Companies whose tech support stink!!

[TeeRex]

Customer support has gone to the dogs!!! I'm going to start a boycott of all products who outsource their tech support to idiots!

In this case I'm ranting specifically about D-Link. I was very happy with my router until I had a problem. After contacting "tech support", though there is nothing technical about it, they have totally lost me as a customer. Now my only regret is that they have my money and I can't get it back! Well I say to heck with them! If I can't get my money back, at least I hope that by reading this someone out there won't buy one of their products!!

Other companies that I am going to boycott:

Dell - love their computers, hate customer support.
Norton - Products have become crappy - customer support is horrible.

I know there are other companies that should be on my list. I can't remember them right now because of a mental block that protects my brain of seizures. Want to trash any other company??? Sign up.

[Floppyman]

I hear ya. Don't even get me started on Dell :). There's a reason their consumer pc's are so cheap; support = terrible to practically nonexistant.

[HAL9000]

RMA for Netgear.... when I was still working in the computer business... the accountant there tied into me for throwing two routers out and ordering new ones when the old ones could have been sent for RMA... I broke it down like this from the last time I dealt with them.

Our cost on the routers was $26, so $52 for both.

2.5 hours on the phone, mostly waiting, only to have them tell me that I must register the products online before they can assist me... they say it takes less than a minute, but will not hold, I must call back.

3 hours on the phone, mostly waiting before they agree I need an RMA#, but somebody will have to call me back with the number and shipping details

1 hour later, get the call, find out I'm responsible for shipping to the US by AIR ONLY ... AND responsible for return shipping. Total will be about $55

So, not including the 1 hour waiting for the call back, 5.5 hours of my time at $10 per hour + shipping expenses = $110 for two $26 routers.

[EzyStvy]

As a guy that does tech support for a living I wish I could boycott several of my clients:p

Try supporting a high dollar accounting package with clients that don't know anything about accounting and shouldn't be allowed to sit behind a computer:eek:

[glc]

I guess you won't be buying any more routers then. To get support on a Linksys you will be talking to Bangaloreans.

[mairving]

Sadly it goes both ways. You can provide the best tech support out there and guess what happens people start abusing it. I get people that call me all the time just because they don't want to spend 5 minutes or even 5 seconds trying to figure something out themselves. I usually wait for a few minutes before I call them back. By then they have figured out their own problem.

[PCBrandon]

I don't know why people complain about Dell's customer service. I manage over 600 Dell workstations and replace about 2-5 defective parts each week. The only significant time I had a problem only took my lazy self getting off of chat and calling a supervisor. I was shipped a brand new system for free that was three times better than the system I had troubles with.

[mairving]

I don't know why people complain about Dell's customer service. I manage over 600 Dell workstations and replace about 2-5 defective parts each week. The only significant time I had a problem only took my lazy self getting off of chat and calling a supervisor. I was shipped a brand new system for free that was three times better than the system I had troubles with.
You are on the business side of things which is quite a bit different than the consumer side.

[flanzig1]

Dell's business equipment tech support is a lot better than the basic Dell consumer tech support. Where I used to work, had some hi-end Dell workstations and when we had problems with them would get parts right away and a tech on site for the serious problems(these were covered by service contract).

[PCBrandon]

I still use the consumer support chat for replacement parts. I realize they can link the service tag to my company account number... but I've initiated chats with personal service tags that were on their own accounts and have had no problem. I think it really depends on what you say. If you're affirmative about what is wrong with your computer then you shouldn't get any trouble from them.

For example:

Don't ever say "I think..." or, "I believe..."

A good startup statement is, "My hard drive is defective. I ran the Dell IDE Diagnostics from the boot menu and it failed with a return code of seven. I need a replacement."

You could also add statements like, "This is the first time I'm contacting Dell about this issue", and, "I would like a parts-only dispatch." As they will inevitably ask you those at some point in the chat session.

I've initiated a chat session, described my problem & troubleshooting in detail (thus skipping any troubleshooting the technician would've asked you to complete), and shipped a replacement part in less than five minutes.

EDIT: Yes flanzig, their business support is superb. The warranty plan on our servers requires a Dell technician to be at our location with the replacement parts within four hours of the call. We had one such case last year, and the technician was here in less than three hours with a replacement system board for an older, discontinued server. We had another and the technician was there in the morning before we even arrived (we were closed during the night).

[HAL9000]

I guess you won't be buying any more routers then. To get support on a Linksys you will be talking to Bangaloreans.

