Today, I had the (unfortunate?) need to contact two companies' tech support departments. I found the experience interesting, if not fairly time consuming. Over the years, I have had very little need for tech support, so this was a relatively new experience for me. I found both good and bad elements in both calls, and I thought I'd share what I went through, along with a few combined rants and recommendations on how to improve the tech support experience.
Case #1: Cingular
I had to contact Cingular, as I'd been having troubles with my Treo cell phone. The phone and PDA parts were working fine, but the internet connection (for web and email) stopped working on Friday morning. I started by calling the stored number (toll-free) in my Treo for customer support, but after punching my way through a few menus, I was directed to call another number. I did so, and again worked my way through a few menus to reach what I thought was "data technical support." When the rep got on the line, the first thing she asked me for was the name on the account, as well as the last four digits of the tax ID number (kind of like a social security number for companies) of the account owner. My phone is provided by Macworld, but that's not the official name of the company (Mac Publishing, LLC). Even worse, Macworld is part of IDG, and I had no idea which entity actually set up and "owned" the account ... and I certainly didn't know their tax ID number. So I had to hang up and contact Macworld.
After getting the answers I thought I needed, I called back, worked my way through the menu system, and once again reached an actual person. Both times, it should be noted, there was little to no wait time after I got through the keypress jungle. This second individual was quite helpful, at least on the surface. She inquired about the issues, and then basically concluded that I had a "data technical support" issue. Obviously, she was working through a series of scripted questions, attempting to narrow down the source of my troubles. She was doing this despite the fact that I'd already punched my way through about five menus to indicate that I had a data technical support issue.
After deciding that I did, indeed, have a data issue, I was transferred to the data technical support group. Funny, that's where I thought I was. The reality, of course, is that I was speaking to "the gatekeeper," the person whose job is to make certain that I really should be allowed into the area I was trying to reach.
After the transfer, the first rep asked me for the name on the account (had that!) and...the full address of the account holder! I told her I had the last four digits of the tax ID number, but not the address, as they hadn't told me that was required info. She stated that the tax ID was no longer accepted for technical support, and that I'd need the full address--it was a "company-wide requirement" as of June 1st. Once again, this was potentially a problem, since there are a number of addresses for Macworld and/or IDG. I took a guess, however, that the billing was handled from their San Francisco office, and thankfully, I was correct.
We then started to (for the third time) work through my problem to make sure it was a data issue. However, about 45 seconds into the problem description, the call just cut off. I wasn't on a cell phone, and I know I didn't push any buttons on my phone, so something happened either on their end, or on the line. I called back, and asked for the rep with whom I'd been speaking, so as to not have to repeat myself again. The new rep told me, unfortunately, that there was nobody of that name in this call center, so I must have reached an entirely different call center...so I'd have to start over again!
So I start to describe my issue to the new rep, but she cuts me off write away. "Sir, before we proceed, I'll need to know the name on the account (I was ready for that one) and the last four digits of that company's tax ID (huh, what happened to the address thing?). Thankfully, I had the tax ID from my original inquiry, so we proceeded to work on my problem. The rep was very helpful, and we worked through all the possible software fixes, all to no avail. She also put me on hold a couple times to check on the status of the network in my area, and to search for other open trouble tickets with similar issues. In both cases, she checked in regularly with me to make sure I was still there, and to thank me for my patience.
After she investigated further, she determined that I had a hardware issue of some sort, so we then had a conference call with Palm's technical support. This required quite a bit of hold time, as the Palm support lines were apparently quite busy. As before, though, the rep broke in regularly to let me know we were still waiting. After talking with Palm, they decided to simply send me out a new phone. I still find it a bit hard to believe that even though the phone and PDA parts are working fine, a hardware glitch can take out the data support. But if they want to send me a new Treo, I'm certainly not going to argue!
Overall, I'd rate my Cingular experience as a "7 out of 10," where 10 is perfect, 5 is just adequate, and 1 is bloody awful. Aside from the differences in the initial verification requirements, and the repeated need to prove I had a data problem, the support was actually quite good.
Case #2: LaCie
I have a 500GB LaCie Big Disk Extreme with Triple Interface that I use exclusively for backups. I'm fairly paranoid about backups, actually--I have another (smaller) FireWire disk that holds second copies of key files and folders, and I regularly burn our photo and audio collections out to DVDs. But the Big Disk is the key to my backup system; it gets used a couple of times a day, and has multiple backups of things such as my home folder and iPhoto library. The other day when I powered it up, I got the dreaded "This disk is not usable" message from OS X. I fired up Disk Utility, where the disk showed up, but no combination of erasing and/or partitioning would bring the dead disk back to life. DiskWarrior might have worked, but I don't yet have my Tiger-compatible version (I know, I know...). I even tried writing zeros to the disk during the erase step; it took several errors to do about 90% of the disk, then spit up an "Input/Output error" and stopped. Clearly, the drive had issues.
So I called LaCie's technical support. It's not a toll-free number, but that actually doesn't bother me so much. The cost of long distance has dropped so much lately that paying for a call really isn't a huge deal to me. Of course, I had an extra bonus with LaCie, since they're located in Portland (about 10 miles from my house, actually), so it was a local call. After a brief automated "Welcome to tech support, please wait for the next available operator," I was placed on hold, listening to some lovely (Zzzzzzzzzzzzz) hold music. Unfortunately, I was never told how long the queue was, what my position in the queue was, and never even heard a "We're still aware you're waiting, thanks for your patience" recorded announcement. It was just me and the music. Luckily, I was on a cordless phone with a headset, so I could work on other tasks and move about the house while on hold.
