldn't help what must have been a fairly common problem. I eventually figured out you needed to run CKDISK from a CD when booting up the VM, and it would fix the problem.Jon

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 15, 2019, 12:18:44 am
content: I ordered some drives a over decade ago from Ebay and was tracked and sent out by DHL but they never turned up more than a week past the delivery date. I phone DHL and they said lost the package in one of the vans. They found it some days later and when the package turned up the box had a big dent in there and the the drives were all smashed up through the bubble wrap. All metal bits in there and it must have taken some force. I complained to DHL and they told me that they "bent over backwards to help me" but it wasn't my problem as I eventually got a refund from the seller.I heard others complain and they called them "Deliveries Held Late" as they were slow delivering their stock.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 15, 2019, 01:58:34 am
content: Quote from: jmelson on August 14, 2019, 07:21:18 pmI'm not sure how guest OS filesystem issues are their problem. They support their product, not your guest OS.

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 15, 2019, 08:42:14 am
content: Prusa 3D printer kits. Outstanding. Their build instruction manual gets 10/10. In fact they set a new benchmark. They got it right so that hackers like me can assemble their printers without issues. So good in fact, there is little need to contact them for after sales tech support, but Prusa does offers heaps of after sales tech support including excellent forums. Every single nut, bolt and screw was in the package; with a few to spare. The printer itself is well engineered. When I ordered my Pruse I3 MK3S printer, they kept my informed of everything by email - from when the order arrived to tracking the parcel from the Czech Republic to Australia... delivered in four days. In summary, I am delighted with everything about this company Prusa, including the pack of Haribo Bears.I guess if they get it right by design, whether it be product or processes, there is probably a less requirement for a customer support line.

author: soldar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 15, 2019, 01:41:11 pm
content: Quote from: NANDBlog on August 14, 2019, 04:38:31 pmThat's the long and the short of it. Asking for unnecessary things gets rid of a lot of people.Ryanair: I have a lawsuit filed against them for denying boarding on baseless excuse.Government of the Kingdom of Spain: Never seen such useless and corrupt bureaucracy. I have a lawsuit filed against Ryanair for months now and nothing happens. If anything ever happens it will probably be that it was dismissed because I didn't attach something or other. Shoddy, useless bureaucracy.

author: ddavidebor
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 15, 2019, 02:31:14 pm
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on August 15, 2019, 08:42:14 amSo good we manufacture 80% of our mechanics with their printers. Only other brand that managed the same reliability and quality costed 5 times as much!

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 15, 2019, 04:17:19 pm
content: Quote from: daqq on August 14, 2019, 06:03:37 pmI asked my network provider, if they have an "expert mode" customer support, for people who know what an IP address is, so we can go a little bit faster.Customer: Look, I have a report which is saying that I have 10% packet loss on my VDSL connection.Customer support: Do you see the LEDs blinking on the modem?Customer: Yes. You have to send a guy, to fix the cables in the distribution box, because the SNR of the modem is really bad.Customer support: Have you tried restarting the modem? Can you go towww.google.beon internet explorer?I know, they just follow the script.

author: soldar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 15, 2019, 05:23:03 pm
content: Customer support: Can you tell me which lights are on and which are off?Customer: The living room, the corridor and the kitchen lights are on, all the rest are off.Customer support: We'll send a technician right away.

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 15, 2019, 06:00:35 pm
content: To see customer support from the other end of the phone....https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/There are some head-banging howlers in there.OTOH, I ordered an item on Amazon that had a $100 discount. Shipment was delayed for a month due to indiscernible reasons, while the product remained for sale (at the regular price).Amazon being as ginormous as they are, I figured that it would be a harrowing and likely hopeless experience to try to contact customer service. I have scores of orders from them and had never had to contact them before. So I found a web page where I entered my phone number, and got a call-back in less than 2 minutes. The guy on the phone was extraordinarily helpful and ended up essentially giving me $200 off for just re-ordering at the regular price. I was astounded.