I won't have a need to buy a router anytime soon... and if I do... I'll buy whatever is the best at the time.. if it craps out and their tech support is in India or wherever, I'll toss it in the garbage and buy a new one... they're cheap now.

[mairving]

I still use the consumer support chat for replacement parts. I realize they can link the service tag to my company account number... but I've initiated chats with personal service tags that were on their own accounts and have had no problem. I think it really depends on what you say. If you're affirmative about what is wrong with your computer then you shouldn't get any trouble from them.

For example:

Don't ever say "I think..." or, "I believe..."

A good startup statement is, "My hard drive is defective. I ran the Dell IDE Diagnostics from the boot menu and it failed with a return code of seven. I need a replacement."

You could also add statements like, "This is the first time I'm contacting Dell about this issue", and, "I would like a parts-only dispatch." As they will inevitably ask you those at some point in the chat session.

I've initiated a chat session, described my problem & troubleshooting in detail (thus skipping any troubleshooting the technician would've asked you to complete), and shipped a replacement part in less than five minutes.

EDIT: Yes flanzig, their business support is superb. The warranty plan on our servers requires a Dell technician to be at our location with the replacement parts within four hours of the call. We had one such case last year, and the technician was here in less than three hours with a replacement system board for an older, discontinued server. We had another and the technician was there in the morning before we even arrived (we were closed during the night).
Yeah, I always have some kind of proof that the part is bad. We have the one day turn around support. We had to use them twice this year. Once they came out and swapped out a motherboard. Took one guy less than 5 minutes to walk in the building replace the mb and leave. The other time was for the replacement of a Plasma TV. There were 2 guys that delivered the TV and a girl that hooked it up. Total time they spent was around an hour and a half. The TV was mounted on the wall and this tech mostly worked on laptops.

[TeeRex]

I'm a consumer, and as such I end up getting in touch with the bottom of the barrell techs at the 800 numbers. I've got stories to tell. But the latest one involves me having to cuss out an indian guy who wouldn't know a monkey wrench from a monkey's butt as far as computers are concerned. He hung up on me after I asked to speak to a supervisor.

I must have called 5 times to run through the same steps even after I told them I had already done so and I had a case number! Really, they don't know computers. If I need to troubleshoot there are a million resources that I will exhaust online before I call, but once I call they try to run me throught the same steps and in my experience they don't take no for an answer.

Sorry, but it really burns me up to waste so much time troubleshooting a screwy product.

Soundblaster is another company on my black list.

But you're right GLC. What are we going to do? When we need a product we are just going to have to give in and buy it. We're at their mercy. Still, doesn't give them the right to give us the runaround support wise.

[Disgrace]

Agreed about Norton... it destroyed my last computer. Needed an entire reformat. Support = none-existant. For my latest (currently non-operative) build, i've got some McAfee protection... hope it's better.

[Freakitchen]

For my latest (currently non-operative) build, i've got some McAfee protection... hope it's better.

Not in my experience. I install AVG Free on all the machines I build, and I'm yet to have any complaints. For paid-solutions, look at NOD32 or Kaspersky.

FK

[Disgrace]

Not in my experience. I install AVG Free on all the machines I build, and I'm yet to have any complaints. For paid-solutions, look at NOD32 or Kaspersky.

FK

Thanks for that piece of advice, i'll keep it in mind, however, I haven't actually heard of any of those brands!

[thefultonhow]

Having dealt with Dell consumer tech support, I can say that it's okay, if you get the right person. I had an issue with my XPS2 back when I bought it, and the first person insisted it was a software issue because I did a clean install, but the second time I called I got a very knowledgeable person who walked me thorugh a number of troubleshooting steps and then offered to replace the laptop.

The next day, I called up customer service and complained and said I wanted some of the money off my original purchase price. Sure enough, I got $200 back.

The moral of the story -- if you have a bad experience, hang up and call back. This goes for any tech support, not just Dell, and also for non-technical things like getting a fee removed from your credit card.

[TimPoet]

I still use the consumer support chat for replacement parts. I realize they can link the service tag to my company account number... but I've initiated chats with personal service tags that were on their own accounts and have had no problem. I think it really depends on what you say. If you're affirmative about what is wrong with your computer then you shouldn't get any trouble from them.

For example:

Don't ever say "I think..." or, "I believe..."

A good startup statement is, "My hard drive is defective. I ran the Dell IDE Diagnostics from the boot menu and it failed with a return code of seven. I need a replacement."

