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Old 06-13-2011, 01:24 AM   #1
hermes
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Customer Service factor

So far all I can speak about is Sony.

Human not robot: 4/5 - As typical in 2011, an actual warm blooded mammal does not answer the phone for 1-2 steps.

Fast answers: 4/5 - Very good - brief on hold before human on line, knew answers immediately. It wasn't as if they were looking them up on a script

Definitive answers: 5/5. Knew all answers

Correct answers: ? - I don't know really. I haven't tested them yet.

Communicative: 3/5 - Can't fault either of the two I spoke with on telephone manner (warm , polite etc). However one of the Hispanic CS persons had such a heavy accent and spoke so fast I had to ask her several times for her to repeat herself. Now, if it was a call center in North india instead of Southern California or Mexico and they had a Hindustani accent I would have had no problem but this Canuck more familiar with dental and palatal consonants of Sanskrit/Hindi etc, the tripthongs from hell of Khmer and 'what was that tone?' of Thai, plus some French, it was like 'What the heck are you saying?' Understanding Spanish is just not in my habit.

Privacy: 4/5. Was asked for my telephone number while still talking with a robot. Unable to circumvent by typing in '0' or by doing nothing. So I gave up and punched in a random 10 digit number, US/Cdn telephone # style (what about if person calling has a Cambodian number? Do they mean what is one's permanent # or number being used for call, etc? Not clear.) I explained to the CS person that I had just invented something fictitious. Seemed to be a non-issue (then why do they ask for one?) I explained what I had done as I didn't want to carry around a random number for the end of my days if I would be dealing with Sony, especially since I didn't write it down.

The staff seemed stunned that I didn't have a telephone. Since when is having a telephone a prerequisite of doing business? For me electronic devices should be as anonymous as buying a loaf of bread or bearer bonds (do those exist anymore - the bread I mean?). I should instead be totally honest 'I do not give out my telephone number to strangers'. But lying saves time.

I see that Kobo apparently has no telephone customer service - only email and a website. This is fine for my travelling, but while In Canada I like to be able to pick up a phone. Ideally, be able to pick up a a phone in Singapore, Tokyo, Germany etc also. With Skype the actual phone number is a less of (but still) an issue.
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Old 06-13-2011, 01:40 AM   #2
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que es historia bueno, hermano.
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Old 06-13-2011, 02:15 AM   #3
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The ideal customer service does not exist. i.e. Amazon should become aware of your problem before you.
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Old 06-13-2011, 03:03 AM   #4
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The ideal customer service does not exist. i.e. Amazon should become aware of your problem before you.
True but without the infitorium's mobius escalator we would never see the cube root of 0.
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Old 06-13-2011, 11:27 AM   #5
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que es historia bueno, hermano.
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Old 06-13-2011, 11:50 AM   #6
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There is an old saying among my pals who work in information technology (IT), "If you need tech support at all you have just bought the wrong product". In all my years of IT I have never called tech support ever, the product just works.
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Old 06-13-2011, 01:00 PM   #7
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There is an old saying among my pals who work in information technology (IT), "If you need tech support at all you have just bought the wrong product". In all my years of IT I have never called tech support ever, the product just works.
That's a nice ideal, but you've obviously never done tech support work. Half the people I support don't know enough to be embarassed when I literally walk in to the office, plug in the piece of gear they unplugged to plug in a fan, and leave.

(Or staplers. On the keyboard. While it's booting.)
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Old 06-13-2011, 01:54 PM   #8
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That's a nice ideal, but you've obviously never done tech support work. Half the people I support don't know enough to be embarassed when I literally walk in to the office, plug in the piece of gear they unplugged to plug in a fan, and leave.

(Or staplers. On the keyboard. While it's booting.)
Oh my. That sounds like the kind of people I used to talk to on the tech support line for my company's software. The kind of people who would probably really look for the "any" key when the screen would prompt them for it. If it weren't for "minimally exceptional" folks like that, most tech wouldn't be purchased by nearly as many people.
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Old 06-13-2011, 01:59 PM   #9
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Oh my. That sounds like the kind of people I used to talk to on the tech support line for my company's software. The kind of people who would probably really look for the "any" key when the screen would prompt them for it. If it weren't for "minimally exceptional" folks like that, most tech wouldn't be purchased by nearly as many people.
Yep. I have several store managers who literally cannot read error messages off the screen for me, because "That's computer stuff, and I don't know anything about computer stuff." These people are resonsible for several million dollars a year in company revenue. (They're good managers, though.)

