I don't normally complain about microsoft, but jesus christ.

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I don't normally complain about microsoft, but jesus christ.

Postby zfubarz » 23 Feb 2010, 19:00

So I bought a wireless headset for my 360 from work a few months, it didn't work. well crap, employee's can't return items. Welp, I guess I gotta go through microsoft then. i call them up, the first 2 levels of guys say they can't help me, and that i have to pay to ship it back to them so I can get a new one, I get told I'm on a list for a call back from a 3rd level.

obviously i never get a call. I wait a while, i'm a student, I work, have family and friends, and a girlfriend, obviously it's not like i have a tonne of free time. so I call again today (not gonna lie conveniently waited till it was well past the return policy date of the store for anyone not an employee.) Obviously there was no mention of me being on a list for a call back, the lady lies to me and says there is no way for me to get on a list at all. I say that she can't possibly be the boss of the call centre, and she says fine she'll put me on a list. lie #2.

she repeatedly told me it was my fault i waited so long, and while not smart to wait so long,a nd it was deliberate, it's not my fault the first guy never got me the call back, and trusting a company to not lie can't really be put on the customer, especially not by customer service reps. It's just horrible behaviour really.

So now i wait again for a call back i probably won't get. then i get to call back and yell again.

it's pretty damn terrible customer service.

it's not like I want money for the shipping, I get that, it's not like they can go around sending cheques to people, but it'd be nice if i could get some points, or a free game or something that would make up for the cost of the shipping. If they can do it for anyone who wants to cancel xbox live automatic renewal then i'm sure they can do it for me now too.

TL;DR MS has some crazy ass costomer service policies, and some really inept staff.
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Re: I don't normally complain about microsoft, but jesus christ.

Postby Master Gunner » 23 Feb 2010, 19:19

That sucks, and I'm sorry for you. However, I have to do my obligatory rant about how customer service and call centers work, and why Microsoft probably isn't directly to blame.


I'm not necessarily saying Microsoft or it's policies didn't hurt you, but odds are Microsoft had little to nothing to do with this. To the best of my (admittedly limited) knowledge, Microsoft doesn't run its own call centers. Like most companies, it would contract them out to a dedicated company that runs call centers (such as Adytia Burla Minacs, or however the hell it's spelled). So long as they stay just within the policies that Microsoft lays out (which likely don't include "don't screw over the customer"), and don't stir up too many complaints/cost MS too much money, they get to keep the contract, and that's the primary concern when a call center "trains" its employees (training that generally lacks any specifics on what Microsoft's policies actually are).

So yes, it was terrible customer service, but it isn't directly Microsoft's fault. Call centers are the same everywhere, that's the nature of the business. The best you can hope for is that the specific call center you get routed to happens to be located in Canada (and while our call centers generally rank higher, that's like saying someone is less of a whiner than Matt (sorry, just needed an example), so no guarantees there). If you want to file a complaint or anything, as the person you're calling which call center they work for, so you know exactly who to blame.

Oh, and in b4 empath.
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Re: I don't normally complain about microsoft, but jesus christ.

Postby zfubarz » 23 Feb 2010, 19:27

Oh I know, I wouldn't even blame the employee. Hell until she started lieing to me I didn't even belittle the employee really, when she did however I tore into her. Now it's her fault.

Still though I gotta get in contact with somebody higher up to get some sort of resolution.

also lol at Matt.
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Re: I don't normally complain about microsoft, but jesus christ.

Postby iwashere33 » 23 Feb 2010, 21:54

i gotta say, master gunner. i think that microsoft would be directly to blame. if they put their name on a product and it fails (regardless of who made it) then that is microsoft's fault. same if they put out a phone number for their customer service, then that person is representing the company you are calling about. if you get shitty service and lies from that person, the company would be at fault.

the easist solution is to just cut your losses and don't buy from microsoft again. and when a competitor does it better and gets all the money microsoft might wake up to themselves and start trying to fix problems like this.

actually i would have thought they would have done that already, what with all the linux builds that run well and the open office project [and yes, apple] i can't help but expect microsoft to start losing more ground in the market place.
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Re: I don't normally complain about microsoft, but jesus christ.