You could also add statements like, "This is the first time I'm contacting Dell about this issue", and, "I would like a parts-only dispatch." As they will inevitably ask you those at some point in the chat session.

I've initiated a chat session, described my problem & troubleshooting in detail (thus skipping any troubleshooting the technician would've asked you to complete), and shipped a replacement part in less than five minutes.
Okay, you're talking about someone who knows Dell's system and knows computer systems rather well.

The average Joe doesn't know Dell's system nor computers. What do they do? They put up with English-impaired foreigners following a script. That's not good customer service. Good customer service is friendly to the unitiated. It's called "user-friendly." The customer is not the problem, Dell and other out-sourcing corporations, among others, are.

A good example of excellent customer service is Newegg and PC Mechanic. They have it as a goal to provide satisfaction the first time.

[Brad the best]

i found linksys a horrible tech help line . they were worthless , i couldn't get my new router to have a password on it ( it was a replacement , i just went in store to get it replaced) and i spent 1 hour on the phone trying to understand them then tried instant messaging , but they took 20 minutes to look up every little tiny question i had .

it was horrible i simply don't have a password for my wireless router anyone on my block could use my internet . stupid linksys , or maybe stupid me .

[Stuey]

Ultra is on my bad list. I read on a few sites that their cathodes are brighter and better than the rest. But alas, one of my cathodes was kind of dim. So I emailed their tech support. In the auto response message, it says "if you do not receive a response in 24 hours, send your message again". After maybe 4 tries, I gave up.

Dell's support is pretty bad too. I never got my "free notebook skin" from them. After two months, I went back to the "check my status" site and emailed them where it says "contact us about your notebook skin". I got a response saying I emailed the wrong place and to contact the appropriate department. Four emails later they finally gave me a number to call.

Eventually, I called up and rather than give me any answers, they offered me $30 and the option to purchase the skin from a different website. The $30 did quell my complaints though.

Also on my bad list: Samsung. I sent a message to tech support regarding the color correction software for my monitor and got no response. I then threatened to return the product and then they sent me a phone number to call. Since I frequently run out of my cell phone minutes and have no other phone, I gave up.

My GOOD list: Corsair, Newegg, Amazon (they love giving me partial refunds), VerizonWireless (they have their bad moments though), Sandisk, and Wacom. Also, Hitachi reigned in CompUSA and their rebate firm when they kept shrugging off my requests for rebate status 8 months after the fact.

[jayb1234]

Bottom of the barrel: McAfee, Norton. Yahoo. Gigabyte Lousy: Netgear, Sony, DFI Acceptable: Dell, Gateway, Adobe, AMD, Nvidia, D-Link. Zipzoomfly( downgraded from excellent lately) Good: Lexmark, HP, Samsung (monitors), Asus, Canon. Creative. Microsoft, Compusa Excellent: Seagate, WD, Lite-on, LG. Linksys, Intel. ATI, Newegg Of course list doesn't have total trash brands like Aspire and Tiger Direct on it.

[rjfvillarosa]

Interesting read.

Just returning your call... to the UK

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6353491.stm

[EzyStvy]

That's a nice article...


"Some people definitely had a certain mindset and decided the call was going to be bad before they'd even dialled the number," says Adrian Web from Esure, which says it took the original decision to outsource because it could not recruit enough staff in the UK - not because of money.
This part is very true. I read an article a while back that talked about the typical India support person had a college degree while the typical script reader in the US barely finished high school..

But having call centres in the UK is no guarantee of customer satisfaction, and it's risky using the fact to differentiate yourself from competitors, like Natwest is doing.
These will still be nOObs reading from a script...

[TimPoet]

Taking call centres out of the UK might look like a good option if you are a short-sighted accountant with your nose stuck up against a spreadsheet.Corporate bean-counters! They can forget the human element so necessary when dealing with, with... uh, humans!
A brand's success is about the relationship between the consumer and the company
And consumers like to be understood when they speak to their rep.

[TeeRex]

Another gripe I have with some of these companies is about mail-in-rebates... I've given up on them.

Norton offers mail in rebates for buying their products when you are upgrading... well I was. They say "if you have a qualifying product". Well if I'm going from Antivirus 2004 to Antivirus 2005... wouldn't you say that's a qualifying product? I waited and waited and finally checked up on it and they said that I didn't qualify!! I said forget it, it's only $20 bucks. I'd rather let them keep it than spend hours of my time talking to someone in India for hours about it.

