Pure Evil - Microsoft's (Lack Of) Support

[Evil Avatar]

You want to know what sucks? Calling Microsoft's Xbox support and getting some foreigner who barely speaks English and then after you repeat the spelling of your name TWICE, having this moron ask you to spell your name a third time and then just to add insult to injury having the customer service rep REFUSE to go get a supervisor when you finally get sick of messing with someone who wouldn't be smart enough to have a job picking fruit.

The rep's name was Demitri and of course the second you ask for a supervisor this dufus just shuts up like a clam and flat out refuses to do anything. He doesn't hang up, he just won't do anything else.

So, I hang up and call back and when I get another rep (Ray) after I go through the whole process, he just hangs up on me.

Great. Third time is the charm, Right?

Nope. The 3rd rep (Corey) gives me the excuse "We are upating our system. Call back later." Not willing to take "No" for an answer, I eventually get through to a Supervisor who dumps me off on FedEx (who can't help me with Microsoft's bad label) and now I'm back to where I was in the beginning... no return label for a system I have already PAID to have repaired.

I can at least console myself with two things. I used AmEx to pay for the repair so getting my money back isn't going to be an issue and second I guess I can feel unique and special because obviously I'm the first person who ever needed a replacement label in all of Microsoft's repair history.

-ea

[Goronmon]

I had the opposite problem one time I called MS support for my 360. Every question I asked, or any answer I gave seemed to prompt the rep to ask her supervisor about it.

[asimonk]

I'm not sure this is MS specific. I can't think of a single over the phone customer service experience that has a) taken less than half an hour or b) been anything but a miserable experience.

[TrackZero]

The problem is them using India for support. Everyone who's mentioned they get NA reps seem to have little issue. I wish they'd just drop that entirely, as it's obviously not working out for them.

Edit: And Evil, just a personal thing, don't use "foreigner", as there's plenty of us who speak perfect English and know what we're doing. Just say the India reps. ;)

Edit Edit: And I don't mean "us" as in I work there or anything, I meant foreigners.

[Sandman]

In my experience with MS customer support I've had maybe one or two reps that sounded like english was their main language. No CSR should refuse if you ask to speak to a supervisor...and that second CSR hanging up on you makes me think Demitri left some kind of comment on your account.

[phantomhitman]

hahahahha
I have called them twice in my many years of live usage. Both times I got half assed english as well as an extremely thick accent. Nothing against them, but I would like to get more service out of the service technicians. Phone support should not go to people who do not speak english as their first language, it helps avoids issues when people are already calling pissed off because something broke.

[Grey]

I'm not sure this is MS specific. I can't think of a single over the phone customer service experience that has a) taken less than half an hour or b) been anything but a miserable experience.

true

My phone provider calls were 60% of my last bill because of their total stupidity and high hotline costs.


For gaming - well I actualy never called any support hotline... why should I? Internet is everything and I dont own a console which needs technical support...

[Telefrog]

This will end well.

[Borys]

Be glad he wasn't called... BORIS!!!

[Gorvi]

At least they don't charge you for it ($34.95/hr) like they do with Windows support.

[Karamazov]

You want to know what sucks? Calling Microsoft's Xbox support and getting some foreigner who barely speaks English and then after you repeat the spelling of your name TWICE, having this moron ask you to spell your name a third time and then just to add insult to injury having the customer service rep REFUSE to go get a supervisor when you finally get sick of messing with someone who wouldn't be smart enough to have a job picking fruit.

The rep's name was Demitri and of course the second you ask for a supervisor this asshole just shuts up like a clam and flat out refuses to do anything.

So, I hang up and call back and when I get another rep -- Ray just hangs up on me.

Great. Third time is the charm, Right?

When my Xbox was broken I had to deal with this too. Every time I called I got a different answer about the status of my repair. Just tell them you want to speak to someone in America (sounds rude but it works).

[CaptStu]

Yes. It sucks. It sucks hard. And there is no happy ending, literally or figuratively.

[lockwoodx]

It took me 40 minutes to cancle my xbox live acount... and by the end I was telling the lady to fuck off when she insisted I talk to her supervisor because she wasn't able to change my mind and keep it.

[Evil Avatar]

This will end well.

It isn't going well, I'll tell you that for nothing.

[Norse]

You're lucky, over here we have to talk to those crazy Swedes when we call Xbox support :p

[SPBTooL]

All my dealings with MS support went completely smooth. It was rather surprising how well it went, MS or not.

[Bingley Joe]

The rep's name was Demitri and of course the second you ask for a supervisor this asshole just shuts up like a clam and flat out refuses to do anything.

So, I hang up and call back and when I get another rep -- Ray just hangs up on me.

Sounds like they banned you :p I'M KIDDING!!! Just trying to lighten up your mood Evil :]

[H1PO]

My cousin in law leads a group of tech support in India for Microsoft. I'm sorry, Evil. He does his best!

[Nura]

I once called microsoft because my xbox was starting to act up (not really red ringing, just hanging up about 5mins after booting it up, and then it would red ring sometimes when trying to reboot it) and the support guy asked me if it was showing three red lights, and i said no (because it wasn't at that time) then he asked me if i could get it to red ring, after about 5-10mins of me rebooting the xbox again and again it finally red-ringed and then he just treated it like a regular red-ringing. What took me the longest was to actully get the damn thing to red-ring.

[Telefrog]

It isn't going well, I'll tell you that for nothing.

Oh believe me, I know. The only way I got a proper response from MS back in the early days of the RRoD panic was to get Major Nelson involved.

There should be a thread about my actions somewhere around here.

[92miata]

i hate to tell you this little tech support secret, but.....

learn a few lines of spanish and act like you don't speak english.

you will be transfered to the states since nobody in india speaks spanish.

as a matter of fact my new idea for a job is to learn spanish and move to india.

SERIOUS.....:)

[Hesuchazo]

Outsourcing customer support to second-language locales is a mistake, in my opinion, for any company in whichever primary language you choose or within which they operate. Plainly, it's done to save money, and it does little for the customer but anger and enrage them.

Keep customer service within the primary language of your customers; solve customers' problems, and the extra money you spend on customer service may just lead to extra money from customers who patronize your products through loyalty and appreciation.

[CaptStu]

i hate to tell you this little tech support secret, but.....

learn a few lines of spanish and act like you don't speak english.

you will be transfered to the states since nobody in india speaks spanish.

as a matter of fact my new idea for a job is to learn spanish and move to india.

SERIOUS.....:)

That's not a half-bad idea.

[Knite]

I've done 2 returns.

First one wasn't easy. I called someone, got a person from the US, was on hold for 45 minutes and then was treated pretty rude and eventually hung up on. Called again the next day, and got someone from India in about 30 minutes. He wasn't rude, and even though it took a little longer due to language barrier (and constantly putting me on hold), he promised a supervisor would call me back in the next 24 hours as they are really busy right now. They didn't. Fourth day I called my 3rd time, was on hold another 45 minutes or so, and got a woman from India. Very polite, and put me on hold twice trying to get a supervisor. The supervisor got on the phone, agreed to what I asked for (free repair and no shipping cost on my 13 month old launch unit right before they extended the warranty to 3 years), and I got my coffin.

Second experience was insanely smooth. Called, on hold about 5 minutes, got an American, and got a coffin lined up within 15 minutes after that.

I really think customer service has not only lowered because of the skimping on it from most companies, but also because I think the attitudes of people IN customer service have gotten worse.

[Inspector Fowler]

Both time I have sent my 360 in for repairs, the foreign phone guys were intelligible and helpful, and I didn't have any problems.

I'm not sure why foreign people get such a bad rep (and I'm not denying that this happened, I have had bad experiences with foreign reps, just not from Microsoft). To me, it doesn't make sense.

Having worked in a US call center, as many of us here have, I can pretty much describe who works in any call center that doesn't require any real tech experience (tech support where you actually have to know computers is somewhat exempt from the following stereotypes):

1- The fresh out of college guy looking for a "real" job- he hates working there and doesn't give a shit (this was me, but I kiiiinda gave a shit because I'm too nice usually to just ignore people). He probably could be helpful but he won't be because he doesn't understand that working hard, even outside of his "career", is beneficial to him. Give him 10 years, and look at category 5.

2- The gang-banger guy who somehow passed the background check. He never seems to show up, and doesn't give a shit when he is there. But this job looks better to his PO than fast-food, so he stays there until one day somebody else is in his desk, and nobody will tell you why he quit.

3- The people who don't have any real desire of...well....anything...working in a call center is a step up from McDonalds for these guys, and yet, they too don't give a shit. (don't be offended by this, buutttt...) If you've ever been called by a nearly illiterate southerner trying to sell you long-distance or a newspaper, that was this guy. Note the total apathy in their voice as they speak to you.

4- The guys with associates degrees in business who realized they won't be getting that CEO position anytime soon, so they're the one group here who will actually be very aggressively helpful, because they know that a call center is the best place for them to reach mid-level management. They make team lead really quickly, so you never hear them on the phone.

