Smell Tech Support

[Kullervo]

I am happy with my mini9.
It does what I want it too well enough.
More portable than my other laptop.
although nowhere near as capable speed wise.

That being said, interaction with actual humans from the company have not been as favorable. Sales guy was pushy. We were connected via their chat window on their website. I was amazed at how well I was being pressured with text.
I ended up getting mad and shutting down my computer.
I waited a day while I decided if I actually wanted to deal with them.
In the end I used the Website and ordered one without human assistance.

I doubt I would ever call tech support even for warranty stuff.
If I need parts there is a fairly well established market of used parts for it.

[AdvancedFlea]

Tech arrives. Spends an hour running diags. Says "Part XYZ has failed. I'll be back tomorrow with the part."

Yeah, we have that problem. They are fucking idiots...and I swear, they sleep with that diagnostic disc

I doubt I would ever call tech support even for warranty stuff.
If I need parts there is a fairly well established market of used parts for it.

ah well, we diagree there then. I am a firm beliver that if you are in warrenty, you shouldn't have to pay for stuff thats not your fault. Even if using tech support is like talking to a brick wall

[mattm04]

Wow. Tech support that can't understand the phonetic alphabet.

I have used their Gold Business support, now ProSupport. The rep I spoke with very good and US based. They were willing to listen to the problem and what i thought about the solution. They ran that test first, confirmed I was right and sent a new HD overnight.

[EricKei]

Tangential hijack:

This reminds me of what's been happening to *ahem *AccountingSoftware* tech support over the past year. Last Fall, they canned over 60% of everyone working for them, and US-based tech support was, by far, the hardest-hit department. Tier 3 and all "Enterprise-class product" support are still US-based, but everything else is either Calcutta (Tier 1) or Singapore (Tier 2). The people stationed at the latter speak much better English, but there is one tiiiny little issue -- ALL support for their Retail product is Calcutta-based, reading straight out of the book. We occasionally get weird errors that I cannot find answers to online or in the KB, requiring us to call them. Guess who handles ALL "Retail product" support at our office?

I have literally had to spend over 20 minutes on the phone with these people TRYING TO PROVE THAT I AM WHO I SAY I AM just to get a 3-word answer out of them >_< Keep in mind that this is the case even tho I have our ID info and our support contract number on hand when doing this (which 99.9% of customers don't even KNOW) to try and speed up the process.

The best part is, the first thing they always ask once we're in "support mode" -- "Have you checked the online Knowledge Base?"... I've been doing this for four years...I wouldn't be calling if I already had access to this information...

Another fun bit: We're VAR's for their product, and they STILL try to sell us shit, even when we're just calling in for a product registration...It takes me an average of fifteen minutes to register ANYTHING with these guys over the phone, and this particular line does not have online Registration for some reason.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program, already in progress....

[thegiraffe]

I HATE 'smell' computers. My mom's boss insists on buying them and ONLY THEM OMG!!!!

Her first one did last for 4 years, but it went through 5 new hard drives, various other problems, and finally refused to show color documents on most MS Office applications and various internet pages. That and it took like 20 minutes to boot the stupid thing up.

Boss buys another one.

A REFURBISHED smell. She's had this one for 4 months or so, and it's been decent so far, but we all know it' just a matter of time before it fails.

Boss just looks at the initial cost, not the hours of headaches caused by the crappy quality and how much it costs to continually repair them. He actually wasn't going to buy her another computer at all until she threatened to buy her own (which, in retrospect, she probably should have done because Boss likes to screw up settings and whatnot that my Dad winds up having to fix).

Her boss is a piece of work.

[Victoria J]

I don't have that much of a problem with their computers. We use them at work (where they are poor computers - but only because they are old and we are too broke to update or replace them), and my mother has one of their laptops (she isn't very techy and wanted something large and blue - and it does well for her).

Their "customer service" however is surreally bad.

My mother's lap top has worked fine for the last 3 years except for 1 problem (can't remember what - some fairly catastrophic failure though) about 3 months in. They did repair the thing free - but the trouble it took.

We finally got the thing to them and started talking about getting it shipped back. They asked us to ring with a day someone would stay in to receive it. My mother rings and is told that they have already booked a day and there is absolutely no way to change this.

Unfortunately on this day she is working on the other side of the country.

They remain absolutely resolute that the date can't be changed and decide that instead they will just deliver it to her anyway. They'll send it to the place she is working for this one day.

She isn't happy - it's freelance work and she has to persuade the people she's working for to agree to take it in etc. But it all gets set up.

2 days later she returns home. No lap top. We start the hideous hideous business of calling them again. This time no one knows where it is.

A couple of days after that she gets a call from the place right the other side of the country - wanting to know why on earth they know have her laptop.

So here we go again - ringing and talking to one apparently insane person after another. Only know they claim they can absolutely never pick up or drop of a computer except from a home address.

So all the conversations went like this :

Smell "I'm very sorry. We are unable to collect it except at your home address".

Us "But you delivered it there"

Smell "I'm very sorry. We are unable to deliver it except at your home address".

Us "But you DID deliver it there. You delivered it where we weren't !"

Smell "I'm very sorry. We are unable to deliver it except at your home address".

Arghhh.

After another couple of days we did manage to force them to get the thing collected again and sent to the correct address - but it really was like hitting your head against a brick wall.

Victoria J

[AdvancedFlea]

I HATE 'smell' computers. My mom's boss insists on buying them and ONLY THEM OMG!!!!
....
Boss buys another one.

A REFURBISHED smell. She's had this one for 4 months or so, and it's been decent so far, but we all know it' just a matter of time before it fails.

Thats the problem, people, particually bosses, look at the cost of the computer, not how much it's going to cost them, if you get what I mean.

Refurbs are not all bad...just the ones from smell are fucking awful but hell fire. It sounds like boss is a true idiot.

Good luck with that refurb one *hugs* and when you have to call their tech support, I'll be thinking of you

Their "customer service" however is surreally bad.

...

After another couple of days we did manage to force them to get the thing collected again and sent to the correct address - but it really was like hitting your head against a brick wall.

Victoria J

Damn o.o; I thought I had it bad dealing with them on RetailCare but dear god...hats off to you for putting up with all that crap and NOT driving up to them just to beat the living shit out of every Smell CSR