Post Your Tech Support Horror Stories Here

For the most part, the tech support I use is great, but recently I took great pains to explain my problem in detail, using words compatible with “tech-speak” and I still got an email asking for more details, details which I had covered in the initial report. I took a deep breath and tried another tack in explaining the problem!
Connie

I’ve been an Apple user for years, so when I need tech support i just go to my local Apple store and speak to one of their “geniuses.” Very happy with them. Now, if you want to talk about bad experiences, there’s AT&T…

I called tech support for help installing an external hard drive, and the person I reached absolutely could not be understood. Finally, in an exasperated tone of voice, she passed me to her supervisor, which meant another long wait on hold. I’ve had wonderful tech support experiences (believe it or not!) with personnel who were obviously not native English speakers, but they spoke very clearly and precisely. If companies want dissatisfaction with their tech support to dramatically diminish, they should “test-drive” each tech support person over the phone to see how understandable they are.

Besides being put on hold for an hour (routine practice from my ISP, even in the middle of the night), I really dislike being told to do things like turn my PC off and on again, especially when I tell the support tech that I’ve already done it. I know they deal with a wide range of experience levels, but they should trust me if I say I’ve already tried their suggestion.

I agree with Nancy. I find with most tech support calls, I first have to “prove” myself with some degree of aptitude before they’ll believe I’ve already done the things they suggest. I’ll throw in a few technically-aware comments to let them know I understand what a “hard drive” or “desktop” is. I understand they’re often dealing with people who are struggling to navigate these very issues, and they have to assume no knowledge on the part of the caller. It generally only bothers me when the person at the other end refuses to acknowledge they’re not dealing with a knucklehead.

A really good tech support department will ask “How have you already tried to fix the problem yourself?”. It saves everyone time and energy, plus it also establishes how adept the caller is with the technology.

Called a popular company’s support telephone number a few years ago and the guy I talked to had the nerve to actually tell me I had an ID-10-T error. I thought that joke died a long time ago. Look it up if you’re not sure what I mean. So sad. So very sad.

When I called Linksys to get help setting up my wireless router, it was great. The man I spoke with spoke clear, easily understood English with no accent, helped my with clear and precise, step-by-step instructions, and we got a product. Hold times were short. It was an excellent cycle all around.

It’s easy to see how this goes both ways. I can imagine horror stories from the other side, lol. My last frustration with tech was about not being able to print labels. We went around and around, and finally out of mutual frustration, the tech just emailed me the instructions. They should do that more often.

On the flip side, I’d like to give two thumbs up to the About.com tech support staff. They’re prompt, kind, and I think they might be geniuses.

I purchased a new Western Digital hard drive and and it failed after 3 days. I called the company and got an RMA. I mailed it to the company and 3 weeks later I’m still waiting for a replacement. I finally was able to contact someone at WD and they mailed a replacement. However, the “replacement” wasn’t a replacement !!!— it was the same hard drive (same serial #s) and was completely non-functional. I promptly threw it in the trash and went out and bought a Seagate. I’ve had the Seagate for 3 years and experienced no problems whatsoever. Needless to say, since then I’ve been using Seagate in everything I build.

Okay… yes, I’m the model trains guide. But I have over 30 years in personal computing… support, software and database development, and finally as an instructor.

My worst support call was on an early GUI for non-Apple computers. I forget the publisher… maybe Digital Research. Someone dragged the hard disk icon from the desktop into the root directory folder. The hard drive light flashed it seemed forever and then we got an “out of disk” error. The system had tried to do a recursive copy on the root directory.

I called tech support and after several minutes of explanation the support lady asked me to hold. Then, after about five minutes she came back and said “that’s how it’s supposed to work.” I told her I didn’t think so, she said something rather curt and hung up. Guess what was fixed in the 1.2 release.

While working as a Support Agent with Earthlink, I took a call from a frantic customer in Arizona. The lady wanted me to change her user name and password as soon as possible. The problem? Her computer had been stolen by aliens,(extra-terrestrial), and she did not want them to access her account! I wondered, but didn’t ask, which telephone company on their home planet they would use to log on. Imagine being the cop that had to write the report of the stolen property!

Wow – aliens beats my best story by a good margin!

Want to hear consistent unsavory stories about customer service, or tech.service? Just Google about problems with TracFone. They by far have been the most consistent bad service specialists that I’ve ever encountered. It seems that they take pride in their ignorance. And don’t try to understand their English, that’s included as part of their bad service.

I found this just a little too amusing. I work for an internet tech support company, and out of the 200+ calls I recieve per week there may only be one person (if I’m lucky) out of the calls that can tell me what operating system they use. So with that in mind, try to understand why we are how we are.