Postby zfubarz » 23 Feb 2010, 22:20

Sadly windows still comes with pretty much every computer, and every damn office runs on windows unless you work for some sort of arts studio, in which case your network is still 50/50 gonna be windows.

I do love me some 7 and 360 though. I do have all 3 systems though.
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Re: I don't normally complain about microsoft, but jesus christ.

Postby Matt » 23 Feb 2010, 23:37

:(

-m
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I am not angry at you.
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Re: I don't normally complain about microsoft, but jesus christ.

Postby empath » 24 Feb 2010, 07:54

Master Gunner wrote:Oh, and in b4 empath.


BWAH-hahahah! Image Thank you for making me grin today :mrgreen:


Okay, MG covered most of it; 3rd-party call centers are a cesspool, and one of the biggest hindrances to actual decent customer service today. The contracted company usually gets compensated by the 'client' (i.e. Micro$oft) one of two ways, $x/y calls received, or $x/z man-hours logged; so this compensation system doesn't encourage the center management to provide GOOD customer service. Heck, I'm cynical enough to think the "$50/call taken" method - one of the actual plans of a call center I worked in - DIScourages actually resolving customer problems, and advising customers to 'call back' to pad call volume taken. Image

So that's the call center management - they don't care about the customer, since their income doesn't change whether they HELP people or not (well, if they do badly ENOUGH, the center loses the contract, but after watching two centers thoroughly screw over both the client and customers for years with no mention of 'we gotta straighten up or we might lose the contract'.....yeahhhh.


Second, is the employees: 'customer service' is truly the transient worker profession for the 21st century. I saw MORE people come and go in my five years with those two companies than I've probably met in my 37-year life. Heck, out of training classes of twenty each time, two people from each class left during the four-week training (we were spoiled - they actually mentioned the client's products and services ;) ), then after about a month on the phones, there was maybe six of each class still working. Frequently you'll find people simply go from call center to call center just to get the wages from the paid training - it's probably why Gunner's centers on the mainland don't waste money so much on training, to discourage those parasites - Newfoundland is always behind the times. ;)

But the call centers I worked in had 'Termination Cubicles' - phone/computer-less spots which had the forms necessary to voluntarily end your own employment with the center and a lock box with a slot, and these were the closest to the door...turnover in that job is DIZZYING.

So what's the point the above? Most of the 'grunt' employees in any call center DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU. Well, 'most' is an exaggeration; I'd say about a third of the agents/reps you call into really just want to get the call over with and will promise whatever or even make shit up, just to get you off the phone. Some seem to have the personality flaw to be actively malevolent and dictatorial and will abuse the tiny bit of power they have to manipulate people (I had to help find and fire some of these people, and thank god they're not that common), others just don't want to seem to look uninformed or poorly-trained (heck, even that month isn't enough for some people) and they'll just fib to cover themselves, but the most just wanna trudge on that treadmill and get the call over with and rush things along to quitting time.

Which leads me to the bulk of 'CSRs' - the clueless and otherwise incompetent; probably half are earnest and WANT to help people, but either are insufficiently trained, or just don't have the ability to quickly absorb information that constantly changes with the client's policies and procedures and can find the right ones to apply to a call.

...because call centers will hire ANYONE. Complete computer-illiterates? Tech support for an internet service. Mathematically-challenged? Billing support. Poor communication skills or barely able to speak the end customers' expected language? Front line 'triage' support, which identifies the call purpose and redirects to the appropriate department. ("Hello, my name is <fourteen syllables long>; how may am helping you?")

Are you a retiree? We'll put you on in the primetime shift when call volumes are their highest and stress to 'handle those calls quickly and beat the queue down' are also highest. Drug-addict slacker? We'll put you on the overnight shift so we don't have to smell you. Do as much as you like as long as we don't physically catch you breaking the law....again.