5- The older, in-between-careers person. Here is the person you want to get. Old enough and wise enough to be good at their job, and to have a work ethic strong enough to actually do it correctly. This might be a 35 year old who realized their first career wasn't for them, or somebody just killing a few years to retirement. Often, they were just laid off from a job paying four times as much, and they know that to get re-hired in that industry they need a glowing recommendation from this job. They're definitely the person who finally gives you that magic phrase, "Oh, Mr. Smith, I see what the problem has been. I can fix that right away!", followed by the problem actually getting fixed.

I worked in a call center for almost two years and I'd say this was 80% of the people who rotated in and out of my "account" (doing inbound customer support for Qwest Choice TV).

Which brings me to my point- I think that pretty much any call center is filled with people who aren't helpful, and I wonder if the language barrier contributes to the feeling of rage when you hit a rep who doesn't give a shit. I dunno.

[Kelegacy]

Welcome to the world of outsourcing. I deal with it every day in the medical field. I've gotten pretty good at deciphering. Plus, I have a grandfather without teeth, so I'm used to interpreting.

When I called MS, the rep was mostly understandable, but made me do all these tests to see if we could figure out the problem. Remove HDD, reboot x10, do this and that...I didn't do any of them, but pretended to. I had already troubleshooted it to death and knew what was wrong with it. I just wanted to get the okay for my coffin and get off the phone.

[Ancalagon]

Yup, always knew it, EvAv is an MS house that hates Nintendo.

/sarcasm

[Gorvi]

That's not a half-bad idea.
Wrong. That is pure genius. I need to do that.

[H2o Ninja]

I had a bad label for shipping too, when my first 360 died. Took them four fucking months to ship me a new label, including a new box and everything. Apparently they "lost" my order.

[92miata]

That's not a half-bad idea.

this is why i am telling you this. i work wholesale sales and you would be surprised how many people i tell this and in a few weeks them come in and thank me so much for the help. my wife speaks 3 languages with english being the last, so i honestly want to patent the idea, but that would be a dumb patent.

wait a minute, gotta run.....:)

evil if this works i am in prescott, maybe you can send me a game or something.....:)

[Lutheran]

i hate to tell you this little tech support secret, but.....

learn a few lines of spanish and act like you don't speak english.

you will be transfered to the states since nobody in india speaks spanish.

as a matter of fact my new idea for a job is to learn spanish and move to india.

SERIOUS.....:)

Thats a great idea

I just hope it all evens out and people who live in India have to call the United States when they have a 360 issue :)

[Evil Avatar]

Oh believe me, I know. The only way I got a proper response from MS back in the early days of the RRoD panic was to get Major Nelson involved.

There should be a thread about my actions somewhere around here.

Dude, read the update. When I finally did get a Supervisor they just transferred me over to FedEx.

In the end -- calling back may be my best bet. I may just have to keep calling and calling until I find someone smart enough to issue a new label.

[Zander]

Sounds like every time I ever call any hardware manufacturer.

Except Nintendo, my DS screen got fuxored and the person on the other end of the phone was pleasant and took care of me. Took all of 10 minutes. Who woulda thought.

[H.Bogard]

Ah... isn't console gaming just grand? ;)

[Sandman]

Nope. The 3rd rep (Corey) gives me the excuse "We are upating our system. Call back later." Not willing to take "No" for an answer, I eventually get through to a Supervisor who dumps me off on FedEx (who can't help me with Microsoft's bad label) and now I'm back to where I was in the beginning... no return label for a system I have already PAID to have repaired.

This seems too common to me. They took a whole day to update their system when my console broke the second time and just a week or so later someone on here posted that they were told about an update and they needed to call back later. Evil if you get the right supervisor you should be able to negotiate a refund on the repairs for your troubles.

[jeffbax]

Complaining about Microsoft sucking? I'm sorry, but that isn't allowed here... Come on Disgustipated... why don't you jump down his throat

But yeah, MS support is total crap. I must have spent like 6+ hours on the phone with them trying to resolve my shit. That, and their system is constantly being "updated" apparently.

[51|RandoM]

What I hate about this is not only is there often a language barrier, they're also usually working off a flow chart that doesn't have any answers for problems that don't exactly fit what they already know. You'll be trying to explain something to this person and they don't even listen, they just repeat whatever stock phrase they think is appropriate for where they are in the flowchart, regardless of where you are.

I got an Indian guy when I got my RRoD and it went smoothly as long as I stuck to his flowchart---which tells me I should have been able to do exactly the same thing via web interface and left the middleman out of the process.

[AgtFox]

I got an Indian guy when I got my RRoD and it went smoothly as long as I stuck to his flowchart---which tells me I should have been able to do exactly the same thing via web interface and left the middleman out of the process.
Thing is there is a web interface for RRoD errors. That's how I sent my 360 in last August, I never talked to a CSR on it or anything. Here is the web site (https://service.xbox.com/default.aspx).

[Cyndair]

Sounds like every time I ever call any hardware manufacturer.

Except Nintendo, my DS screen got fuxored and the person on the other end of the phone was pleasant and took care of me. Took all of 10 minutes. Who woulda thought.

That guy is probably Nintendo's only phone support person. He just sits there bored all day hoping that someone will call.

[mikeohara]

I can say I've had the exact opposite of the support that Evil himself has had when I've spoken with Microsoft regarding problems with the amount of XBOX 360s that I've owned in the past two years. I've never had to escalate a call to a supervisor.

But I really do wish that Microsoft could all of their support in-house instead of outsourcing the contract to various call centers around the world.

[joruussuun]

This is why I fill out the support form online (https://service.xbox.com/servicehome.aspx).
When mine went bad, I didn't have to talk to anyone.

EDIT: AgtFox beat me to it!

[darklordjames]

"learn a few lines of spanish and act like you don't speak english.
you will be transfered to the states since nobody in india speaks spanish."

Smartest thing I've heard all week. I congratulate you for being awesome! :)

[Ancalagon]

What I hate about this is not only is there often a language barrier, they're also usually working off a flow chart that doesn't have any answers for problems that don't exactly fit what they already know. You'll be trying to explain something to this person and they don't even listen, they just repeat whatever stock phrase they think is appropriate for where they are in the flowchart, regardless of where you are.

I got an Indian guy when I got my RRoD and it went smoothly as long as I stuck to his flowchart---which tells me I should have been able to do exactly the same thing via web interface and left the middleman out of the process.

if I was a hacker, my number one lifetime acheivement would be replacing that flowchart with something of my own.

"Sir, the flowchart says your XBox isnt working because its February. The only remedy for this is castrate yourself. Yes sir, I said castrate. Yes Microsoft does offer the service. Yes of course I'll make you an appointment."

[Vandenh]

Hehe... funny.

The same happened with me with Visa support and plenty of other Big companies. Blame the managers that think it is a good idea to open call centers in cheapo sweatshop countries so they can make their bonus.

BTW back to topic. MS support in Europe is in Ireland and staffed by a bunch of different language speaking Europeans so it all works out pretty smooth.

[suVa]

I guess I'm glad I just buy the $35 2 year replacement plan from Micro Center on mine. First time it died the price had dropped to it's current $350 price and they gave me the $50 back since I paid $400 originally (well, 100 mail in rebate as well :) ) Used it for a new replacement plan.

As for Microsoft phone support, i've only ever used them to activate my windows products.

Phone Support - "Sir, please repeat the key for me"
Me - "It's the right key, my motherboard 'died' and had to reinstall windows, need a new key."
PS - "Is this key in use currently on any other computer?"
*thinks about the 4 other computers in my house with this installed on*
Me - "Nope"
PS - "Okay, here is a new key for you."

Last amusing point, I know an indian girl that works for United Airlines Call Center in Detroit, she says every now and then someone starts screaming at her right away to talk to some in America to which she responds "Excuse me, I've lived in this country since I was 2, I know what I'm doing and I'm able to help you, if you'd like I can transfer you OVER to India to try your luck there."

Not sure how she hasn't gotten fired yet, I guess it's cause she does know what she's doing. Or the Union thing.

[Gedd]

Outsourcing sucks. All the big US companies that do this are simply shitting on the very country that gave them the freedom they needed to create their businesses in the first place.

[bub64882]

To all you people complaining about Customer Service in India...Don't send your kids to college. And vote against any minimum wage increases. Then we will have more people with English as a primary (or only) language, who are willing to work for 5$ an hour.

Problem solved.

[NationalKato]

I'm not sure this is MS specific. I can't think of a single over the phone customer service experience that has a) taken less than half an hour or b) been anything but a miserable experience.

True. This is not a rare experience. I've never not been frustrated after getting off the phone with a CS rep.

[Ancalagon]

To all you people complaining about Customer Service in India...Don't send your kids to college. And vote against any minimum wage increases. Then we will have more people with English as a primary (or only) language, who are willing to work for 5$ an hour.

