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June 18, 2008
Tales of Tech Support
Yesterday I needed to call Tech Support for a new product we're installing. The new product replaces and existing product that works just fine and and costs no more than the old, discontinued, product renewal would have cost.
During the installation the new product prompted me for a license file that I'd not yet gotten as I hadn't expected to need one as I hadn't needed one for the old product.
I'd purchased 70 licenses of the old product and used 68 of them; so really, there was no reason to monitor our usage (I know others are not as honest.) We've purchased 85 licenses for the new product, just in case we grow. [This does point to the reason the old product is being replaced; so I can be watched more closely]
I opened the manual that came with TNP and was directed to download the newest version of the Registration Program. This had a familiar look and feel to it and it was my recollection that I'd fill stuff out and receive the file I needed via the web or e-mail.
The Registration Program told me "Choose Your Product."
Alas, my product wasn't listed.
Fortunately, I had an option to phone them and the Registration Program provided the number I needed. So I called and a cheerful voice answered to tell me, "You have reached a non-working Company X phone number. Please call ... etc."
So I called that number and a cheerful voice answered and said, "Thank you for calling Company X. If you are calling about This or That, press one. If you are calling about The Other Thing press two." As I was calling about This I pressed one and a cheerful voice came on the line and said, "For help with product This please call ..."
So I called the new number and a cheerful voice answered with a prompt that I would not have expected to receive for the product This. This was followed by a modestly cheerful fellow picking up the phone and expressing some dumbfoundedness over why I'd be asking him the questions I was asking. He suggested I call a new number.
And I did. And a cheerful voice came on and told me my wait was less than 15 minutes. You know how I am about countable nouns, but I'm never really sure if that applies to time. I should probably look it up. Fewer than 15 minutes. Minutes are nouns, but they're sort of etherial.
In any case I said, screw this and pressed "resubmit" on the software I was trying to get work. Oh, I left this out of the above. The Registration Software claimed to have the ability to get my customer number — which is not one of the 100 numbers included on the License Program Certificate that came with the software — but it was balking. At the "less than 15 minutes" noticed I pressed "resubmit" for the 10th time and it worked. [Another aside: I finally checked on how current the newest version of the Registration Software was … it was published in 2000.)
So I hung up, thinking I was making progress.
I wasn't. Getting my customer number was the only thing the software could do and it gagged just after I hung up the phone.
I said "fuck" mostly to myself and then got the cheap ass little "manual" that came with the software. AHA! There were more numbers in the back — and one of them said Licensing Information! How could I have been so stupid not to have seen it?!
I gave it a call and a cheerful voice answered and said, "You have reached a non-working Company X phone number if ..." and the voice continued but I'd pretty much lost interest and hung up after tossing a John McCainism at the phone. [Perhaps not, but I read about the McCainism at Eriepressible and thought I'd reference it.]
I called the "Less than 15 Minutes Number" again and it was picked up right away. I had a very nice conversation with a gentleman who suggested several things that would have made a lot of sense had they matched the screen prompts the software had given me. As a matter of fact, during my troubleshooting I'd tried many times to get just the screen prompts he thought I might be getting to come up but couldn't get the software to move past "browse for file."
He transferred me to a pleasant sounding woman and I told her my tale of woe. After just a second's reflection she said I needed to speak with someone higher up the Tech Support chain and said she'd transfer me.
Naturally, and if you've ever had to work with Tech Support before this will come as no surprise, instead of transferring me, she hung up.
The photo on this page is of my garage before I moved in. The reason I'm showing it is when I was looking for a photo I saw this one and wondered what the hell it was. The garage looks nowhere near this clean now — I'm hoping this photo might inspire me to get rid of the motorcycle that's taking up so much room.
Technorati Tags: Software, Tech Support
Posted by delmer at June 18, 2008 7:32 AM
Comments
I particularly enjoy the calls that start with 7 menu options, lead on to 5 more, 2 more and then a recorded message, "I'm sorry, all of our operators are busy. Please try again later. *beeeeeeep*" as the line goes dead. Always a great start to a day!
Posted by: Lady P at June 18, 2008 11:07 AM
I've been on the receiving end of too many of those as well.
Posted by: delmer at June 19, 2008 5:06 PM