After about 20 minutes (a guesstimate; I didn't clock it), the rep came on the line, and asked me to describe the problem, as well as to provide some basic info (drive serial number, my name and phone number).
I told him about the error message in both Partition and Erase modes of Disk Utility, and he basically said "OK, that's enough for me--if it won't erase and throws an error, your disk has issues. Here's what we're going to do..." He then explained that he was going to put me on hold for a couple minutes to enter some info into his system. When he returned, he had an SRO (Service Repair Order) number for me, which I'd need to use when returning the old disk. A new drive was being FedExed to my home, hopefully going out that afternoon. Since I was local, he then told me I could just drop the dead drive off at LaCie, instead of having to mail it (I had thrown away the original packaging). Although he did ask me when I bought the drive, he never asked for a copy of the receipt, which I thought was quite amazing.
Since LaCie is so close, I dropped the drive, cables, and what I could find of the documentation in a box and dropped it off yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately, I couldn't also pick up the new drive, but it should be here today or tomorrow. Overall, I think I'd give LaCie an 8.5 out of 10 on my support scale; once I got past the hold time and lack of info about the queue, the support was quite good, and LaCie was very willing to replace the drive without any begging or pleading on my part.
Wrap-up
These two issues yesterday took about three hours out of my day (not counting dropping off the drive)--most of that was with Cingular/Palm, of course. In the end, though, it appears as though both issues have been resolved, and the people I spoke to were uniformly friendly and helpful. I was impressed by the reps' pleasant attitudes, given the types of calls they must deal with day in and day out. I wasn't necessarily impressed by some of the system-related issues, as they caused me extra work and lengthened the amount of time I had to spend on the phone with tech support. If the system can be improved, not only would I be happier, but the company would save money, as the length of my support contact would be reduced.
Definitely all good points and I wish many companies would learn, unfortunately lots don't put much effort in their customer service. I'm glad my company (I work in the group that helps maintains the call tree) pays attention to how customers will be treated.
I've had a Best Buy rep and manager telling me that it was silly for me to expect to return an item I bought from their site to their brick store. (Was great fun proving them wrong when I found on their site that only way you can return an item is to the store.)
When STB(formerly 3dfx) was in business I got told I was wrong about their video card driver not working just cause I was using a Cyrix chip, not Intel. (Proved that one too when I set a bit on my chip to make it identify as Intel). They also had a terrible wait music, it was all static interrupted by the same messages over and over.
As for your recommendations I agree with them all. Unfortunately #1 isn't possible as users will hit random buttons, believe they know something when they don't, or go down the wrong menu despite clear instructions as to what the choice was meant for.
One of my managers told me how at a company he used to work for where a customer called in and got to where they could enter an extension. The company hit 0 and got the CEO of the company. Not the smartest of the company, but there was no reason for the customer to be in the directory.
As for #3, I imagine some of this is dependent on the software the company uses. My guess is most software doesn't give a case number till the agent saves the case.
Oh and Cingulair just sending you a new phone...it's easier and cheaper for them to just resolve it that way. Generally as long as it's not a glaring obvious and easy fix, they will give you a new one and take your old one to repair it, mark it as refurbished and send it out to someone else. It makes you happy and saves them time and money.
Least both situations were handled decently.
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I had a horrible experience with Dell. I bought a Dimension 4600 with wireless keyboard and mouse, and after a couple of months the keyboard decided to choke: I think the act of changing the batteries fried something. Anyway, it clearly wasn't a driver issue, as the problem was persistent across multiple operating systems, in the bios and so on.
It took an hour of conversation with a girl (in the Sub-Continent, I assume) before she came to the same conclusion as me. In that time, we basically re-installed the driver software, replaced the batteries, and about a dozen other things that had no chance of working.
Basically, a sub-point to recommendation #1: if a customer gives you a detailed description of what is wrong, don't dismiss out of hand that they do know what they are talking about.
I guess it was my own fault for ordering a Dell. LCD screen was too good a deal to miss though...
It's my feeling that call trees should just say, "None of our people are available right now. Would you like to be put on hold or would you mind if we call you back when someone's free?" You punch in your phone number, then hang up and wait for the call. That would be 1000% better than cauliflower ear or waiting around within earshot of the speaker phone. This would be cheaper for the call centers since they pay your long distance bill for every minute you're connected. Why they don't already do this is beyond me.
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Adam -Unfortunately #1 isn’t possible as users will hit random buttons...
I think the point is that companies should either trust people to push the right buttons, or get rid of them. What's the point of navigating through 5 menu trees if you're just getting dumped to a screener who is going to ask you those five questions all over again? I'd be happy with menu trees that take you where they say they are taking you, or just getting a screener right off the bat. But doing both is just insulting, because it wastes my time.
Worse than ( seemingly ) endless phone-tree buttons is the latest trend to using voice recognition.
If you cough, have a cold, or just a unique voice you can spend a lot of fruitless time bouncing around in that new ring of Hell.
For phone-tree help, try this ( courtesy of Mr. David Pogue/NYT ):
Oops, don't know how the above link got lost, so here:
https://www.quickbase.com/db/bam6rdiey?a=q&qid=5
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