Problem solved.

How about the big businesses spend more money investing in the USA and less on making their shareholders obscenely rich by using third world labour to save costs even if it is detrimental to their customer base?

[Deunnero]

I just choose the "French language" option when I need to deal with them ... oddly enough I usually end up talking to someone in Edmonton, in French.

[bub64882]

How about the big businesses spend more money investing in the USA and less on making their shareholders obscenely rich by using third world labour to save costs even if it is detrimental to their customer base?

Because that's not what their shareholders care about.

Repeat after me: A corporation has a duty to make money for their shareholders. That is the ONLY thing they are required to do. Anything that doesn't further this goal is not an option. And it is the American Way to think this way, so they are actually being patriotic while they outsource to other countries.

[oldjadedgamer]

Is this news though? MS has had crappy customer service for years. Only Nintendo really shines in this area. Shouldn't it be posted here?

http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=33

[DaXIthR]

I don't see what the problem is. Rosetta Stone has a Hindi Program now.

EDIT:
Also, I don't recall Customer Service ever being that much better before it was outsourced. I guess people have a preference for the kind of incompetence they are willing to tolerate.

[Evil Avatar]

To all you people complaining about Customer Service in India...Don't send your kids to college. And vote against any minimum wage increases. Then we will have more people with English as a primary (or only) language, who are willing to work for 5$ an hour.

Problem solved.

Dude, I'm in Arizona. I could round up Mexicans from out in front of Lowes Hardware Store who could do a better job than the bozos I just delt with.

The Mexicans speak better English, read better English and would actually TRY to do a good job.

These Indian knuckleheads don't care about anything. Why should they? Their "bosses" are 10,000 miles away.

[Sandman]

Is this news though? MS has had crappy customer service for years. Only Nintendo really shines in this area. Shouldn't it be posted here?

http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=33

It's a Pure Evil rant....maybe you've seen one before.

[bub64882]

EvAv, I'm in California, so I know what your talking about. I agree, they would do an awesome job. But it would be illegal for Microsoft to hire them. There's another piece of legislation we could vote on. Open up the borders a little bit, and we can keep some of these services in the USA, and help out a killer workforce that is literally dieing to work for substandard wages.

So vote for lighter immigration standards if you <3 gaming!!!

[shiznit]

just be glad you didn't have to deal with verizon dsl tech support.

[Purple Santa]

You want to know what sucks? Calling Microsoft's Xbox support and getting some foreigner who barely speaks English and then after you repeat the spelling of your name TWICE, having this moron ask you to spell your name a third time and then just to add insult to injury having the customer service rep REFUSE to go get a supervisor when you finally get sick of messing with someone who wouldn't be smart enough to have a job picking fruit.





How hard is it to spell AVATAR? ;)

[Telefrog]

Dude, read the update. When I finally did get a Supervisor they just transferred me over to FedEx.

In the end -- calling back may be my best bet. I may just have to keep calling and calling until I find someone smart enough to issue a new label.

Yeah, that sucks. Calling Major Nelson (Larry Hyrb) probably won't work now like it did back when the RRoD's were first showing up and no one really knew what was going on.

It was actually pretty funny in that I sent the email describing my issues with tech support to him purely as a venting manuever. I never actually expected him to personally respond and monitor the repair and return procedure. From what I can tell, I think I was one of the first 360 owners to get the new heatsinks installed from the center.

*Knock wood* I haven't had an issue with my 360 since. Major Nelson certainly earned a lifelong customer from out of it, but yeah, the outsourced MS call center procedures suck major ass.

And this is coming from a guy that supervises a team of six guys in India!

[Evil Avatar]

How hard is it to spell AVATAR? ;)

Harder than you could imagine. I just don't understand getting the attitude from all three Reps. If a customer calls in and asks to speak to a Supervisor, you don't give them a lot of crap about it -- you just put them on hold and tell your Supervisor to pick up the phone.

Heck, I would do that where I work.

Of course, you are going to have a heck of a lot easier time dealing with me than my Supervisor. I am a bastion of kindness and fellow feeling compared to that guy.

[Teh Super King]

The times I've had to call Microsoft I haven't had any trouble with the rep speaking poor English. The worse I had was they couldn't fix my problem, it took about 50 minutes that time before they just refunded my MS points.

[PrivateJohn]

Bad customer support is not Microsoft exclusive, speaking from my UK counterpart...almost every service here outsource the customer service to India.
Apart from the many Indians in London, i do not why everyone chose India for the customer support.

[PixelSamurai]

These Indian knuckleheads don't care about anything. Why should they? Their "bosses" are 10,000 miles away.

I feel your pain, Evil. When my 360's DVD drive stopped recognizing discs, the brilliant man from India said they would send me a disc to update my drive and fix it. Foolishly, I believed him, and waited a week for a backwards compatibility driver which of course did absolutely fuck-all. The next call, somehow I got lucky and the rep was in Canada, and everything was taken care of in five minutes.

[ElfShotTheFood]

Doing telephone technical support is hard, because you know that some guy is going to go on the internet to complain about you/ridicule you if you screw up even slightly. ;)

[sixtyfps]

I just wanted to throw in that Nintendo does have good people in their CS department. The lady I talked to a few months back was warm, friendly, conversational, and gave me the benefit of a doubt when my niece's DS got bricked (who the hell knows how that happened amongst all the books in her school backpack?). We got the new DS (pink, same as the original) along with instructions/box to send our bricked system back to them, postage on them.

I'm curious to read a reasonable person's recollection of a bad customer-service experience with Nintendo.

[DarkDaY]

This sounds like any customer support, for my I have the same issues with phone companies.

[Limech]

Took me 4 calls for them to ship me my empty box. Each time taking more than an hour.

I've also sent them my wireless wheel for repair based on the 'recall' they did way back.
It's been at least 5 months and I haven't received it back. I'd call but I guess I'd almost rather them keep the damn thing forever than me having to go through their India call center again. sigh

[TDiddy]

I was the one that had to deal with the calls involving my 360 and both of my brothers 360s when they died. Was never on the phone for more than 10 minutes. And every time the system was delivered by UPS, not FedEx.

UPS is the one that gave me problems. The first time they didn't even knock on my door when delivering the empty box. They just launched it to a corner of the porch that has a toy chest for my little brother. Didn't realize it was there until I called for another box. Then the latest box to arrive had a massive tear that looked liked it was punctured by a large object then pulled on. They ended up packaging it for me at the UPS store when I went in to drop it off.

And when I called for my "refund" from Undertow, as I had already bought it when it was "free," the guy helping sounded like a total surfer dude and talked to me about Rock Band while his supervisor approved the 800 point credit.

[ÜberJumper]

The corporation I work for is right now as we speak building an Indian call center.

But they'll only work during the day in India, which is North America's nights. Eventually they might take over our night time pager rotation, but unlikely.

Our corporation is building a "Follow the sun" model, as we're in bidding wars to provide HIT software (and actually already have HIT software in place) at sites in the Middle East.

All of the people I've dealt with from our Indian organizations are kind, thoughtful and intelligent people. Some have ABSOLUTELY CRAP english speaking skills, but their written grammar is on par with the best of what US and Canadian support reps can provide.

I don't think outsourcing's the problem, the problem is management not properly setting expectations for staff treatment of customers and then ensuring that the customers are being treated properly. That being said, at both IT jobs I've held, we were told that if a customer was being excessively hostile that we could hang up on them after firmly but politely indicating we didn't appreciate their treatment of us.

As for the Xbox system going down, I got the same treatment at the end of day that Evil did. I actually think their system (in North America) does go down about that time of day. I suspect that Evil didn't actually even get someone at an Indian call center, and instead got someone in North America. In my support team right now, of 15 in North America, only 7 of us are born in North America and have English as our primary language (the 4 Americans are born in the USA, and of the Canadians, only 3 of us are born in Canada) . Most IT jobs here are filled with people that are immigrating to Canada from other countries, and a lot of them don't have great english skills.

[J3DI]

I don't think this is a MS issue as much as it is an industry issue. Many companies are out-sourcing what ever they can. My calls with MS (and I've had many, having had the original Xbox day one) have resulted in nothing but the help I've needed all except for two maybe three. A couple of times I even got some free stuff out of it.

Perhaps if MS was the only company in US to do this I would be more sympathetic... but they aren't some I'm not. You know who has some terrible customer service? F'ing Canada. I went to Toronto and bought a shirt, decided the following day I didn't want it. When I went to take it back they wouldn't let me, saying they only did exchanges or store credit but no refunds (which the receipt did not state). The supervisor and later the call center stated that it was my fault for buying it and not asking before hand if they did returns.

Point is... customer service experiences are all relative. Some times you win, sometimes you lose. This should've been in the off topic, not front page news.

[Draconis]

I've had similar experiences with my ordeals when my Elite died on me, the one I DIDN'T have a gamestop warranty for because they wouldn't do that anymore.

