Tech support goodies and baddies

A thread in Hardware made me think about tech support. Who for you has given you the best support, and who the worst?

For me, my Top 5 would be :

Epic UK (Unreal Tournament dudes, before they got taken over by ATARI, they really knew what they were talking about)
Microsoft Windows Support UK (even though they transferred me to different departments about 5 times, when I got there the support was excelent)
Cyan (the guys who made Myst... great support for my Mac)

Bottom 3!

EA. (other than their flowchart style manual troubleshooting they were completley useless.)
PlusNet (hate to say it, but their phone support was awful, but their Online support is usually good (unless youre talking to the people who change domain settings for you ... they can't read!! totalkrap.tk... totalrap.tk???)
Sony Electronics (I phoned up about a Clie... and they transferred me to their repairs place where they basically said, we'll repair it for you, but we wont actually repair it we'll just buy a new one and charge you for the privilage)

 

their all pretty bad in my experience. i have had simple problems that have been answered here, that MS couldn't help with. i think theres a 'communications' gap (tee hee), both times i think i was talking to India or something really stupid. verizon is almost as bad, a problem in Hawaii is dealt with by people in la la land. PLEASE can some puter techs move here.

 

I agree with Laurie. Everytime I call Comcast just to tell them their damn line went down due to a storm, some foreign-speaking person gets on the phone and tells me I need to setup a home service repair because my modem is definitely shot and no techs are available for 2 weeks, blah, blah, blah. I just wait a few hours, disconnect the modem and turn everything back on later while I get all the neighbors to call up and complain too, and it's working fine.

GOOGLE is my favorite technician.

 

Best: Weber (not tech, but replaced parts for my grill no questions asked) Very friendly and they knew all the grills inside out!

Average: EA Very helpfull while having problems with BF1942/V

Worst: SBC Yahoo, Months of tech support, and no solution. NO one there has any computer experience. Took them 3 months to fix a simple router problem on there end. I was about to find the damn box and give myself a new port instead of waiting around for them!!!!

Worst: Netscape. They want $40 for one dang phone call, or $10 for one lousey email!!!!



cooked

 

I have to toot the horn of Ken at Gentechpc.com. http://www.gentechpc.com/

He has helped us numerous times with our computer, over the phone, and walked us through steps to make sure things were working. Gentech is great for choosing what you want for a computer, and then they build it, and give you a 3 year warranty and tech support.

I told them I'd send business their way whenever I could, so go shopping people!!

Eric

 

The best: Moen plumbing fixtures. They diagnose the problem with the faucet, sprayer, drain pop-up, whatever, on the phone, and send the repair parts (free for life) by FedEx express, with carefully written instructions, so a plumber is never needed.

The Worst: We have only COGECO cable here, and it's the pits. Works beautifully when it works, but it's down at least a total of a day each month.

(This is just a typical tale of tech support. I have many to tell.)

Called COGECO tech support to say that my cable connection was failing/working intermittently: fine for a few secs, then bad for a few secs, then fine .... Explained to the "technician" (I use the term VERY loosely) that I have three different computers on this cable, three different OSs, three different mail programs, half a dozen mail ISPs, three different firewalls, and several browsers on each machine. Told him the behavior was intermittent, and continued unchanged WITH OR WITHOUT the firewalls, WITH OR WITHOUT the router, and on ALL THREE OSs, in all browsers, with all mail programs. Told him I own a computing services company, and know what's going on with my machines, and there was nothing wrong with ANY of my three machines. Told him the cable modem was failing, and just worked on-and-off. I needed a new modem.

He wanted me to disconnect the router and connect one machine directly to the modem. Told him I'd been there, done that, but cooperated with him.

Stupid suggestions that I had already ruled out and proven wrong followed for about twenty minutes. My blood pressure rose ever higher.

Finally, he put me on hold, to check with HIS SUPERVISOR.

Came back and said this:

I'm going to give you a URL where you can download SP2 for your XP machine. That will probably fix the problem.

!!!!!!!!!!!

I pointed out to him through gritted teeth that EVEN IF my three computers had suddenly developed a terrible NEED for SP2, and my cable connections had failed because I NEEDED SP2, only ONE of the machines would TAKE SP2, and the others would be out in the cold IF SP2 helped the one machine AT ALL, which was ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE.

He mumbled and kicked me upstairs to the next "level" of support, where the "technician" didn't understand what I said, couldn't help by checking THEIR equipment, and agreed to send a repairman to my home the next day.

Cable guy showed up. I told him I needed a new modem. He said he couldn't replace a modem unless the old one was clearly not working. I demonstrated. He wanted to take the router out of the linkage and kill the firewall. I patiently explained why that was INCREDIBLY STUPID.

He went back to the truck and brought in a new modem. I connected it to my router and rebooted one machine with the firewall running and all settings as usual. Cable worked perfectly.

Guy says "I never saw such a thing before."

I says, "Yeah, well. Thanks and seeya."