Let's Say Good-bye to Customer Support!

[Note:  All manufacturers shall remain unidentified in this entry, not because I am trying to protect their identity.  No, I'm just convinced that they are among a whole slew of companies guilty of the same wretched behavior.)

A few months ago, I purchased a new laptop.  That experience left many bitter tastes in my mouth, but I finally moved on.   Then I discovered that by biting the bullet and "upgrading" to a new operating system, neither of my all-in-one printers were compatible and neither manufacturer offered (or was willing to go out on a limb and state when they might offer) drivers that would make them compatible.  Why would they?  They had me at "good-bye," so I was off shopping for a new all-in-one printer.

Following my experience with the laptop, I avoided that manufacturing like the plague, and confident after seeing glowing reviews from several reputable sources, I bought my printer.  Okay, after assembling and installing and testing, I could fax, I could scan, I could copy.  But could I print?  Nooooooo!  (Perhaps it should have been called a "some-in-one" device.)  And after two excruciatingly long (each about an hour) chat sessions with two different technicians in "customer  support," I still can't print although I've been assured that as soon as I receive an e-mail with yet another set of fixes that I will be able to.

You know, I work from home.  I'm my own Help Desk.  And I'm getting more than a little sick of this phenomenon.  I don't want to need Customer Support.  I want to take something out of the box and have it work as promised.  The good news for the manufacturers is that in today's economy, I have to take this kind of treatment.  I can't afford to just write off these two expenses and start over (and I have no faith that I'd be able to send this stuff back for a refund).  But, I hope that other organizations start to get the message soon that advertising "world class customer support" just might send a very different message than the one they intend.  It might be sending a signal to consumers that says "you're going to need a whole lot of customer support because our stuff isn't designed to work with you, the customer, in mind."

By Kay Kendall on February 8, 2009 10:10 AM

Comments

Unfortunately it seems all "customer support" is uniformly this bad. Manufacturers are interested in "shipping another unit" and therefore, useful customer support and/or user friendly (both of which will bring back many happy customers for repeat buys) are just somethings to think about next quarter if then. Hopefully the customer will be king again, hopefully within our lifetimes.

Posted by: keith | February 8, 2009 2:52 PM

Let's not focus on manufacturers alone. Just because you are a service company, it doesn't mean you deliver customer service.

I recently purchased a new tv; I'll spare you that experience for now. I connected the tv to my cable box and the picture was not filling the screen. Being a guy, I did not initially resort to the cable box manual. However, eventually in desperation I did go to the manual that comes with the cable box. It had very explicit instructions for correcting the problem. The only challenge was that the instructions did not work. I could not bring the cable menu up on the screen to adjust the setting. After numerous attempts, convinced that I had followed the instructions properly, I called the cable company's customer service (with great trepidation). The only answer I got from customer service was they were not supplied the manual I was supplied and therefore they couldn't help me. On a second attempt to reach a supervisor, my wife did get a knowlegeable person, two days later, who still didn't have the manual, but knew how to fix the problem. The instructions for accessing the menu in the manual were wrong and not obviously deduced. The procedure involved mandatory, multiple taps on the menu button to bring it up.

Posted by: harry | February 9, 2009 8:21 AM

Most really good customer service is a thing of the past now. There are some exceptions I have had the pleasure to deal with recently (including my cable/phone/ISP provider and a digital camera/printer manufacturer) who provided exceptional and excellent service.

While recently upgrading my cable service, the rep (whose name and rep # I jotted down) went out of his way to ensure I got exactly what I wanted and at the lowest price he could arrange for that combination of features. He kept trying different order of adding features until he was able to arrive at a sequence/combination that had everything I want AND cost $20 per month less than their "package". I made it a point to send an email to his employer expressing my thanks and satisfaction for his great service and patience working on my order.

Maybe with a bit more positive feedback for really good service the situation will eventually turn around.

Posted by: Joe K | February 9, 2009 3:19 PM

I previously had a driver issue with a printer like you described, and I also won't go back to this manufacturer because of the issue. The printer was the hottest new thing when I bought it, but quickly became obsolete...

I personally don't have the time to deal with customer service, so I find it frustrating when I do have the need to call. On the other hand, I also expect the response to be stellar when I need it. Perhaps I have spent too much time on the other side of the phone trying to give good customer service to mostly disgruntled folks to put up with such nonsense.

Posted by: Aimee Siegler | February 24, 2009 4:04 PM

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