Getting the coffin was....painful. I'm sure many remember my rant about the troubleshooting. Took quite a bit because the guy went through his script and put me on hold several billion times, then they started play phone tag with me and transferring me all over the damned place to several different departments that had absolutely NOTHING to do with my trouble and kept bouncing me back and forth.

Eventually, after well over AN HOUR of this crap, I finally got a damned coffin.

Then, to add insult to injury, I ship it back...I get a status of "Received by repair center" and I am thinking all is well and good...

1 Week passes by----Still being repaired they tell me

2 Weeks....Still being repaired...

3 Weeks....Okay now this crap is getting ridiculous. I call up and they tell me they will escalate my issue and have someone call me within 48 hours...Of course...no one ever calls.

4 Weeks...and a METRIC FUCKTON of calls during the 3rd and into the 4th week....NO ONE can tell me where the HELL my Console is. Not even their automated systems know. They escalate my issue again and again, tell me someone will call me...and pretty much no one ever does.

5th Week....More calls...THIS TIME...A supervisor FINALLY fucking calls me. She tells me they will contact the repair center personally....I reiterate I want MY CONSOLE REPAIRED....REPAIRED...AS IN FIXED...

6th Week...I get a call from the supervisor telling me my 360 is repaired and on its way. When I DO finally get it...its a mother fucking Refurb, or "Repair Console" as It is worded to me. I call the supervisor directly and she then goes DIRECTLY BACK ON HER WORD, fully contradicting herself when she told me "yes sir, we will repair your console". Her exact words were along the lines of "We pull repair consoles from a pool that we have stored in the repair center after we determine the problem with yours...and the console you get is random. I cannot guarantee what manufacturing date or chipset of console you will get, nor will we provide you a new one or a repair of your original console. This is how we do things. Good day."

To say I am livid at Microsoft, is beyond words. Put simply, they failed epically and in the most fucking spectacular manner possible.

Now I have to wait God knows how long to fix two damned gamertags worth of Live downloads....and on top of that....the console they did send me loses the HDMI signal when its moved....


I'm sorry, but this is BS plain and simple. My Xbox 1 has been ticking like a champion since Day 1 of my purchase of it. This kind of crap is absolutely inexcusable and they should have just done a damned recall and fixed ALL of the problems instead of throwing crap consoles at people as "Repairs". This is a revolving fucking door and it does NOT fix the problem.



Addendum: I've ranted enough about this issue in the past so from here on, after this post, I will try and leave it be. I just needed to get it off of my chest. So apoligies to all but face it, this kind of crap is ridiculous. No one should have to go through it.

[Ancalagon]

Because that's not what their shareholders care about.

Repeat after me: A corporation has a duty to make money for their shareholders. That is the ONLY thing they are required to do. Anything that doesn't further this goal is not an option. And it is the American Way to think this way, so they are actually being patriotic while they outsource to other countries.

How is that my problem? Why should good MS customers have to put up with crap because the shareholders want cash?

Oh, I know that people do because they have no choice, but that doesnt make it right.

I hope you arent justifying greed.

[Farsight]

In the end -- calling back may be my best bet. I may just have to keep calling and calling until I find someone smart enough to issue a new label.

Definitely, the shotgun approach is best. Keep firing off phone calls until you hit someone with a frontal lobe.

This is definitely not just an MS problem. It seems every large corporation in the US has outsourced customer service to people who (A) know nothing that isn't on a list in front of them, and (B) are still taking ESL classes.

My dealings with DirecTV and AT&T sound remarkably similar to yours with MS. With each company, it became a process of learning the quickest way to get past the retard-level of support. Once done, my problems usually got resolved quite rapidly.

I noticed that DirecTV has since reduced their customer service hours (not including tech support), but appears to have switched back to trained US workers. Hopefully that's a sign of a trend more corporations will follow. I'll give up the ability to have any question answered at 2AM, if it means serious problems can be resolved without me having to supress an aneurism while trying not to launch into a 3-minute spew of profanity at the person on the phone with me.

I doubt this practice is even profitable in the long-term. Pissing off your customers by giving them no support, treating them rudely, and performing the wrong corrective procedures has short and long term effects. If it costs half as much for each call, but each person has to call two to four times, and the CSR often costs the company money by producing the wrong answer, you're not making as much money as you think. Add in the number of people who stop being your customers (likely forever when their experience is this bad) and the long-term costs can be very high. Even when they stay it can be costly, as poor customer service from the corporations I dealt with resulted in their supervisors having to appease me with $100s in discounts to keep me from cancelling their service.

But hey, corporations can be dipshits too! :)

[pseudopseudo]

No CSR should refuse if you ask to speak to a supervisor...and that second CSR hanging up on you makes me think Demitri left some kind of comment on your account.

Demitri more than likely put EA on their "hot call" list. At the call center I used to work at (sales management turned out to not be my thing), we had a whole team of people dedicated to take these "hot calls". These agents were freaking PROS... I have no idea how they calmed most of the customers down that they spoke to, but they were damn good at it. Given, we didn't really have to send very many people their way - but when we did, the customer more often than not was pissed beyond belief going in, and super happy coming out.

Even beyond that, there's no reason any agent should EVER deny a request to speak with a supervisor. That's just flat out wrong.

[wyeast]

I noticed that DirecTV has since reduced their customer service hours (noy including tech support), but appears to have switched back to trained US workers. Hopefully that's a sign of a trend more corporations will follow. I'll give up the ability to have any question answered at 2AM, if it means serious problems can be resolved without me having to supress an aneurism while trying not to launch into a 3-minute spew of profanity at the person on the phone with me.

I've heard this starting to happen with other companies, too. That they're slowly figuring out that tech support isn't something accomplished by poorly trained crew (regardless of location) with nothing but a flowchart in front of them - and that they're starting to bring back outsourced call centers because it's losing them more business than it's making.

[KNOTE]

Goll Dang Furreners! *evil shakes fist*

[TrackZero]

Last amusing point, I know an indian girl that works for United Airlines Call Center in Detroit, she says every now and then someone starts screaming at her right away to talk to some in America to which she responds "Excuse me, I've lived in this country since I was 2, I know what I'm doing and I'm able to help you, if you'd like I can transfer you OVER to India to try your luck there."

Not sure how she hasn't gotten fired yet, I guess it's cause she does know what she's doing. Or the Union thing.

*scratches head* If she lived here since she was two, how in the world would they think she's not an American? You cannot have an accent from when you were 2.

[Karmakin]

Dude, I'm in Arizona. I could round up Mexicans from out in front of Lowes Hardware Store who could do a better job than the bozos I just delt with.

The Mexicans speak better English, read better English and would actually TRY to do a good job.

These Indian knuckleheads don't care about anything. Why should they? Their "bosses" are 10,000 miles away.

I'll let you in on a secret.

Call center managers...and make no mistake, these centers are run by Western folks, and most centers run in NA do the same thing..have a fetish for numbers. Big time.

The issue is simple moral hazard.

If you reward your reps, through better shifts or more money, if you reward them when they get you off the phone as fast as possible, while meeting their QA goals (namely following the script to the letter, as ACTUAL quality is basically impossible to judge), then that's what you get.

And that's what you got.

[TrackZero]

That being said, at both IT jobs I've held, we were told that if a customer was being excessively hostile that we could hang up on them after firmly but politely indicating we didn't appreciate their treatment of us.

Seconded. When I was doing support, I hung up on numerous customers the moment they started getting offensive. Usually I tried to calm them down first, but the moment they opened that can, it was over. Like our bosses told us, we're not being paid to be screamed at. We're here to fix problems. If the customer can't act civil, they can fuck off.

Now, that's not to say that there aren't people who are horrible at support. They're out there, and it sucks when you do get them on the line.

Though I did get amused sometimes when I got asked to speak to my supervisor (when I was the senior in that team) and told them no, I am the supervisor. Anyone above me is non-tech and will in no way fix the issue. Some people think if they talk to my manager, they'll in turn yell at me and I'm magically be able to solve their ability that much better (which actually makes me put them at the bottom of the pile). The people who I'd give the best support to, always, hands down were those who were polite and nice on the phone and thanked me for the help. I'd go a total extra mile for them.

[bub64882]

How is that my problem? Why should good MS customers have to put up with crap because the shareholders want cash?

Oh, I know that people do because they have no choice, but that doesnt make it right.

I hope you arent justifying greed.

I'm just trying to point out that corporations need to take whatever actions they can to make money for their shareholders. They don't care about outsourcing, or the environment, or little Timmy's cancer. They care about making money for their shareholders. They are incredibly up front about this. This process is part of what America is founded on. This is capitalism man. That's what we're about here. Socialism is across the pond?

So if outsourcing saves money, they need to do it. If outsourcing is costing them more customers than money saved, then they need to pull it back. But to expect any company to do anything other than serve the interests of their shareholders is naive. Microsoft doesn't do altruism. That's what the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is for.

