Customers Question Tech Industry's Takeover Spree

crimeandpunishment writes: "When it comes to the world's largest technology companies, is bigger better? Maybe for the companies, but maybe not for their customers. Tech companies, which have spent $350 billion buying other companies over the past few years, have marketed their acquisitions as beneficial for their customers, offering them a broader range of products, and making it easier for one-stop shopping. But changes in customer service may be offsetting any benefit. In the words of the chief information officer for a large association, 'When the smaller guys are gobbled up by bigger guys, in theory it's supposed to be better, but in our experience it's been worse.'"

Comments

Re:Over seas customer service sucks! and some time

[Skuld-Chan]

I did level 1 technical support for a big software company (here in the US no less) for a number of years. The amount of information I had on anyone who called was always surprising to me (credit card numbers, what purchases you've made etc etc). The amount of information I could glean from customers just by asking was just as shocking (some of it was required for us to ask! - like collecting a credit card number for a billable case). I'm surprised actually we haven't seen more identity theft because of this.

Would you want a prisoner to know that stuff?