At 5:30pm on 12/07/2006 I telephone Microsoft's technical support phone number 866-834-8317 and reach someone who takes down all of the details about my case. He then tells me he will transfer me to a technician and I will have 5 or 10 minutes to hold.
I hold for 10 minutes listening to music, then hear someone pick up the phone and mute me. He won't answer me when I talk to him (I'm assuming it's a him) so I switch to speakerphone and try to wait him out.
10 minutes later he hangs up his phone and I hear it cut to the message the phone company sends you when you've had your phone off the hook for 90 seconds or whatever.
I call back, someone answers, I give the case number, and he says he will transfer me to a technician. He transferred me, and I have so far waited another 3 hours and 25 minutes. It is now 9:25pm. I have been listening to 2 recordings of a lady telling me web to download security updates online every 60 seconds the whole time.
Also during this time, I watched three episodes of Star Trek Deep Space Nine on DVD, among other things. I wsa reluctant to start a meal, for fear it might be interrupted and get cold while I was talking to technical support, so I guess I am going to bed hungry tonight.
My phone battery died. I had to hang up at 3 hours and 25 minutes (plus the 15 minutes from the previous call) and I have received exactly no support on this product. I'm starting to believe that this is a new tactic by support departments - wait until a phone battery dies, so they don't have to take your call.
I called back (at 9:30pm) to tell the frontline person (who asks what product you have so they can direct you to a queue) what my experience was and to notate the case. I hear a message that they close at 9:00. I'm wondering why I was still on hold at 9:25. This is another tactic by support agencies apparently - leave you on hold until they close.
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Update:
12/8/2006
5:22pm, I call and talk to a frontline representative, who takes my case number and tells me he will transfer me to a queue. He then hangs up on me. Entire phone call time: 6 minutes.
5:28pm, I call back and talk to a new frontline representative. I ask the representative for a supervisor, and explain why I need a supervisor. She asks me to wait on hold and I tell her I don't want her to disconnect me. She gets me a manager, and I explain to the manager why I wanted to talk to him - to explain my difficulty in getting technical support.
He listened without interrupting me, and then he read a script to me telling me that he's sorry and he will transfer me to technical support. I am absolutely sure that nothing positive will happen within the company due to my complaint.
He then transferred me to the technical support queue, and 18 minutes into the call (according to the timer on my phone) someone answers the call. He asks for my case number, and asks me to explain my problem. I begin explaining the problem, and 20 minutes into the call (again, according to the timer) he disconnects the call with no warning.
I call back to Microsoft technical support at 5:50pm and ask for a manager again. I'm told I'm being transferred to a manager, and hear hold music. A manager named Rishita tells me she's very sorry for all of the trouble and will transfer me and stay on the phone with me, and explain to the tech representative that he needs to give me good support.
15 minutes into this call, a representative named Daniel takes the call and tells me he will help me, and that Rishita has already explained to him what my problem is.
I begin describing my problem to him. 19 minutes into the call, he discovers that his department supports a different software package called Microsoft Works. I'm not calling about Microsoft Works, nor did I tell the manager Rishita that I am calling about Works. I told Rishita and Prisita and every single representative before that my software is Microsoft Digital Image Suite 2006. They even have my serial number, so they should know very well what product I have.
Daniel places me on hold for 3 minutes, and then tells me that he has good news for me - he asked permission and is allowed to transfer me to the correct queue. He then puts me on hold again.
Daniel transfers me to RK. I tell RK I have 3 issues. The first issue is printing business cards, and Avery (the company who makes the business cards) told me when I called them to talk to Microsoft. Well, RK told me to talk to Hewlett Packard (exactly what I expected them to say).
I then told him about a different problem I had, printing pictures and how I've wasted a lot of money on ink and paper printing pictures and business cards. Again he refers me to HP.
My third issue is that the software hangs whenever I zoom past a certain level, or zoom out past that certain level, when I have one (1) large image loaded. RK keeps telling me that my computer will probablyr un slow whenever I have too many large images loaded. I told him I have 1GB of RAM, it's a 9MB image, and there's only 1 loaded. He repeated to me two more times that I should not open too many large images. I patiently and slowly explain that it is one (1) image, not too many.