[Karmakin]

I'm just trying to point out that corporations need to take whatever actions they can to make money for their shareholders. They don't care about outsourcing, or the environment, or little Timmy's cancer. They care about making money for their shareholders. They are incredibly up front about this. This process is part of what America is founded on. This is capitalism man. That's what we're about here. Socialism is across the pond?

So if outsourcing saves money, they need to do it. If outsourcing is costing them more customers than money saved, then they need to pull it back. But to expect any company to do anything other than serve the interests of their shareholders is naive. Microsoft doesn't do altruism. That's what the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is for.

It's not quite that simple.

If it was just a matter of pleasing the shareholders, that would be one thing. But it's something else entirely. A lot of it is internal business politics. Where your support department is trying to cut costs from a year to year basis in order to get themselves bonuses/accolades/whatever. It doesn't matter if the company as a whole loses money because of dissatisfied customers..that's sales' problem. Let the ax fall on them.

[Mephistopheles]

I'll let you in on a secret.

Call center managers...and make no mistake, these centers are run by Western folks, and most centers run in NA do the same thing..have a fetish for numbers. Big time.

The issue is simple moral hazard.

If you reward your reps, through better shifts or more money, if you reward them when they get you off the phone as fast as possible, while meeting their QA goals (namely following the script to the letter, as ACTUAL quality is basically impossible to judge), then that's what you get.

And that's what you got.

Yes, but not too good.

When I worked at a call centre their support contract with their client stipulated a certain percentage of calls that would be answered within a certain period of the caller remaining on hold. The call centre managers wanted to hit that mark but not do too well lest the client get the idea that maybe the mark should be higher.

This results in three modes of call centre call taking.

For the majority of the reporting period it's business as usual with agents trying to keep calls to the expected average call time.

Towards the end of the period where the stats can be projected as to whether it will be over or under the mark it goes into one of two modes.

The first is a dispatch mode when they need to catch up on the numbers. In dispatch mode the agent is not really interested in fixing your problem and merely wants to get you off the phone as fast as possible.

The second is a bit like the opposite of dispatch mode where they are ahead of the mark and want to slow things down a little. This generally involves taking people off the phones so callers wait longer before getting through to an agent to artificially generate more misses. You may get decent service from an agent when you get through but you'll wait longer for it.

Those strategies don't necessarily dictate the attitude of the agent but it can often have an impact on how long it takes you to get through the process or how much actual help you get when you get to an agent.

At the end of the day the level of service you'll get is less motivated by what would make you a happy customer and more motivated by what will satisfy the contractual obligations the call centre is operating under.

[tombofsoldier]

All my dealings with MS support went completely smooth. It was rather surprising how well it went, MS or not.

Same here, my 360 hdd died, took one phone call, $5, and about 3 weeks in the mail before my 360 was up and running again.

[Shodan2020]

I believe the stories of people having trouble with MS support, I haven't had any problems with them. Even the reps from India. I've had to send out my 360 twice, and everything has went well for me.

[bub64882]

It's not quite that simple.

If it was just a matter of pleasing the shareholders, that would be one thing. But it's something else entirely. A lot of it is internal business politics. Where your support department is trying to cut costs from a year to year basis in order to get themselves bonuses/accolades/whatever. It doesn't matter if the company as a whole loses money because of dissatisfied customers..that's sales' problem. Let the ax fall on them.

I'm sure this happens to some extent. It's the job of folks with "C"'s in front of their title to ensure these practices are minimized. But everything that these Chiefs are doing is in the service of putting $$$ in their shareholders' pockets.

[Double T]

After reading the horror stories of MS CS service several years ago, I found a way to simply replace the Xbox by retail means no matter how old the device is. I did this with my launch 360 and the one after that (crazy how many ppl have had at least 3 360's in the time the system has been out).

I've never revealed how I do it online because I know it wouldn't take too long before I wouldn't be able to do it any more. I told my one friend how to do it when his died and it worked like a charm. It may not be the best moral way of doing it, but I swear I won't be put on hold and wait some ungodly amount of time because the hardware failed before it's warrenty was up.

[Wedge]

You're lucky, over here we have to talk to those crazy Swedes when we call Xbox support :p
Heh, the only time I've called them I got a polite Norwegian girl from trøndelag, and I lived in Trondheim for 7 years. No language barrier there.

All in all it seems like the US support line sucks balls, while the Euro one is pretty damn good.

[Whimbrel]

I only had to call support once and they were really helpful. They fixed me up super quick and were really, really friendly. I was impressed. I hope my lucky streak continues if I ever need more help from them.

[jeffbax]

To everyone saying that every company has this problem, I have never had a frustrating experience with Apple tech support :p

[Evil Avatar]

I think the difference between US support and foreign support is highlighted by the fact that the one Stupidvisor I did get ahold of dumped me off on FedEx. The FedEx employee was helpful, informative, polite and even tried to be understanding.

Heck, I'll bet if I had pushed a little bit with FedEx I could probably have gotten them to issue me a new shipping label and have someone come to my house to pick up the system. I didn't want to do that, it isn't right to make this lady jump through hoops to fix Microsoft's fuck up.

I have no idea why the label they sent me was invalid, but it isn't rocket science to replace it -- print out a new label and stick it in an envelope and mail it to me. Even using standard snail mail and a $.43 cent stamp I would get the new label in 2 - 3 days.

Why are these idiots at tech support so stupid that you can't make them see that?

[ÜberJumper]

Just want to re-iterate, I don't think you get an Indian call center when you call Xbox support. They follow north American office hours, and that implies to me that they're all North American based.

If you ever think you're calling an Indian call center, and a woman answers the phone, you more than likely got a North American call center. For our Indian teams, we've been told that even if they somehow do end up working hours that co-incide with us (for training purposes or to work a case) that we can't expect to see females doing that as it's culturally unacceptable for them (more practical really, as the working women are often mothers as well).

Edit: just re-checked the hours, and they've changed since I last called, they could be using an Indian call center, but it'd be odd as it'd only be operating till about 10:30 am Indian time.

[fitbabits]

Can a whole thread be xenophobic or racist?

In any case, the issue here should NOT be the call center reps or FedEx - the issue here, once again, is Microsoft's piss-poor Xbox 360 reliability. At this point I don't believe a 'fix' for the RRoD will make a bit of difference - there are so many Xbox 360 time bombs already out there that it will still be a problem come the release of the next Xbox.

[TrackZero]

I think the difference between US support and foreign support is highlighted by the fact that the one Stupidvisor I did get ahold of dumped me off on FedEx. The FedEx employee was helpful, informative, polite and even tried to be understanding.

Heck, I'll bet if I had pushed a little bit with FedEx I could probably have gotten them to issue me a new shipping label and have someone come to my house to pick up the system. I didn't want to do that, it isn't right to make this lady jump through hoops to fix Microsoft's fuck up.

I have no idea why the label they sent me was invalid, but it isn't rocket science to replace it -- print out a new label and stick it in an envelope and mail it to me. Even using standard snail mail and a $.43 cent stamp I would get the new label in 2 - 3 days.

Why are these idiots at tech support so stupid that you can't make them see that?

I feel your pain Evil, for sure. There's just some bad, bad fucking calls centres out there.

[Lutheran]

Evil with all the people you must know in this business you don't have anyones phone number handy where you can call and avoid the redtape and get a lousy coffin sent to you? Sucks that this happened to you , I would be pissed too.

[Homes]

Yup. My baby just red ringed today. 4 days before GTA IV. Come on. The customer support "system" was down from about 12-5pm today so my box is finally being shipped to me after I called at 5:30 pm :mad:

[fitbabits]

Evil with all the people you must know in this business you don't have anyones phone number handy where you can call and avoid the redtape and get a lousy coffin sent to you? Sucks that this happened to you , I would be pissed too.

Not to speak for Evil, but why should he have to pull strings in order to get what amounts to good basic customer service? It should be a given.

[bapenguin]

This is why you use the website to do returns, etc. That way you don't have to talk to anyone.

Funny thing is, last time I heard - the Xbox Call center was actually run by a company that's in Philadelphia.

[wyeast]

*scratches head* If she lived here since she was two, how in the world would they think she's not an American? You cannot have an accent from when you were 2.

Actually, it's very possible. My cousins, who were born in the states, grew up in a household and community that predominantly spoke a language other than english. Because of school they did learn english and spoke it perfectly well. However, I could definitely pick up on their "accent" which was very similar, if a little watered down from their parents (and mine) who emigrated here.

As opposed to myself, who sounds like the whitest guy in America over the phone. :p :D

[Evil Avatar]

This is why you use the website to do returns, etc. That way you don't have to talk to anyone.

Funny thing is, last time I heard - the Xbox Call center was actually run by a company that's in Philadelphia.

Well, I called three times and spoke with four different people and none of them had English as their first language and all of them had fairly heavy "Indian" accents.

If their call center is here in the USA, you couldn't tell it from the experience I just had.