Yeah, most tech support calls are the result of bad design, bad manufacturing, or bad attitude. But not all.
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Old 06-13-2011, 03:30 PM   #10
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It drives my wife nuts because she will have a computer problem and try it over and over. Then she calls me in the room, tries it again and it works.

It's like the computer only misbehaves when it knows it can get away with it...
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Old 06-13-2011, 06:10 PM   #11
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There is an old saying among my pals who work in information technology (IT), "If you need tech support at all you have just bought the wrong product". In all my years of IT I have never called tech support ever, the product just works.
I'm in IT, and I've called tech support, however usually it is because of a service failure. For instance, last night me and my girlfriend were watching a streaming TV show from Netflix when my internet connection died. If I don't call tech support, they often are unaware of the failure.

The only time I've called tech support related to a product and not a service, is when I've received a defective product. The last time for that was in 2004, when I was building a new system, and one of the cables for the motherboard was bad (had a burn through the center of the ribbon cable, where something obviously hadn't gone through the manufacturing process correctly). I called up tech support, and after 45 minutes I hung up on them, and got a cable on my own. The tech support center was in Taiwan, and the people I spoke to couldn't understand "I have a defective IDE cable. It is damaged. I want a replacement.", and kept prompting me to go through steps from a script in highly broken english to "solve the problem".
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Old 06-13-2011, 07:25 PM   #12
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It drives my wife nuts because she will have a computer problem and try it over and over. Then she calls me in the room, tries it again and it works.

It's like the computer only misbehaves when it knows it can get away with it...
I have the people I work with pretty well convinced that I'm so smart that when I walk by, other people get smarter. They don't like it, but they're starting to belive it.
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Old 06-13-2011, 07:41 PM   #13
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My favorite line (especially in emails or voicemails, where I can't ask questions) is "I tried to do X, but it wouldn't let me." Or, "I tried to do X, but it didn't work." What didn't work? What does "It wouldn't let me" mean? I've had to do major hand holding just to get the error message out of people, even when talking to them on the phone. And forget email--it's usually quicker to just call them and ask what happens when they try to do X. "What exactly happens when you click on the button marked 'Do X'"?" "Oh! I never tried that! It worked!" Oh, well. Job security. My company tried outsourcing tech support, but that lasted exactly 6 mo. Never again.People who don't speak Computer trying to talk to people who don't speak American English? Not pretty.
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Old 06-13-2011, 07:44 PM   #14
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I'm in IT, and I've called tech support, however usually it is because of a service failure. For instance, last night me and my girlfriend were watching a streaming TV show from Netflix when my internet connection died. If I don't call tech support, they often are unaware of the failure.

The only time I've called tech support related to a product and not a service, is when I've received a defective product. The last time for that was in 2004, when I was building a new system, and one of the cables for the motherboard was bad (had a burn through the center of the ribbon cable, where something obviously hadn't gone through the manufacturing process correctly). I called up tech support, and after 45 minutes I hung up on them, and got a cable on my own. The tech support center was in Taiwan, and the people I spoke to couldn't understand "I have a defective IDE cable. It is damaged. I want a replacement.", and kept prompting me to go through steps from a script in highly broken english to "solve the problem".
I'd rather buy a replacement cable than talk with tech support.

I only call tech support for outages (for services) and RMAs. I don't contact them for anything else. Any good techy knows tech support is generally useless, and decent customer service barely exists any more.

It is nice, though, when you need to get something replaced, to get someone in America who speaks decent English.
I called Shuttle for a bad power supply in a Shuttle mini cube case - I was amazed. One quick digital menu and I was talking to a dude from California and they let me remove the power supply after I talked to them - and just mail it to them in a padded envelope - no excessive troubleshooting, "please unplug the computer and try to boot it up", etc.

That kind of customer service goes a long way to getting repeat business, but I don't think companies care any more. Whatever outsourced provider is cheapest.
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Old 06-13-2011, 08:03 PM   #15
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