He then offers me a refund on the software. I bought it 6 months ago. He said that's fine, and he will call me on Monday after 4:00pm Pacific Time and conference me with the refund department and get me a refund on the software.
Call ended at 6:30pm.
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Update 12/11/2006, Monday
4:00 Pacific Time came and went. At 6:05 I phoned Microsoft's technical support, and asked when this representative was going to call me.
I was informed by the frontline representative that the technical support representative is supposed to call me after 6:00am IST (I'm assuming this means India Standard Time) on Tuesday.
Now is 6:00am IST Tuesday = 4:00pm PST on Monday, or on Tuesday? Because the day he told me he would call me is 4:00 PST on Monday. So either that representative who gave me the time either does not know how to convert time zones between India and the US, or he just told me the wrong day and really meant Tuesday when he said Monday.
Either way, he told me Monday and that day came and went without a call.
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Tuesday 12/13/2006 came and went without a call. Still waiting. Meanwhile, I am going to have to learn some other software to do what I used this software for.
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Wednesday, 12/14/2006, a representative calls at 3:32 to give me refund information. Note that this call comes two days later (and 30 minutes earlier in the day) than the scheduled appointment. I told them I would not be home until after 4:00pm, why would they call at 3:32 (and two days after the fact)? So basically, they called 47.5 hours too late - at a time they knew I would not be home.
Rep leaves message on my voicemail, because I am not at home.
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On 12/14/2006 at 1:54pm, R.K. e-mails me (and calls me Shaun, despite my e-mail address being yoSEAN.com) and tells me he will try to call me at 1:30pm on Friday, 12/15/2006.
Mind you, I try to communicate with every message that I get home at 4:00pm and to call me after that time.
I write back and ask for escalation to someone who can contact me during my time frame. (It seemed obvious to me his shift just ends before then.)
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On 12/15/2006, someone (not R.K.) did call me on 12/14/2006 in the evening, and tried to connect me to the refunds department, but they were closed. He asked me to leave a message on their voicemail. I do.
Each time I leave a message with the company, I clearly state my case number, phone number reason I'm calling, and usually the rep's name who transferred me or who I last spoke with.
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On Saturday, 12/16/2006, at 8:11AM, a Microsoft phone number from Washington State called and did not leave a message on the voicemail.
When I saw the call at 8:30, I called technical support and asked if they could get me to the refund department. They sent me to tech support who sent me to the refund department, who was closed. I called the local phone number that called me at 8:11AM, but they were closed.
I called back to tech support and asked for R.K., or anyone who could help me with the issue. I was transferred to tech support, who just said they could only transfer me to refunds. I asked them to just get it done and let me know, and they said they can only transfer me to refunds. So they did, and they were closed, still.
Still Saturday, 12/16/2006, 2:55pm, RK calls to connect me to the refund department. The refund department is closed.
RK tells me that he will stay late after work on Monday or Tuesay and make sure that I get connected to the Refund department. I tell him that’s not necessary – he should pass this off to someone else who already stays later so they can handle it. R.K. said he wants to make sure this gets handled personally, and he will stay late to make sure it gets done.
12/26/2006 9:30am
I’ve spent the last several days wondering whether or not I should call Microsoft and follow up on this issue, since it doesn’t seem like R.K. is going to call me back.
At 9:30am, a Microsoft Survey Department calls regarding this case, and asks what I thought of the service. I explained that the case is not resolved, and that I am waiting for a call from R.K. to get me a refund.
She tells me that R.K. closed the case on 12/19/2006. His notes state that the issue was resolved!
I told her the issue is not resolved and that I need service on this now. She said she understands my situation and she will help me out. She will issue a “Red Alert” and put a “Red Flag” on this, and it will be sent immediately to a manager (not a supervisor) who will handle this personally. She said I would receive a call the next day (12/27/2006).
My caller ID shows 1 more call from a friend on 12/26/2006, and 2 calls on 12/27/2006 (1 from a friend, 1 a wrong number), all calls that I answered. No contact from Microsoft.
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01/03/2006
Still no reply from Microsoft.
I don't even know who to contact about this issue.
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