[fitbabits]

This is why you use the website to do returns, etc. That way you don't have to talk to anyone.

Funny thing is, last time I heard - the Xbox Call center was actually run by a company that's in Philadelphia.

From my own experience, this is not a fail-safe method. I tried many times to use the Xbox website to return mine when it pooped out and failed every time. Apparently my console wasn't registered, except it was.

I called and got things straightened out, though.

[Evil Avatar]

This is why you use the website to do returns, etc. That way you don't have to talk to anyone.



Using the website for returns will do nothing in my case. I already have my coffin and I already had a return label. Due to some kind of an error the label is attached to a bad tracking number.

It didn't scan with the handheld scanner and the FedEx computer wouldn't take the number either.

If you want to blame FedEx, that is fine -- but it is still going to be Microsoft who has to send me a new shipping label and this is the part where they totally and completely failed at even this simple task.

Over a dozen phone calls and four morons later and I still don't have a replacement label or even have a replacement label on the way.

Update: I tried to call one more time. Instead of just sending me a shipping label, they want to cancel the repair order and issue me a whole new coffin and label, but they can't do that because they already charged my credit card.

These people are complete idiots.

And to think I have to go through this one more time after this...

[bapenguin]

Well, I called three times and spoke with four different people and none of them had English as their first language and all of them had fairly heavy "Indian" accents.

If their call center is here in the USA, you couldn't tell it from the experience I just had.

The company they use just happens to hire a lot of Indians I'm guessing. I'm not sure what it's like in the Phoenix area, but a lot of IT related jobs in the North East are filled by people from that area of the world. They can come here and make good money for 10 years and go home and retire. At least, the few I've worked with have said that was their plan.

[Gott]

This is News? Not sure it qualifies...more like editorial.

Maybe this should be sent to the Console section...

I feel for you though man. That must suck. Hope my launch 360 never craps out.

[Evil Avatar]

This is News? Not sure it qualifies...more like editorial.

Maybe this should be sent to the Console section...

I feel for you though man. That must suck. Hope my launch 360 never craps out.

Mayhap you haven't been around long enough to know how things work around here. :p

[Phanto]

If you had to pick one what would it be ? :

1. MS having a good customer support..

2. MS having a console that don't die in less than a year..

[Evil Avatar]

The company they use just happens to hire a lot of Indians I'm guessing. I'm not sure what it's like in the Phoenix area, but a lot of IT related jobs in the North East are filled by people from that area of the world. They can come here and make good money for 10 years and go home and retire. At least, the few I've worked with have said that was their plan.

No, we don't have the same issue here in Phoenix. We have call centers, but all the call centers I have had to deal with that were based out of Phoenix pretty much just hire young white men from the area. (I suppose they could be black or mexicans, but they are still natives with no accents.)

[bapenguin]

Using the website for returns will do nothing in my case. I already have my coffin and I already had a return label. Due to some kind of an error the label is attached to a bad tracking number.

It didn't scan with the handheld scanner and the FedEx computer wouldn't take the number either.

If you want to blame FedEx, that is fine -- but it is still going to be Microsoft who has to send me a new shipping label and this is the part where they totally and completely failed at even this simple task.

Over a dozen phone calls and four morons later and I still don't have a replacement label or even have a replacement label on the way.

Update: I tried to call one more time. Instead of just sending me a shipping label, they want to cancel the repair order and issue me a whole new coffin and label, but they can't do that because they already charged my credit card.

These people are complete idiots.

And to think I have to go through this one more time after this...

So what happened with the label? Like - when did you find out it was bad? When FedEx went to pick it up? Or did you drop it off there?

[Evil Avatar]

If you had to pick one what would it be ? :

1. MS having a good customer support..

2. MS having a console that don't die in less than a year..

Good customer support. Because even Sony's Playstation 2 died after about a year of use... so sooner or later you may have to replace most any console system that you buy.

When you think about the fact that the Xbox 360 has a 100% failure rate, it seems like it would have been smart of Microsoft to set up some good customer support to deal with these kind of issues when they come up.

Honestly, I'm about as fed up and frustrated as you can get with this whole issue.

I had been considering having some 360's customized with the EvAv logo and now I'm totally reconsidering that idea. Why send out custom systems to people who are just going to have them break within a year later???

[Evil Avatar]

So what happened with the label? Like - when did you find out it was bad? When FedEx went to pick it up? Or did you drop it off there?

When I went to drop it off at FedEx. It wouldn't scan and their computer wouldn't take the tracking number manually.

They told me that they think what happened is that Microsoft issued the same tracking number twice.

If something doesn't happen with this soon, I'll just go to AmEx and get my money back, call them a fifth time and cancel out the order and then wait like a week and try again.

No matter what, I'm super fucking pissed off about the whole thing.

[ZeroOmegaZX]

You want to know what sucks? Calling Microsoft's Xbox support and getting some foreigner who barely speaks English and then after you repeat the spelling of your name TWICE, having this moron ask you to spell your name a third time and then just to add insult to injury having the customer service rep REFUSE to go get a supervisor when you finally get sick of messing with someone who wouldn't be smart enough to have a job picking fruit.

The rep's name was Demitri and of course the second you ask for a supervisor this dufus just shuts up like a clam and flat out refuses to do anything. He doesn't hang up, he just won't do anything else.

So, I hang up and call back and when I get another rep (Ray) after I go through the whole process, he just hangs up on me.

Great. Third time is the charm, Right?

Nope. The 3rd rep (Corey) gives me the excuse "We are upating our system. Call back later." Not willing to take "No" for an answer, I eventually get through to a Supervisor who dumps me off on FedEx (who can't help me with Microsoft's bad label) and now I'm back to where I was in the beginning... no return label for a system I have already PAID to have repaired.

I can at least console myself with two things. I used AmEx to pay for the repair so getting my money back isn't going to be an issue and second I guess I can feel unique and special because obviously I'm the first person who ever needed a replacement label in all of Microsoft's repair history.

-ea

And yet you people all love the 360 like its the second coming. I love my 360 for what it CAN do. I hate my 360 because of the horror stories I've heard and because every time i turn it on I'm afraid of seeing an RRoD. Not to mension cases like this where support calls ppl have made have been totally blown off and it takes months for simple things to get resolved. I feel so bad for ppl like Evil, the kid who got his signed 360 wiped, ppl with downloaded content that cant use it offline, etc.

Whats worse is that MS knows there is a problem, and the only thing they've done is extend the warranty, they aren't fixing the problem. They aren't fixing their support staff because they want to make more money. Think of how many storeis we've just read and haven't been reported of MS support blowing its customers off. When we hear of ppl on their 3rd or 4th 360's its blatant, MS doesn't care. They are raking in money because of Halo, Gears and some parts of Live! which people think is the second coming (could go on how live is nothing new but thats for a diff topic).

Point is, MS just doesn't care. They have your $$$ and thats final. When I had trouble with my Wii, I had it sent, repaired, and back WITHIN ONE WEEK. That was 2 months after the Wii's launch. Oh yeah and all my downloaded content worked when I got it back. Not like 3 years people have been waiting for with the 360.

MS needs to give the community some love, and fix all of their support issues. I should be having more of a blast with my 360 but I can't when I have to worry bout it breaking any time I go to use it, no matter how clean and neat I keep my electronics.

After all that though, I feel for you Evil, here's to hoping you get things worked out.

[Sandman]

You know what the main problem is? I bet they don't have a solution for a bad shipping label in their system. It was probably something they never expected to come across.

[Expugnare]

I actually had a very good experience with MS Customer Support. I got an Indian guy with very little accent who actually seemed to grasp the English language rather than canned responses. When I told him it had 3 red rings he said something to the effect of "Ah, we have been seeing a lot of those, as you may have heard. Fortunately it will be a free repair and all shipping cost covered." While entering my information he asked about what games I was playing and even was interested in how Mass Effect was.

Edit: For those few lines of Spanish:
Mi Xbox esta roto. Ayudame, ayudame!
Translation:
My Xbox is broken. Help me, help me!

[Lutheran]

Not to speak for Evil, but why should he have to pull strings in order to get what amounts to good basic customer service? It should be a given.


He shouldn't have to , I absolutely agree..but after 4 calls and more to come if *I* had a number to call I would use it and bitch like crazy..some heads need to role when something so simple can't be taken care of through the phone support system.

[Sandman]

Edit: For those few lines of Spanish:
Mi Xbox esta roto. Ayudame, ayudame!
Translation:
My Xbox is broken. Help me, help me!

El anillo rojo de la muerte.

[Rezin8r]

The original post sounds like you eavesdropped on the call I made to them 2 days ago. I returned my 3rd 360. When I got the box I did not receive a shipping label either. I just sent it back and paid $17 for it.

I wanted a refund of that and I wanted to change the return address.

I live in an apartment building so I didn't want it to come here because it's not really secure, they just leave packages in front of the door to my apartment where anyone can grab it.