author: jmelson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 15, 2019, 07:58:40 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on August 15, 2019, 01:58:34 amWell, this was a problem when shutting down the guest OS, the final writes were apparently not done correctly, leaving the guest file system in a corrupted state. I think that really IS a VMWare problem. It might have been a case where you had to know to not close the VMWare window for a minute after stopping the guest OS, or something like that.When properly closing the guest OS through the right menus, there should NOT be file system corruption.Jon

author: blacksheeplogic
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 15, 2019, 09:47:12 pm
content: This thread reminds me of the customer support representative who asked the customer if they still had the box the computer cam in.Yea, some companies customer support is pretty bad there's a lot of crappy helpless self entitled customers they have to deal with as well.

author: Jr460
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 15, 2019, 11:21:00 pm
content: Worst customer support from 20 years ago and they still are bad today. Tag you're it with the ticket.OracleThe only thing they care about is time the support ticket is open and waiting on them. They look at your time zone and call back or email after you are out of the office with something like, "call me back to discuss the issue more". The next morning they are of course not in the office yet. They wait until they think your work day has ended and repeat the same trick. One time I broke the cycle by staying late. The guy was shocked when I answered the phone. "Hey, ship me the media for the latest version of XXXXX product to fix known bug ZZZZZ." "Oh is that all you needed." "Yea, just like i called in initially."The log file game...Vertias/Netbackup SymanticNo mater what problem you call with..... "Send me all the logs from the master server and all media servers and all the clients that are having the problem." "But that will be gigs of data, can't you narrow it down?" "Nope, can't do a thing until you send it." We did notice for a while if you called late at night USA time, you got support on the phone from down under, and they stated on with you until the problem was fixed.Other netback game. Ask for a change that will take a bunch of time and do nothing."We looked at the logs and the problem is your DNS is not responding as fast as it should, it is 2.5ms when it should be 1.5ms or less. SO go to all you master, media servers, and clients and put in the host file the short and FQDN of all of everything." "But, a backup starts, then hangs for 45 minutes not writing to tape and then fails, how does 1ms make that happen?" "Just do it or we will close the ticket." Needless to say it never helps. Then someone forgets to undo all the stupidity complete and it burns you a year latter when some old address is left over in a h/etc/hosts file.

author: KL27x
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 16, 2019, 05:49:43 am
content: QuoteYeah, Amazon is quite amazing at times. The thing is, as long as they draw new investors, they have no reason to actually show a profit. The game is to use investor money to gain market share.They also charge upwards of 40% of gross to their sellers, but the way they detail and invoice these fees, several weeks after the fact with no obvious connection as to what fees are for which sales, that a seller can go broke using Amazon before they know it.

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 16, 2019, 08:20:27 am
content: Some of the best I have come across are internationals where they use legalese and BS like that to hide how full of holes there products are."I'm sorry you feel that the product does not meet your expectations, I will direct you to ... page ... line of our terms of service, where we state clearly that any promotional material is a suggestion of what can be done with our product under specific conditions that do not need to be disclosed, and may not end up in any released versions, It is up to the end user to confirm that any promoted functions are possible"And those magical moments when an intern or junior programmer answers the phone, "As long as the device turns on, and talks to the server, Its ready for production, doesn't matter how broken, that is next months problem"

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 16, 2019, 07:11:08 pm
content: One time, I was on a domestic Finnair flight, and happened to sit on the second-to-last row. The overhead storage lockers end on that row. Due to differences in weather (Kittilä-Helsinki is about 1000 km North-South), there was a lot of condensation in the cabin, and when the plane started its descent, I got a rivulet of cold condensation water straight down my neck. I stopped a stewardess, and asked her for a few napkins, as the condensed water had dripped straight down my neck, and I had nothing to dry it off with.Instead of handing me anything, she started a lecture on how natural it is for water to condense and then drip, and that it is nothing to be afraid of. I tried a couple of times to tell her "yes, I know," but she was an older lady, and obviously switched off her higher brain functions to a rattle off the calming speech. It took her half a minute (actually, what felt like a superbly frustrating minute to me). I never got any napkins.