Another company that stinks with mail in rebates is Ultra... haven't seen a penny yet jerks!!! (I hope you're reading this.)

Also, have you had this happen? You go through the whole automated message thing where you have to press 1 for this and 3 for that... and you spend about 10 minutes before you talk to anyone, and then when you finally get through the reception is so bad that you can't hear or understand anything they're saying, but you can make out (in an Indian accent)... "I cannot hear you so well... your phone is bad!" :mad: Well of course not! You're on the other side of the PLANET! Then you have to call back and do it all over again.

Let me not even get started with Tiger Direct. They're based out of Miami where I live and they have outlet stores. Their return policy is the worst I've ever seen. You can't win with them!

[flanzig1]

The only company that I had to deal with personally was with Systemax(this was before they bought TigerDirect). Had a USB flat bed scanner melt at the power jack, they sent out a replacement/it was a parallel port/called to have them send the USB/ got it and sent back the bad one. They never did ask for the parallel port one back. Still setting new in the box by my desk.

[rjfvillarosa]

I am not a great believer in customer service centres, BUT. In the week leading up to Christmas just passed, I supplied a customer with a Lexmark 3350 all in one printer/scanner, much to my dismay it quit working after just two days. I went over to the guys place and a quick feel of the power supply revealed no heat so I naturally assumed a dead power supply or no current draw by the printer.
I visited the Lexmark site and amongst their parts area I found the PSU and it was only $7.00 plus shipping for a new one, thinking what’s the point in trying to RMA the dead one and messing around waiting for a refund, I decided to just buy a new one and have done with it. Imagine my surprise to find that they didn't have any in stock and they had no idea of delivery, so now I have to talk to customer services. A very helpfull and friendly young lady talked me through a quick diagnostic via live link and she confirmed it was the PSU, she said she would put it straight on the system to send me a new one, I asked what to do with the old one and she said the instructions will be in the box.
I went to see my customer and told him they were sending a new one and quite honestly considering it was Christmas week and the new year coming up, I said I was sorry but I didn't expect to see it until well in to the new year, he agreed and that was that.
Three days later it was sat in my mail box, I took it straight over and fitted it and the printer fired up straight away no problems, my customer was as pleased as Punch and I am overwhelmed by Lexmark's service.
By the way there were no instructions in the box and the old PSU is sat on my desk.

[doubledragon5]

The first Dell I ever purchased (2001) was a Dell Dimension 8100.. It was nothing but a headache from day one.. OS at the time was ME with a future upgrade to XP.. Well each time I called their so called tech support I was on the phone a minimum 2hrs with no satisfaction at all.. Everything they suggested to fix the problem I had already done.. The last encounter was a very long 4hrs, and yes someone from India, or China or where ever.. Finally I had enough and demanded a new replacement, or we could go the legal route.. I sent them a letter with my intentions of going to a lawyer and suing them for the purchase price of the computer.. Well it wasn't long before they send me a replacement (a upgrade from the one I bought, and yes a refurbished model) and since I never had a problem with it.. It still going strong, and my daughter uses it everyday nearly 24/7.. I will never buy another rebuild on again.. Since I have built 4 for the family and have no issues at all.. When I do I naturally come here for the answer... This site is the best and will always be the best in my eyes.. I have told many, many people about this site over the yrs, and hope they have joined or at least browsed the site... PCMECH rules baby YA...:)

[oreilly]

the worst tech support is cable companys you can't find tech support if your trying to fix internet from your cable company
then computer companys (i use the internet for there tech support)
bad tech support for computers is compaq they told me what i already knew but they try;
for me not being able to understand what there saying is the worst

[LeftyAce]

Voodoo pc. Ever had someone try to ship you a replacement part to San Francisco, CAnada?

[thefultonhow]

Voodoo pc. Ever had someone try to ship you a replacement part to San Francisco, CAnada?

That reminds me of when I shipped a laptop via UPS to Ontario, California, and then found out the guy who'd bought it used a stolen PayPal account and I was being defrauded. I called UPS and customer service got very confused because they thought the package was going to Ontario, Canada. :cool:

[mojo]

I've found newegg to have excellent customer support. A few months back I ordered 2 identical harddrives and one arrived DOA. I called and asked if it would be faster to get a replacement RMA or order a new one and get a refund. The rep told me to order a new one, asked for the new order number then gave my free overnight shipping. When it came time to ship the defective drive back, I noticed that the return RMA was for both drives instead of just one. I called them back and explained it, and instead of grilling me about my favorite color and what my grandkids names will be, the rep said "OK sir, I've gotten all you information from caller ID and I'll make the necessary change. Have a nice day." That took all of about 1 minute.