After maybe 20 to 30 min, where I had to repeat many things many times, they couldn't help me with either issue. I "should" have contacted them when I saw that the box was missing the shipping label. Yeah, I want to wait another 4 days for that.

My experience sucked. THe last time I called I had to call them back to get the return box because "their system was down".

THis is MS support the biggest software company on the planet, and their system was down? They cant call me back? Yeah they need people with better English speaking reps.

[Evil Avatar]

My experience sucked. THe last time I called I had to call them back to get the return box because "their system was down".

That is one of the more insulting things that they say, because if "the system was down" they couldn't have looked up my customer information and the repair number in the first place, could they?

Can you say, "Lying fucks"? I'll bet you can.

[Evil Avatar]

He shouldn't have to , I absolutely agree..but after 4 calls and more to come if *I* had a number to call I would use it and bitch like crazy..some heads need to role when something so simple can't be taken care of through the phone support system.

Yea, I was trying to take care of this through traditional means since that is what everyone else around here has to do.

I can see that I'm not getting far with that kind of thinking.

A week ago I said that I wouldn't force a red ring on this system to get the free repair because it wouldn't be the right thing to do.

Please don't ask me if I feel the same way now.

[Expugnare]

El anillo rojo de la muerte.

That is one piece of jewelery you may want to take off. :eek:

circulo might work better

[Banacek]

Can a whole thread be xenophobic or racist?

It's racist to want to talk to someone in your own language? :confused:

Honestly, I'm hard of hearing, and it's getting worse every day. I can barely heard people on the phone as it is. Add on to that someone who mumbles a dialect of English that is barely English and it's game over. I'm at the point now where I don't even bother.

To everyone saying that every company has this problem, I have never had a frustrating experience with Apple tech support

That's because their major call center is in Ireland :)

[Syl]

Sounds like every time I ever call any hardware manufacturer.

Except Nintendo, my DS screen got fuxored and the person on the other end of the phone was pleasant and took care of me. Took all of 10 minutes. Who woulda thought.
I've had extremely good luck with Asus.

"Motherboard model please"
Asus A8n-Sli Deluxe
"What's your problem?"
My chipset fan died.
"oh yeah; happens all the time. Address? We'll send one out in the morning."

Then there is OCZ technical support. These guys are IT gods as far as i'm concerned.
"Hi! I'm the OCZ guy for this major internet forum. PM if you want to know anything really specific."
-I can't overclock my ram as much as has been stated in reviews for your product!
"I've heard with that motherboard; you might want to try doing this, this, that and this"
-Wow, that worked perfectly... and it's still under warranty, thanks!

I've never had good customer service for internet... Which is a pain; as it's one of the few subjects that I know a lot about; and yet they still make me try every single little fucking thing while I was telling them what the problem was the entire time.

I've never dealt with microsofts Xbox division; but i've had plenty of fun with the windows side. Argue long enough and you'll get that windows activated. "Sir, that CDkey is known as one of the most commonly pir- THAT'S BULLSHIT, I PAID FOR IT AND I WANT MY WINDOWS LIKE I DESERVE!
-10 minutes later
"here you go sir, try using this as your key".

[Craigtheplague]

Customer service is very hit or miss. I used to work for T-mobile customer service. I specialized in the "smartaccess" accounts: The type of account that temporarily cuts off your phone service when over $150 is charged to your account. People with bad/no credit are given this account. People with bad credit are most likely poor and uneducated, and therefore, idiots.

The job pretty much sucked balls. Every once in a while I would get a pleasant customer whom I helped a lot and tells me I deserve a raise. Sometimes a customer would ask if I had an extension (didn't have one) so he/she would talk to me everytime. It was probably because he/she went through a lot of shit before getting to me.

Most of the time, a customer's phone was cut off because he/she didn't pay the bill or has a high balance due to overages. I could only tell them to pay up or no service for you. Suddenly, me or the company is to blame for their lack of responsibility. Technical troubleshooting calls are annoying. The worst calls are when some other doofus CSR fucked up the account or gave bad info.

Seriously, if you treat the CSR kindly, you will be treated kindly as well. There were very small favors that deviated slightly from the guidelines I could do for customers. Respect goes a long way.

[wyeast]

Customer service is very hit or miss. I used to work for T-mobile customer service. I specialized in the "smartaccess" accounts:
I'm sorry, I read that as "smartass" accounts, and thought to myself, "I wonder if you've ever had to cope with me calling Customer Care?" :o :D

[AgtFox]

Just want to re-iterate, I don't think you get an Indian call center when you call Xbox support. They follow north American office hours, and that implies to me that they're all North American based.
Actually there was an episode of Morgan Spurlock's 30 Days that had a white guy (who recently got laid off and his job went to India) go over to India and live there for 30 Days including getting a job. He got a call center job and it was noted that many call centers over there work at odd hours because they work during the North American workday. I don't remember how many hours India is off of us, but he did note how interesting that was.

Bottom line, you probably aren't getting a call center based in America, especially with the larger tech companies (as well as other industries) out there. You're tapped into India at whatever time it is over there.

Cute side story, they also had a piece in that episode where the workers went to English accent classes in order to talk more clearly in English...heh.

[Craigtheplague]

I'm sorry, I read that as "smartass" accounts, and thought to myself, "I wonder if you've ever had to cope with me calling Customer Care?" :o :D

LOL. Must be an awesome job dealing with smartass accounts. The people you're talking to must be always telling you how to do your job and taking advantage of the loopholes.

[Evil Avatar]

Bottom line, you probably aren't getting a call center based in America, especially with the larger tech companies (as well as other industries) out there. You're tapped into India at whatever time it is over there.

This is my thinking as well, their hours of operation have nothing to do with where the calls are getting routed into.

[Mal.Reynolds]

2nd time i sent mine away it was lost for 2 days Oo i was like "what do you mean lost?" they said that Puralator had said they had delivered it to MS and the MS said they didnt have it .... I was like fucking beautiful and it took the 2 days to find it .... it was delievered to someone else and the guy opened it and i was lucky enough to get a person thats would say OMG a 360 well im not gonna complain ....

[Crono]

I had this same fucking label problem. They just sent me an entirely new box. It added an extra 2 weeks to my repair.

[Virtuoso]

EDIT:
Also, I don't recall Customer Service ever being that much better before it was outsourced. I guess people have a preference for the kind of incompetence they are willing to tolerate.


Nah, this just justifies their jingoism.

[balamoor]

I just wonder if I am in some crazy ass alternate reality..I keep hearing these horror stories, yet all three times I had to call MS support (the latest being just four months ago) I got a English speaking rep, spent a very short time Troubleshooting my Xbox and got set up for a Coffin. I don't understand why I can't get the Lame Brain Indian guy that sounds like Apoo on the Simpson's...I love a good Bitch fest yet MS has denied me this? What the fuck!

[Disgustipated]

After reading the horror stories of MS CS service several years ago, I found a way to simply replace the Xbox by retail means no matter how old the device is. I did this with my launch 360 and the one after that (crazy how many ppl have had at least 3 360's in the time the system has been out).

I've never revealed how I do it online because I know it wouldn't take too long before I wouldn't be able to do it any more. I told my one friend how to do it when his died and it worked like a charm. It may not be the best moral way of doing it, but I swear I won't be put on hold and wait some ungodly amount of time because the hardware failed before it's warrenty was up.

Oh my god, tell us this amazing secret! It couldn't be swapping the serial numbers out, could it!? :rolleyes:

[Ancalagon]

After reading the horror stories of MS CS service several years ago, I found a way to simply replace the Xbox by retail means no matter how old the device is. I did this with my launch 360 and the one after that (crazy how many ppl have had at least 3 360's in the time the system has been out).

I've never revealed how I do it online because I know it wouldn't take too long before I wouldn't be able to do it any more. I told my one friend how to do it when his died and it worked like a charm. It may not be the best moral way of doing it, but I swear I won't be put on hold and wait some ungodly amount of time because the hardware failed before it's warrenty was up.

is this one of those tricks where you buy a new one and put your old busted one back in the box and return it for cash?

[Wyrm]

I'll chime in with my own horror stories about MS customer support.

Back in the days of the first xbox, I was trying to get my connection set up to play Halo 2. After doing everything I knew to do, I called tech support and got stuck with the indian call center. Not only could the guy barely understand anything I said, and visa versa, I had to repeat everything six times. Everything he told me to do was something I'd tried already, and after explaining that to him, he started over again and spoke more slowly. After 30 minutes, and nearly tearing my hair out, I hung up on him mid sentence and called back, hoping to get someone who could understand me. No dice.

Every time, and I do mean every fucking time I've had to deal with any kind of tech support, it has been complete and utter shit. The worst, though, is CyberPower, the custom-built PC company. I've sent the computer I bought from them back FOUR fucking times, and each time, it has returned only to continue blue screening. The best part is that each time I try to call them to tell them something is wrong again, it takes nearly a month to get a hold of a human being who can actually help me with my problem. Each time, they have somehow forgotten the conversation we had previously, and I have to start over from the ground up. I just got it back for the fourth time, and it is STILL blue screening. I'm not even sure what to do anymore, because they are completely ignoring my emails now.

