Has all tech support gone dodgy?

[Guest]

Their support is location specific, more than that it is location and product specific. Like you can technically get an Xbox One to Norway by way of import. But they have NO support for it here if you have problems. Which also means if you need service you need to have it shipped to the country you ordered from and then have it picked up by MS.

Of course you don't say where you called from and what the product and problem was so it's hard to judge.

 

I didn't call, just used the live chat thing on their website while I was buying Office. And you can't buy unless you're using your region's store, thus I know what I was doing.

[HawkMan]

The chat is regional as well :/

It's actually usually the same people they do the chat when there's low call volume and have one or two dedicated chat supporters if it's a huge support.

[spaceelf]

Tech support at the school I go to is horrible! They set all the Windows settings to classic,standard, disable animations, don't drag window contents when I drag the windows, etc. Then they also make the computers run slow by doing a server client login on an old network. So the teachers complain and a few weeks later they all get a group email says that you should be your own computer (but of course we won't service it), but buy a Mac because the HARDWARE keeps you from getting viruses. :p lol ppl are just crazy sometimes. 

Get a cheap old mac from someone, put a virus on it, show it to them, blow their minds!

[surreyguy]

However,

 

There are the golden times where someone will rock up to you as a support person screaming that they've lost everything on their computer/tablet/laptop, and that they've spent untold hours trying to fix it, and been on the phone for hours to tech support, and you're their only hope..........

 

......and all you do is switch it on, and it works first time.

 

The look of confusion is priceless.

[REM2000]

Ummm... What... Are you seriously saying an actual ISP today allows free access to their SMTP server... Over a standard port nonetheless... That's the most worrying part in all of that post...

 

A lot of ISP's will allow SMTP connections without a password they just limit access to their own subnet, i.e. if she used outlook at a free starbucks wifi it would come up with an error. 

[REM2000]

Support is sort of getting worse, i think the trouble with the IT industry is that is has experienced exponential growth over the last decade, meaning that a lot of organisations, people have not yet caught up. There are few standard measures or certificates that can instill confidence. I.e. like CCNA, MSCE but for support, so you have a lot of people who don't really know what they are doing on the front lines. 

 

For me talking to support is really just pre-empting the crap they will ask to get to the solution i want, i.e. my Dell workstation at home had a problem, i had to pre-empt you have a virus, you used your computer on a full moon until i got what i wanted a replacement motherboard. However for people who don't know these things it's getting harder and harder, it doesn't help that little IT support companies over here in the UK have the same reputation for ripping you off as a bad car garage. 

[T3X4S]

I never pull the SysAdmin card.  That is, I never say anything close to "Im in IT & know what Im talking about & you're an idiot"  I always believe that being nice is the best way to get what you want, or to get a person to see your side of things.

I have had some really lousy run ins, but I always try to be nice & usually just play dumb so they can go through the rehearsed crap they are told to do. (unless they lie to me - then I will just say - "Let me talk to someone in Tier 2 support, please"

Only once did I tell someone that my cocker spaniel knows more about computers than he does.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

Tech support hasn't gone dodgy, but it's quality has fallen thanks to things like outsourcing. I'm terminated from my job at the end of next month due to a similar situation, and having compared our work with the team that will be replacing us I can honestly say that I feel for the people I'm leaving behind. But if companies only look at their profit margins then this is the result.

[Anibal P]

My company is expanding support here in the US, India and the Philippines, at this point I'm glad 99% of American callers are getting US based support, the PH team is bad at the minimum, the India reps are barely a step above that, there's a push to get all teams on the same training and standards but it's been a fight, we've had to send people over to retrain most the reps. Thankfully they are a small % of the total support team but it's painful dealing with them or understanding their lack of notes on a ticket, to the point that if I see a customer was "helped" by any of them I immediately apologize and fix the issue 99% of the time, issues that could have been fixed had they just done a basic search in our knowledge base and followed like 5 steps 

 

As for me calling any support, level 1 hates me, I let them do their intro, stop them, tell them what's broken and what I've done and watch them struggle because they are using a worthless script, then nicely ask for level 2

[Shadrack]

Yes, very much so

 

 

That image needs to be modified to show the Neowin tech support forums in the last frame! :)

[+Warwagon MVC]

A lot of ISP's will allow SMTP connections without a password they just limit access to their own subnet, i.e. if she used outlook at a free starbucks wifi it would come up with an error. 

 

^ THIS!

[HawkMan]

^ THIS!

Which is a terrible setup, especially in the day of people using laptops and tablets pecerywhere.

[techbeck]

Basic support is staffed by morons.

 

My  company is the parent company over 6 different divisions.  Up until recently, each division ran IT separately.  Now, its a big global IT department.  I am finding out people who worked in other divisions are tech idiots that should not be working in any IT at all.

 

Case in point....

 

I took an issue a user was having with an Excel plugin.  Wasnt working.  The lady from the help desk put in the note that Java needed to be updated.  WTF does Java have to do with he Excel plugin?  Everyday it is something stupid like this.  I am expecting management to clean house soon and it is sorely needed.  We have offices that have ZERO backups, do not test their backups, and people migrating servers without first verifying disk space and then taking down a system for a couple days.

[Crimson Rain]

I keep hearing stories from people who call legitimate companies for tech support. Companies like

 

Netgear

Linksys

Avast

 

Pretty much any company a customer has told me they have called for tech support for any little issue first starts by telling them their computer has lots of bugs and viruses usually by running a stupid registry scanner then says it will cost them $200 dollars for them to clean it up.

 

Case and point.

 

I got a call from a customer this week, because she wanted to get her iPad mini connected onto her wireless network but she didn't know her wireless password (SHOCKER!) or how to find it. She said she called her local ISP tech support. They said, sorry can't help you but here is the number for Netgear.