Then there's the few people that a) give a damn about doing the job right, and 2) have both the training and the quick-wittedness to be ABLE to do the job right...and each one of those 1/6 are saddled with two apathetics and three incompetents. :(


And finally we get to the third side of the Triangle of Tyranny ;) - the client. I have to say that Micro$oft and other client companies ARE partly to blame for this sorry state of affairs, because THEY KNOW everything above I've mentioned (I had a candid moment with a bigwig from Rogers Communications Inc. who was visiting, and she gave me the impression she knew EXACTLY how things get skewed out of purpose in 3rd party centers)

AND THEY CONTINUE TO CONTRACT THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE DUTIES OUT TO THESE CESSPITS!

My work in 'the industry' is about ten years old and I seriously doubt 1) that anything has changed in call centers, and b) that big client companies that probably have been using 3rd part Cust.Care for much longer DON'T know the deal.

Yet they let it continue, because it would cost more to do customer service right, than the gain in revenue due to a positive customer experience.

It's the same reason it takes them three months to give you your money BACK via a rebate, yet they can process a payment you give THEM in minutes.

*shrug*

It should NOT be this way, and companies SHOULD give a damn about those customers that end up having problems with their products and services, and customers SHOULD not just tolerate poor service varying from innocent misinformation and human error making things worse, to deliberate lying and breaking policies 'just to get them off the phone'. But human nature being what it is, agents will keep on not giving a shit, companies will still choose 'the cheaper of the two evils' and end customers will still be fatalistic enough to think 'it's always like this everywhere, and it'll never change'.

...and I'm apathetic enough to KNOW all this and still be like the customers I mentioned. Image


(oh, and Gunner? I would've used the analogy "our centers being better than the others is more like being the validictorian of summer school" rather than be mean to a nice mod and crew member ;) )
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Re: I don't normally complain about microsoft, but jesus christ.

Postby Master Gunner » 24 Feb 2010, 09:16

Sorry Matt, but that pot lid gets me every time, and I know you don't bring it up much anymore, but I'm just not that good at analogies. So lets go with empath's suggestion instead.
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Re: I don't normally complain about microsoft, but jesus christ.

Postby Unclever title » 24 Feb 2010, 09:34

Matt wrote: :(
-m

Eesh! Quit WHINING Matt!

...

:mrgreen:
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Re: I don't normally complain about microsoft, but jesus christ.

Postby Darkobra » 24 Feb 2010, 09:46

Well, Empath, that was certainly eye-opening. Also explains a lot. We need more people like you who do care.
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Re: I don't normally complain about microsoft, but jesus christ.

Postby SprintToTheFinish » 16 Mar 2010, 20:47

Hahaha! My friend just got his 360 warranty revoked because he got too many free things with it. He would call and say his controller or some such would work, it just dosen't work. Then 80%+ of the time they would just ship him a free one. He had nine, NINE, xbox 360s registered to his name.
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Re: I don't normally complain about microsoft, but jesus christ.

Postby Jillers » 17 Mar 2010, 22:18

Darkobra wrote:Well, Empath, that was certainly eye-opening. Also explains a lot. We need more people like you who do care.



Wait wait wait, empath never said he was one of the ones who DID care. :wink:

Personally, I think as time goes on you start to care less and less about the customers... at least that's what happened to me every customer service oriented job I had.
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Re: I don't normally complain about microsoft, but jesus christ.

Postby empath » 18 Mar 2010, 01:51

Oh, no - I did care, but then, that was about six or seven years ago, before I had to LEAVE the field due to an ulcer in the works. :(

But yeah, Jillers is right; since then, I've spent four years working in a supermarket and THAT has destroyed any consideration or sympathy for customers I had left; watching these seemingly intelligent, competent adults who somehow managed to drive themselves to the store, behave in ways I wouldn't expect sheep to. (Honestly, if someone runs into me with a cart AGAIN when I'm standing still, I'm gonna say something...)
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Re: I don't normally complain about microsoft, but jesus christ.

Postby Master Gunner » 18 Mar 2010, 05:24

....I haven't hit anyone with a cart since I was 8. Is it really that difficult to use a cart?
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Re: I don't normally complain about microsoft, but jesus christ.

Postby Myrph » 18 Mar 2010, 05:31

Master Gunner wrote:....I haven't hit anyone with a cart since I was 8. Is it really that difficult to use a cart?


