Microsoft Technical Support

[41magsnub]

I feel kind of bad.  I'm usually a fairly restrained kind of guy and I don't yell at folks.

I just went off on Ashad with MS Support.  I'm working on a very bizarre issue with some user profile settings in a terminal services environment and was not getting anywhere with google and experimentation.  I called MS Support to get some higher level help.

All he was doing was finding the same articles I had already found and tried.  Then he would ask me to try the same things over and over and over.  Please uninstall firefox from the server was my favorite, he asked me to do that over 3 times.  The first time he asked...  "firefox is not and has never been installed".  Second time..  "we've been through this already, it is not and has never been installed."  Third time...  "dude, it isn't on the server.  Please stop asking me to uninstall something that isn't there".  4th time "Why do you keep asking me to do this?  You already checked for yourself that it is not installed, that there is nothing in add/remove programs, the registry, or in the file system".

Then we are trying to change the file association for URL's.  The settings are grayed out.  He keeps asking me to change the settings "they are grayed out, I am unable to change the setting".  He asks again:  "Ashad, the settings are grayed out, I am unable to change them"  He asks again:  "Dude,  I have told you several times the settings are grayed out and I cannot change them.  It is not a admin rights thing, I can change the association for other items, just not this one."  

He then asks me to check again to make sure firefox is not installed yet again and I lose it.  "WTF..  are you stupid?  You keep asking me to check the same things over and over.  All you are doing is Internet searches which I have already done, you did once in remote control, and you have watched me do a couple of times.  You are checking the same things over and over.  You are wasting my time.  I need to talk to your manager."

MS Support has really gone downhill in the last few years!  Off-shoring is most of the problem.

I'm now waiting for a call back from Ashish who is supposedly a tier higher.  I can hardly wait...

[lee n. field]

MS Support has really gone downhill in the last few years!  Off-shoring is most of the problem.

Dang.  Not good.

Time was, if you needed M$' pay support, they would get the problem fixed.  Every time but once, it was well worth the fee.

[Hawkmoon]

I lost it after a similar episode with "Samantha" (yeah, right) in AT&T "Technical Support" -- Islamabad field office. I finally got angry and asked to be transferred to someone who spoke English. After I got the almost unintelligible "I are talk Ingrish veddy gud" I demanded to speak with her supervisor.

I was on hold for a VERY long time. When someone finally came on, he said his name was Chuck -- and he sounded like he might be a Chuck. I asked him where he was located, and he said, "I'm not supposed to tell you I'm in Saint Louis." Chuck had the issue diagnosed -- correctly -- in five minutes. By then I had wasted two and a half hours with "Samantha."

I don't know if these companies really think they're fooling anyone with the outsourced "tech support," or if they don't care because it's not like we have any other option, short of paying for local tech support -- and they love that because then they don't have to deal with us at all.

[GigaBuist]

I'm now waiting for a call back from Ashish who is supposedly a tier higher.  I can hardly wait...

The 2nd tier tech will likely be authorized to tell you to reformat/reinstall everything.

Good luck.

[Chuck Dye]

I did MSN support for a time.  While I did accounts and billing, I talked often with those who had done tech before it was removed from our (third party outsource) call center.  Word was that departing from the menu/flow chart could cost you your job, even if you quickly and correctly solved the caller's problem.  What you experience when calling many such "services" is much more corporate over control than call taker incompetence.  (Note that the term is call taker and not anything connoting service or support.  A corporate culture thing.)

[RoadKingLarry]

What is being pushed at those "tech support" is that the priority is not to fix the problem but to clear the call.
The "techs" are measured on how many calls they clear, not how many problems they fix.
Efing bean counters are running (ruining?) the world.

[Stetson]

Having been 1st, 2nd, 3rd level support and a manager of them, there are glaring problems with the corporate KPIs and Metrics.

The goal is no longer "Fix the problem, no matter what".  It is now "Get the caller off the phone as fast as possible".  They do this a few ways - 1) Pay by metric goals: First call resolution + talk time + Amount of calls taken = base pay plus a %, B) pay per call (piece work) or III) hire low skilled workers and have them use a script.

My last job, I was told to NOT chit chat with the customer while we were waiting for something on the servers/their PC/reboots.  We were to put them on hold and if they hangup, or the call was dropped....oh well.....

Then again, what do I know...I don't get to see the bottom line and have no idea the pressure the corporation is under. <----that's what I was told in my exit interview.

[Doggy Daddy]

                 ^^^^^
        Contradiction in terms.