In general I find that component manufacturers have better support than computer manufacturers or consumer electronic manufacturers.

[mbiggs]

Linksys.. oh God.. for some reason... the tech got all off topic asking where I lived, how my weather was... and where I was from.. and in a very sarcastic voice replied... "Ammeerriccaa.... andd you?" He got a little nervous laugh and fustled a bit... but yeah. The problem was that I was trying to hook my router up and have it run wirelessly but instead.. he had me configured to where I would haev the modem plugged into the back of the router... and the router plugged into my computer... and asked if I was.. "pleased".. lol.. No... God... retawds.

[mojo]

That off topic part might be forced on him. I'm working in a tech support call center and depending on who your manager is, you can get in trouble for having more than 10 seconds of "dead air," so sometimes you have to make small talk while you wait for stuff to load.

[Panama Red]

Here's a hint to get better service from Dell - don't use the phone! Use their online chat instead and if the computer you're having problems with will still run, use it to initiate the chat session. When the Dell Tech asks if you will download a small program to allow him/her to have access and control of the computer - do it - and sit back and watch what they do. Now keep in mind, I do quite a bit of pc repair thru my home business but I had my first chance to work with Dell this way on a laptop with an inoperative and improperly recognized DVD drive. I was a bit apprehensive allowing access to someone else but I tried it anyway. I watched as he checked the drive in the Device Manager, edited the registry to remove Upper and Lower filters, dowloaded a firmware upgrade file and performed the upgrade. Then he left a link on the desktop, had me reboot and click the link to reconnect directly with his pc again. Took a heck of a lot less time than telling me what to do and me doing it and reporting back the results of my actions. You may find the Dell chat inaccessible on occasion due to heavy load but just be patient. Once you connect and get in the queue you may find yourslef listed as deep as 40+ in the wait. Just be patient and keep an eye on the connection. It only takes a few minutes, maybe 15 or so, to get connected.

I firmly believe all manufacturers have good people and not so good people in their support departments. The only one I ever really became annoyed with was Netgear. I was having problems with a Netgear Cable Modem and by following their support directives by phone I was able to turn it into a brick! And getting a new one or a refund took a near act of Congress to get attention. I will never buy Netgear products nor recommend them to my customers for that reason.

[TimPoet]

I do prefer online chat over telephone dialogue. Maybe it would be different if I had a speaker phone and wouldn't have to hold the phone to my ear while on hold.
I use online chat for Newegg, which is always a fantastic experience in satisfaction and recently I used it with Cox Cable and after 2 tries had a good experience.

[LeftyAce]

My guess is the response time is better on chat; a rep can carry on multiple "conversations" while customers are trying things out. Cuts down on the reps just sitting around waiting for stuff to reboot, etc.

[Stuey]

I too like online chats and emails. I had a problem with my citi card. They kept referring me to different departments and nobody knew what the heck to tell me. So I emailed them and kept at it. Overall, the total effort it took for me to send all those 7 or 8 emails and responses to Citi was less then the effort and frustration it took for that one 6 person call.

[David M]

...any company that wants to charge you money to speak to a human or has no option for speaking to a human. ...regardless of how good their FAQ page seems to be.

[Floppyman]

This certainly can't be good for customer service -- disgruntled employees:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070202-8763.html

Seems like things are hitting the fan for Dell (e.g. Dell is also under investigation by the SEC at the moment).

[doubledragon5]

And if they are found quilty of wrong doing, then you can bet their Co will go down in flames like Enron...

[Floppyman]

And if they are found quilty of wrong doing, then you can bet their Co will go down in flames like Enron...

That might be interesting since Michael Dell just returned as CEO.....

[Disgrace]

www.digitec.ch's support is rubbish... not that anyone will be using it on the other side of the Atlantic!

[doubledragon5]

That might be interesting since Michael Dell just returned as CEO.....

Ya he just returned, but what about the yrs before he quit the first time... Seems it always falls back on the CEO....

[als814]

I've had really good experiences with fujitsu. My uncle had a fujitsu laptop, and he always talked about how great their customer service was. Before I bought my thinkpad, my uncle gave me his fujitsu, and they still had excellent support even though I wasn't the original owner.