So yeah, for all the fun it provides, technology also fucking stresses my shit out sometimes. On occasion, I take a step back, breathe, and think about how easy life was in the days before the dreaded red rings of death.

[balamoor]

is this one of those tricks where you buy a new one and put your old busted one back in the box and return it for cash?

The big problem with that is most retailers scan the serial now, if they don't match No return.

[Kelegacy]

The big problem with that is most retailers scan the serial now, if they don't match No return.

I'm not encouraging it or going into detail, but there are definitely easy ways around this. I would never attempt it these days myself, as I'm rather empathetic. Meaning, I know what it would fucking feel like to open up a new console only to find out it's an old broken one. How do you explain that to the store when you take it back?

[51|RandoM]

The big problem with that is most retailers scan the serial now, if they don't match No return.

...and here I was thinking that the big problem with it is that it was an act of fraud. :rolleyes:

[ElektroDragon]

I've had nothing but excellent support from Microsoft, and they even fixed my DRM license transfer eventually! The trick is, if you call and hear Indian pop hold music (I kid you not), hang up the phone and call again until you get someone who speaks fluent English. Those guys and gals are always top notch. I think what is happening is that some calls are just randomly redirected to India (and has ANY company given you good support when routing you to a developing nation?)

I'd also like to report that when my license transfer went through, they even called me out of the blue to confirm that it was, and when I gleefully said that it was and that I had been waiting 6 months for this, the guy on the phone even gave the opinion that it was ridiculous! So the support folks are great in my book. I've also contacted some of the support folks through xbox.com forum private messages and they've always replied and been courteous...and helpful.

[Baron Samedi]

I'm enjoying these Red rants. Fitty and Evil are down, looks like bap's up next.

[bub64882]

And yet you people all love the 360 like its the second coming. I love my 360 for what it CAN do. I hate my 360 because of the horror stories I've heard and because every time i turn it on I'm afraid of seeing an RRoD. Not to mension cases like this where support calls ppl have made have been totally blown off and it takes months for simple things to get resolved. I feel so bad for ppl like Evil, the kid who got his signed 360 wiped, ppl with downloaded content that cant use it offline, etc.

Whats worse is that MS knows there is a problem, and the only thing they've done is extend the warranty, they aren't fixing the problem. They aren't fixing their support staff because they want to make more money. Think of how many storeis we've just read and haven't been reported of MS support blowing its customers off. When we hear of ppl on their 3rd or 4th 360's its blatant, MS doesn't care. They are raking in money because of Halo, Gears and some parts of Live! which people think is the second coming (could go on how live is nothing new but thats for a diff topic).

Point is, MS just doesn't care. They have your $$$ and thats final. When I had trouble with my Wii, I had it sent, repaired, and back WITHIN ONE WEEK. That was 2 months after the Wii's launch. Oh yeah and all my downloaded content worked when I got it back. Not like 3 years people have been waiting for with the 360.

MS needs to give the community some love, and fix all of their support issues. I should be having more of a blast with my 360 but I can't when I have to worry bout it breaking any time I go to use it, no matter how clean and neat I keep my electronics.

After all that though, I feel for you Evil, here's to hoping you get things worked out.


I love my 360. But still....I was looking at downloading a HD movie two days ago, and saw that fat 4.2 GB download...And how long that would take on my gimped DSL...It's just not worth risking the RRoD for a flick.

[Double T]

Too bad this forum doesn't support multiquotes.

Serial numbers match yes.

No, I don't return it and say it works.


Oh, and I never said it was a 'wonderful and awesome trick, nany nanny boo boo, I won't tell you'.

I'm just saying my ass ain't gonna be caught calling MS customer service and going thru what EA is going thru. No thanks.

I find it interesting that the return boxes even have names now. Coffin? That's funny but true as well.

Having said all of that, I'm really surprised someone from MS hasn't read the front page article about this and contacted EA. You'd think for a big gaming site like this someone at MS is reading.

[Citizen Philip]

From what I heard: if you do any tech support by phone (and you aren't dealing with co-workers in your building or company): you get an earful of shit for every whisper of understanding. Tech gets paid shit (not in general, just those who do tech on the phone), treated like shit by the company and a fast turn-over rate.

The support you get is as only as good as what the company pays for you to receive. I imagine I'd be pretty surly in general if everyone I spoke to was thanking me for being white, or screaming at me because they didn't think I was.

[GargantulaKon]

I'm not sure this is MS specific. I can't think of a single over the phone customer service experience that has a) taken less than half an hour or b) been anything but a miserable experience.

Thankfully when I just called Sears credit card, I had a really nice lady and I got what I wanted quick and easy, but unfortunately it is rare.

[TeeCakes]

In my experience with MS customer support I've had maybe one or two reps that sounded like english was their main language. No CSR should refuse if you ask to speak to a supervisor...and that second CSR hanging up on you makes me think Demitri left some kind of comment on your account.

As a former CSR (not for MS, obviously), I can assure you this is what happened. Anytime you call in and give your name, they'll pull up a file, and note all the red text and ALL CAPS messages for when the CSR records their logs to summarize each call you make. If you're a "problem caller", you get booted to the back of the queue on a busy day, or get passed around the center to someone who doesn't know any better until after they pull up your file.

But the easy way to combat this is to record the conversation, and call back another day to a supervisor, and play them back the conversation. Big trouble for the CSR (I can tell you this from experience...) an the responsible Sup will fall all over themselves to make you not report this to someone higher than them/the media.

[InsGadget]

Yes. It sucks. It sucks hard. And there is no happy ending, literally or figuratively.

EVER??????

[Disgustipated]

Too bad this forum doesn't support multiquotes.


Uh, it does. You just quote each person in turn.

Duh.

See?

[Banacek]

Uh, it does. You just quote each person in turn.



See?

Is there a way to do that easily? Cause hitting the quote button takes me to the reply page, then you can't quote anymore. (I know you can quote, just not the easy way) Once the semester was over I was going to make a Firefox extension to do it inline, but if you can do it now then I won't bother.

[jeffbax]

Uh, it does. You just quote each person in turn.



See?

He means, say a checkbox next to each post to select every post you want to quote for the reply box or javascript that adds the quote in realtime to a reply box at the bottom of the page versus how you have to basically open a bunch of quotes in tabs, copy and paste, and then go from there manually... at least thats how I do it here.

[Variable Gear]

He means, say a checkbox next to each post to select every post you want to quote for the reply box or javascript that adds the quote in realtime to a reply box at the bottom of the page versus how you have to basically open a bunch of quotes in tabs, copy and paste, and then go from there manually... at least thats how I do it here.
I didn't even know that it was possible to multiquote on other forums. Whenever I quote multiple people I have to open multiple tabs and copy/paste and it's quite a pain. I don't know if the current software allows multiquote, but if it does could someone please enable it?

[Banacek]

I didn't even know that it was possible to multiquote on other forums. Whenever I quote multiple people I have to open multiple tabs and copy/paste and it's quite a pain. I don't know if the current software allows multiquote, but if it does could someone please enable it?

I don't think it does. I could be wrong though.

[GargantulaKon]

As a former CSR (not for MS, obviously), I can assure you this is what happened. Anytime you call in and give your name, they'll pull up a file, and note all the red text and ALL CAPS messages for when the CSR records their logs to summarize each call you make. If you're a "problem caller", you get booted to the back of the queue on a busy day, or get passed around the center to someone who doesn't know any better until after they pull up your file.

But the easy way to combat this is to record the conversation, and call back another day to a supervisor, and play them back the conversation. Big trouble for the CSR (I can tell you this from experience...) an the responsible Sup will fall all over themselves to make you not report this to someone higher than them/the media.

Make sure you do it legally. I started doing the same thing until I realized I had to tell them first.

Reference: http://www.rcfp.org/taping/

[wyeast]

I didn't even know that it was possible to multiquote on other forums. Whenever I quote multiple people I have to open multiple tabs and copy/paste and it's quite a pain. I don't know if the current software allows multiquote, but if it does could someone please enable it?

You can, but it's not a "stock" feature on vBulletin. It requires an add-on, what's typically called a hack that modifies the forum code to allow for it.

Usually such tinkering involves some breakage of the forum while you figure it out, tho', so it's not all happy shiny. ;)

[Mortanius]

I had a similar experience when I called them. I had to spell out my tag, my email address, everything, over and over again - more than 3 times, and the woman could not get the letters right even when I was shouting 'a for apple' etc.. over and over again.

[GargantulaKon]

Use a NATO Phonetic Alphabet table. This link (http://www.phoneticalphabets.net/Spoken_Phonetic_Alphabet.html) has a good spoken generator.