So long as the wheels are on it straight... Number of trolleys I've used where the wheels are bent out of place and so don't actually roll in a straight line, I can understand why some of the time people can have trouble!
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Re: I don't normally complain about microsoft, but jesus christ.

Postby empath » 18 Mar 2010, 10:48

Master Gunner wrote:....I haven't hit anyone with a cart since I was 8. Is it really that difficult to use a cart?


I few years ago I would have thought that same question in a rhetorical fashion, too. But for some people, paying attention to where their cart is headed whilst surrounded by a store FULL of distractions is an unattainable goal. (and I'm not even talking the products; one's own cellphone, the flyer, the decorations we've put up for whatever seasonal excuse to spend cash, a supposedly fascinating person thirty feet off to their right...)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again after this, but
I.
HATE.
PEOPLE.


Example: today I was 'in the cantina' and it's about 9:30; we've got a pan of fried-earlier bacon for dishing up with the breakfast we serve, but otherwise the steam table is empty. The fry cook that cooks most of the food in there gets in at 9am, and has a batch of roast chickens to cook before he can start frying anything for the 'hot case'. As well, all the rest of the food we sell out of there has to be cooked in the same convection oven those aforementioned birds are roasting in, so we are NOT going to have anything in that case before maybe 10:30, and not really have any decent selection of food in it until 11am.

But, again at nine-thirty in the morning, I had two people in quick succession step up and stare at the empty case, then when I approached ask "Not selling anything today?"

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"Not yet; it's still being cooked."

So help me; I wanna sterilize these people and any children they've already bred...
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I know this should belong elsewhere, empath put me on a tang

Postby Master Gunner » 18 Mar 2010, 11:06

People rarely think about things like food prep when they're not doing at it, especially when they're in a store or resturant and are used to things just magically appearing and disappearing. After I started working in my church's kitchen as the dishwasher, I had to get the organizers of big events (Shrove Tuesday and the like) to completely reorganize the servers/busboys, how dishes were collected, and all that. At any given point, there could be upwards of 200 people rotating through the dining area, I have about three feet of counter space, the sink, and then the dishwasher (which can only take one tray of about two dozen plates at a time), then a small area to wipe and re-distribute the clean dishes.

At the speed things went, there was nowhere enough time to collect, scrape, sort, stack, move along, dry, and re-stack dishes myself (takes 2.5 minutes for the dishwasher to cycle, during peak hours I could get two full trays of dishes in during one cycle). However, everyone just though that once the dishes of half-eaten food hit the small window ledge (about 1 foot across and 6 inches deep), that I would magically take care of it, by myself. Keeping in mind that the only reason I volunteered for dishwashing duty in the first place is because I'm pretty much the only one able and willing to lift full trays of dishes. Eventually I managed to get them to make the busboys scrape outside before handing them in to me, and have an extra person on hand (most of the time), to help with the drying and sorting of clean dishes, but it's still a fight I have to go through once at least once a year. Church attendance may be down, but when there's food to be had, it sure doesn't seem like it.

So I suppose that's my sorta-vent for all those times previous to this thread's existence. Need to get caught up.
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Re: I don't normally complain about microsoft, but jesus christ.

Postby Metcarfre » 18 Mar 2010, 14:32

Used to be in the trenches working produce, Empath; don't get me started. "Why yes, of COURSE we keep the RIPE bananas in the back to ROT and try to sell the GREEN ones. Why didn't I think of putting the ripe ones out!?!"

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Re: I don't normally complain about microsoft, but jesus christ.

Postby wartjr2373 » 19 Mar 2010, 05:45

This reminds me of the following comic:

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Just call me Dylan. It's easier to pronounce.

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Re: I don't normally complain about microsoft, but jesus christ.

Postby Metcarfre » 19 Mar 2010, 06:42

Yep, pretty much.
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Re: I don't normally complain about microsoft, but jesus christ.

Postby zfubarz » 19 Mar 2010, 09:18

Lol I do like the news post to go along with that

cause he was totally a dick sometimes
then again so am I.

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