 

So she calls Netgear, he remotes into her computer and instead of helping her find her Wifi password,  tells her that there are currently 11 people logged into her computer and that they might even be into her banking. She told me he had a black box open.

 

When I was on her computer did an Ipconfig I saw the following.

 

Wireless LAN adapter Local Area Connection *11: (in fact I just did it on mine and my laptop says 11 too)

 

So my guess is he showed her that number and told her that is how many people are currently logged into your computer

 

She said he wanted to charge her I think it was $300.

 

All because she wanted help finding her wifi password. (She also had a strong Wifi password)

 

What the #### is happening to the support industry where this turns into common practice no matter who you call for help.

http://arstechnica.com/search/?query=pccare247

[game_over]

If you want bad tech support call Microsoft... I don't think i've ever been so frustrated.

 

In my experience the entire support division of their company is a mess down to the representatives that trawl their god awful 'forums' to the support guys on the phone. 

 

Most companies will employ any broken English speaking person who can read a canned response off of a computer screen.

[Shadrack]

If you want bad tech support call Microsoft... I don't think i've ever been so frustrated.

 

In my experience the entire support division of their company is a mess down to the representatives that trawl their god awful 'forums' to the support guys on the phone. 

 

Most companies will employ any broken English speaking person who can read a canned response off of a computer screen.

 

I haven't "called" MS, but I dealt with their online support the other day.  I was experiencing stupid slow download speeds from OneDrive in PointPoint for iPad.  The 1st time they directed me to Office for Windows knowledge-base article (or whatever they are calling those pages now), ok...they probably just didn't read my question right.  The 2nd time.... i about lost it.

[HawkMan]

Dunno, over here MS support has very good rep. But since Scandinavia are small countries with difficult languages we don't get Indian support.

[Top Qat]

I think people's experience varies greatly.

 

My son's laptop was playing up, slow response, BSOD and just failing to boot. Not all the time, maybe 2-3 times a week.

My diagnosis pointed to an intermittent failure of the OS drive. Easy to fix but it was still less than a year old so decided to do it under warranty.

 

I was dreading the thought of negotiating the DELL support system. Instead of calling I used the online chat.

 

Started conversation with some guy, gave my details.

Told him I am an IT tech and I have already found the issue and swapping a HD is easy enough for me.

Then, to my surprise, he just said OK we will post you a replacement HD right away. Just send the old one back in the package provided.

2 Days later all fixed, never had any problems since.

 

 

 

[cooky560 Veteran]

I've had passable experiences with Apple, but only after elevating the request several times, I now have e-mails for direct contact with high level support and it seems to make things much better.

[+Warwagon MVC]

Just had someone call me telling me they called Avast regarding their subscription. She showed me the page and the number she used it was this one. The legit one.

 

Apparently they remotely connected to her machine and gave her the "Event Viewer look at all those red x's you that is all malware" run around. I swear all tech support is dodgy!

 

[CG-88]

I work for an outsourced support centre but im a manager in a financial part. I was helping with an interview for a level 1 tech support position for some phone company about a month ago and there questions were as follows:

 

If you tried to print something, and it didn't print, what would you do?

What operating systems have you used?

Do you know how to install programs?

Do you know how to defrag a computer?

 

.....What???

 

And then if you passed the above test you had, from what I can remember of this line of business, 2 weeks training and then you were ready to go.

 

Um no, what a joke. To be fair though, some of the technical departments really test the potential candidates with assessment centres etc related to their type of support.

 

It all depends, yes there is a stereotype around outsourced tech support but "some" are good.

[+Warwagon MVC]

Not going to create a new thread, just going to add to this one.

 

Got a call from a customer a few mins ago who was trying to setup their new canon printer. They were having trouble with the scanner portion so they contacted the 1-800 number located in the instructions that came with the printer.

 

After contacting the number they were told by the indian on the other end of the phone that it's an issue with their webroot and how it's not compatible and how their computer is full of viruses. They said they could clean it up for $150.

[Gabe84]

On 19/5/2014 at 1:17 AM, Xilo said:

This is what happens when you outsource to countries that don't care about the work they are doing and can get a job the next day if they get fired.

This.

 

Huge companies, with huge profits outsourcing support, many times you get to talk to people who can't even properly understand the language, happened with Symantec (chat) and Vodafone (phone), they couldn't even understand what I was asking for.

 

Luckily my ISP tech support is located in my country, even if, when they ask me what OS I use and hear "Linux", they seem to think I'm the tech support guy

 

Microsoft support via Twitter sucks too, when I was trying to download the Windows 10 ISO from their site I didn't know what version I had to download (N, K, KN), all they did was giving me a link to the Microsoft's website which clearly didn't include the information I was looking for.

[+Red King Subscriber²]

4 minutes ago, Gabe84 said:

This.

 

Huge companies, with huge profits outsourcing support, many times you get to talk to people who can't even properly understand the language, happened with Symantec (chat) and Vodafone (phone), they couldn't even understand what I was asking for.

 

Luckily my ISP tech support is located in my country, even if, when they ask me what OS I use and hear "Linux", they seem to think I'm the tech support guy

 

Microsoft support via Twitter sucks too, when I was trying to download the Windows 10 ISO from their site I didn't know what version I had to download (N, K, KN), all they did was giving me a link to the Microsoft's website which clearly didn't include the information I was looking for.

People should just leave bad reviews and use competitor products if that is the case. Vote with your wallet.

[shockz]

Last year, I had to call Microsoft over an Office activation issue.  I knew exactly what the issue was, however after getting the runaround from broken English support reps for over two hours and multiple transfers (even after talking to a manager), I gave up and returned the product, all for a minor issue that could have been resolved in 5 minutes. Oh yeah, they tried selling me the product I was holding in my hand.