Annual Customer Support Rankings

An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo's Tech Tuesday is running PC Mag's annual survey of best and worst PC vendors' customer support. At the top of the list: Apple. At the bottom: Sony. Heard any good tech support horror stories lately?"

Horror Stories?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen something recently about a really bad web designer who came up with a vomit-inducing color scheme for the IT section of a popular website. Sorry I can't remember the name, and I don't have a link handy...

Best Support

[darth_MALL]

Me :) Really! Ask my boss!

Stupid? How about this one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Posted anon, as its not my story.

---

I'm so glad this happened to me because I wouldn't have believed it otherwise...

This normal-looking 20-something couple came in tonight and stood at the dropbox just clutching their three movies and staring at me until I asked if I could help them. They then proceeded to tell me that the dvd copy of 'Office Space' they had rented from us had downloaded a virus onto their brand-new dvd player and ruined it. (Anyone who has seen the 'Office Space' dvd knows why this is hilarious--for those of you who haven't seen it, after the FBI warning a Window...a MICROSOFT-LOOKING WINDOW...pops up and says a virus had been detected and, when you hit menu or start, your TELEVISION (i.e. Not Monitor) screen is flooded with pop up windows. After a few seconds you are taken to the dvd's start menu and presented with the usual options.) Even though they looked deadly serious, I thought they were joking and I said as much. The man got a little testy, so I explained to him that it's all a joke and simply part of the movie. They both swore up and down that it wasn't part of the movie and that this virus had destroyed their 2 month old dvd player and, even after I popped out the dvd trailer and put 'Office Space' in and showed them and actually started the movie with no trouble at all...you guessed it: they STILL did not believe me.

I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my entire life.

http://www.livejournal.com/community/customers_s uc k/6701337.html

Tech Support Horror Stories: 8 not-so-good words

[captain1010]

Great News! You've been linked to by Slashdot!

Yea, Great Customer Support From Apple :-(

[Loco3KGT]

Me:

I just used a Mac and backed up 20GB of data over 4 DVD-Rs using your Backup 2.0 software. Unfortunately I no longer have a Mac but need to restore those discs, could you tell me what compression/spanning techniques are used by Backup 2.0 so I can retrieve the data?

Apple Rep:

Apple uses all open standards with their software. Thank you.

>:|

Linux vendor support horror story

[Anonymous Coward]

My OS (debian) was running slow (compared to Gentoo), and I kept whining and ranting about how slow it was to the support mailinglists. This went on for hours until someone not from the official company told me that I could just "apt-get" the source instead of the binaries and build the packages myself to get all the speed benefit of gentoo.

Now isn't a nightmare that my official vendor (whom I paid the full list price of $0 for the software) couldn't tell me this themselves, but instead someone from the community had to do it for them?

Heard???

[Eberlin]

Quite a few of us live them...daily. Multiple reports of how an entire computer doesn't work -- because they failed to enable num lock and the keypad wasn't "working." People whose machines freeze so they turn the monitor off and on. I've seen an occasion where a patron jams a floppy into the drive...backwards and THEN demands that we give him his floppy back.

Then there are those who know the URL but insist on searching for that address in google. Ever heard of an address bar? Guess not. Oh, and when the connection is down, they ask why -- and then proceed to give me a blank "Dummy Mode On" stare when I explain that the proxy server wasn't working. Like I should've said something like "the hamster stopped running."

Not to mention people who ask how to spell "solitary" (instead of solitaire) and those who ask how to get to "yoohoo" or "googles."

And by the way...You're Welcome!!!

Re:Best Support

[NanoGator]

"Me :) Really! Ask my boss!"

Don't expect a lot of questions. I don't think any of us want to know the details of the services you provide for him.

Earthlink tech support

[TiggertheMad]

I had a problem with my Earthlink service recently, and sent them an e-mail about it. I got the standard questionare back asking for information about the problem. (what OS do you use? What Browser? Etc.) One of the questions asked, "What kind of computer are you using? (PC, Apple, Dell, Gateway or IBM-Clone)"

I told them I was using a Touring Machine.

