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Annual Customer Support Rankings
An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo's Tech Tuesday is running PC Mag's annual survey of best and worst PC vendors' customer support. At the top of the list: Apple. At the bottom: Sony. Heard any good tech support horror stories lately?"
I've seen something recently about a really bad web designer who came up with a vomit-inducing color scheme for the IT section of a popular website. Sorry I can't remember the name, and I don't have a link handy...
Me :) Really! Ask my boss!
Posted anon, as its not my story.
s uc k/6701337.html
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I'm so glad this happened to me because I wouldn't have believed it otherwise...
This normal-looking 20-something couple came in tonight and stood at the dropbox just clutching their three movies and staring at me until I asked if I could help them. They then proceeded to tell me that the dvd copy of 'Office Space' they had rented from us had downloaded a virus onto their brand-new dvd player and ruined it. (Anyone who has seen the 'Office Space' dvd knows why this is hilarious--for those of you who haven't seen it, after the FBI warning a Window...a MICROSOFT-LOOKING WINDOW...pops up and says a virus had been detected and, when you hit menu or start, your TELEVISION (i.e. Not Monitor) screen is flooded with pop up windows. After a few seconds you are taken to the dvd's start menu and presented with the usual options.) Even though they looked deadly serious, I thought they were joking and I said as much. The man got a little testy, so I explained to him that it's all a joke and simply part of the movie. They both swore up and down that it wasn't part of the movie and that this virus had destroyed their 2 month old dvd player and, even after I popped out the dvd trailer and put 'Office Space' in and showed them and actually started the movie with no trouble at all...you guessed it: they STILL did not believe me.
I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my entire life.
http://www.livejournal.com/community/customers_
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policy analysis and political satire
Me:
I just used a Mac and backed up 20GB of data over 4 DVD-Rs using your Backup 2.0 software. Unfortunately I no longer have a Mac but need to restore those discs, could you tell me what compression/spanning techniques are used by Backup 2.0 so I can retrieve the data?
Apple Rep:
Apple uses all open standards with their software. Thank you.
>:|
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
Now isn't a nightmare that my official vendor (whom I paid the full list price of $0 for the software) couldn't tell me this themselves, but instead someone from the community had to do it for them?
Quite a few of us live them...daily. Multiple reports of how an entire computer doesn't work -- because they failed to enable num lock and the keypad wasn't "working." People whose machines freeze so they turn the monitor off and on. I've seen an occasion where a patron jams a floppy into the drive...backwards and THEN demands that we give him his floppy back.
Then there are those who know the URL but insist on searching for that address in google. Ever heard of an address bar? Guess not. Oh, and when the connection is down, they ask why -- and then proceed to give me a blank "Dummy Mode On" stare when I explain that the proxy server wasn't working. Like I should've said something like "the hamster stopped running."
Not to mention people who ask how to spell "solitary" (instead of solitaire) and those who ask how to get to "yoohoo" or "googles."
And by the way...You're Welcome!!!
I had a problem with my Earthlink service recently, and sent them an e-mail about it. I got the standard questionare back asking for information about the problem. (what OS do you use? What Browser? Etc.) One of the questions asked, "What kind of computer are you using? (PC, Apple, Dell, Gateway or IBM-Clone)"
I told them I was using a Touring Machine.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I'm definitly not the guy involved, but the best tech support story I've ever heard went like this User: My computer doesn't seem to be working Tech: Can you be more specific? User: Sure, the computer screen is black Tech: Ok, can you restart your computer for me? User: Yes, but that'll take a while Tech: Oh, why is that? User: I haven't had power for 2 days Darwin please save us!
I was moving out a building I was living in. I called my local electric company to come and shut off the power, to keep me from getting bills.
A person came and I took her to the basement where the box was. She looked at me and said, "What do I do now?"
I said, "Your job?! Turn it off."
She asked, "But how?"
I said, "Go and open the box and figure it out."
She said, "But what if I get electrocuted. I'm leaving."
I went over, opened the box, pulled out the large fuses that where there, and the lights went out. Luckily I had a flashlight because she didn't. I should have turned mine off and left her down there.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I know a guy who used to work for dell. From his description, you have it pretty much right. They have a binder that works kind of like one of those 'choose your own adventure' books you read as a kid. No matter what you say when they pick up, they start from page one with a question. If yes, go to 2. If no, go to 3. This continues until they reach the page where they tell you that you need to use the recovery disk to erase all your files. And believe me, no matter how you answer, you'll get to that page.
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Crudely Drawn Games
wow, and i almost forgot i had something to add.
same situation, a hp 6110, starts not wanting to feed paper. so i call up support and have me jump through the hoops, until the fax started making this terrible grinding noise. the tech: "thats not right. I'll get you a replacement"
3 days later, the replacement arrives (we paid for 3+ day shipping). its remanufactured, and its doa. call back, explain, they ship another one, they pay for shipping this time.
2 days later, the replacement's replacement shows up. its dead too. call back. they overnight me a replacement.
finally, i got one that works (i had three of these in the office at the time). the rest get shipped out, end of story...right?
nope. last week (the adventure started back nearly a year ago) i got an email saying that my replacement has shipped to my Puerto Rico Address (oddly, i live in Missouri), so i call them and ask whats this about. seems that my business email is still attached to one of the machine's serial #. so i talk to about 2-3 different people and they thank me for pointing this out to them.
yesterday i got another shipping confirmation letter. i decided to just delete it and let them deal with it.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Yeah, those voice prompts are so tricky when you don't listen to them or take any notice of what you're doing.
Online banking must be hell for you.