Sunday 5 September 2010

4th: A recent exchange with Microsoft Support

Had a call back from MicroSoft "anxious" to close a call I had already indicated via email that could be closed, given that they couldn't understand what I'd told them, namely that their instructions could not be carried out because I couldn't access where I needed to be to initiate them.
(which part of "I cannot access a command prompt to do any of that" do you not understand?")
I mentioned that I had solved the immediate problem caused by their dratted security patch myself, but now had outstanding subsequent issues, such as every time I started a MSoft Office program it insisted on configuring itself, as if opening for the first time.
He promised to log that separately, and arranged that someone would call me at 11am the following day, NZ time.
11am came and went, as did all of the day, without my phone ringing.
6:58pm NZ time an email arrived:
Hi Lorna,

My name is [xyx] from Microsoft Technical Support.

This is a follow up email in regards to your case [nnnn]. I've tried
to contact you via telephone, however was unsuccessful. We would be
happy to continue to assist you if necessary.

If you have any feedback regarding Microsoft support, I would be glad to
hear from you. Otherwise, you can email ausadmin@microsoft.com
on any other feedback.

Thank you for contacting Microsoft Technical Support.

Sincerely,

[xyz]
(names and numbers changed to protect the guilty)

My response:
thank you for your bog standard email.
My phone has not been in use all day, and I have been at home.
You were scheduled to ring about 11am. I waited. .....
(with a list of the further issues that were now manifesting themselves, having solved the reconfiguring problem by uninstalling and reinstalling MSOffice, and yet again, upgrading it to SP2 - my network provider must love my additional bandwidth use at the moment).
ending:
Yours, a still very annoyed MSoft customer.

His, immediate, response (which implicitly says he hadn't called me at 11am):
Hi Lorna,

Apologies for not being able to call you this morning. The person who was supposed to call you called in sick today and it was just now that the case was endorsed to me. This is the phone number that we have in your records: +61 nnnn, and also the one I called but I only got your machine. If this is the wrong number, please let me know so I can update your records and be able to provide support to you.

Sincerely,
[xyz]

My response:
+64 (nnnn) might help. I'm in NZ and there is nothing on my answer machine, but presumably on someone in Australia's.
-----
(and given that someone had already called me the day before, why ever did it have an Australia country code?)
So, all in all, not a jot of useful help from Microsoft.
Several more issues have since manifested themselves, and mostly, gradually, been fixed.
All of this is keeping me from the fun things in life such as researching my own family tree, the FAIRBAIRN and RUNCIMAN One Name and DNA studies, and writing the course I'm about to give in a fortnight's time.
But I suppose it does have it's fun, ironic side.

1 comment:

  1. My advice? Consider Linux. I am running it on my netbook, but MS on my Desktop. I hate using my desktop.

    Susan

    ReplyDelete