Funniest Tech Support Ever

[robespierremax]

I'm definitly not the guy involved, but the best tech support story I've ever heard went like this User: My computer doesn't seem to be working Tech: Can you be more specific? User: Sure, the computer screen is black Tech: Ok, can you restart your computer for me? User: Yes, but that'll take a while Tech: Oh, why is that? User: I haven't had power for 2 days Darwin please save us!

Re:Earthlink tech support

[mopslik]

I told them I was using a Touring Machine

Ahhh, I see they've released a portable version then.

My electric company...

[Anita Coney]

I was moving out a building I was living in. I called my local electric company to come and shut off the power, to keep me from getting bills.

A person came and I took her to the basement where the box was. She looked at me and said, "What do I do now?"

I said, "Your job?! Turn it off."

She asked, "But how?"

I said, "Go and open the box and figure it out."

She said, "But what if I get electrocuted. I'm leaving."

I went over, opened the box, pulled out the large fuses that where there, and the lights went out. Luckily I had a flashlight because she didn't. I should have turned mine off and left her down there.

Re:Dell is by far the worst...

[Valar]

I know a guy who used to work for dell. From his description, you have it pretty much right. They have a binder that works kind of like one of those 'choose your own adventure' books you read as a kid. No matter what you say when they pick up, they start from page one with a question. If yes, go to 2. If no, go to 3. This continues until they reach the page where they tell you that you need to use the recovery disk to erase all your files. And believe me, no matter how you answer, you'll get to that page.

Re:My last experience with tech support

[jasonbw]

wow, and i almost forgot i had something to add.

same situation, a hp 6110, starts not wanting to feed paper. so i call up support and have me jump through the hoops, until the fax started making this terrible grinding noise. the tech: "thats not right. I'll get you a replacement"

3 days later, the replacement arrives (we paid for 3+ day shipping). its remanufactured, and its doa. call back, explain, they ship another one, they pay for shipping this time.

2 days later, the replacement's replacement shows up. its dead too. call back. they overnight me a replacement.

finally, i got one that works (i had three of these in the office at the time). the rest get shipped out, end of story...right?

nope. last week (the adventure started back nearly a year ago) i got an email saying that my replacement has shipped to my Puerto Rico Address (oddly, i live in Missouri), so i call them and ask whats this about. seems that my business email is still attached to one of the machine's serial #. so i talk to about 2-3 different people and they thank me for pointing this out to them.

yesterday i got another shipping confirmation letter. i decided to just delete it and let them deal with it.

you are lucky!

[SethJohnson]

You are absolutely lucky that you didn't get your phone call answered by me. I would have run you through all manner of schenanigans...

• "You monitor isn't turning on? Please clap your hands loudly near the monitor. Yes, we find that a lot of customers have their monitors connected to a 'clapper' device and this usually fixes the problem."
• "Ok. We're starting to reinstall the Operating System. Tell me when you see the Software License screen appear. It's up now? Ok. Please read that license to me out loud. Yes, the whole thing."
• "Oh, I'm sorry for the long wait time. Yes, the UPS strike has backed everything up. You wouldn't think these things are related, but trust me, they are."

But seriously, if you care about a company doing well, call in to tech support only as a last resort. If you buy basically anything and you call in, the cost of handling your call has consumed the entire profit the company made from your purchase. That's why Apple stopped selling inkjet printers. The profit margins were thin and the % of support calls were high. Didn't make good business sense to stay in the market.

Most support issues can be resolved by a skilled Google search.

Re:Horror Stories?

[mangu]

What's the point of the new IT section?!

Posting articles about Italy. Please be reminded that the Vatican is an independent country, and stories about the Roman Catholic Church will be posted in the VA section. Also, stories about San Marino, another independent country hosted inside the Italian territory, should be posted in their own section.

Re:Sneaky Apple - A Financial Horror Story

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, those voice prompts are so tricky when you don't listen to them or take any notice of what you're doing.

Online banking must be hell for you.