Customer Service

[Spectro]

See, when I call up Microsoft, that means I have a problem that I can't fix. What do I get? Middle-eastern people that know even less than me. I'm not trying to be racist, but I cannot understand their accent! It really bugs me! If you are going to hire people, hire people that can speak English or at least let me use some other means than voice, such as chat, to talk with them.

The other part is even worse. Why ask someone else to look up a problem? Hell, I can do that, I'm just lazy, and I've been promised Customer Support. When I call in, they have no idea what they are doing or talking about. Sometimes I feel they don't even know what an Xbox is. They are looking through manuals and guides and help databases online. I want a professional or at least someone who knows what the hell they are talking about.

Microsoft has made me happy. They add all these great features and such. They really care about their customers, which is proven by this article (http://www.xboxic.com/news/2245). But when it comes down to customer support, they are really lacking. Why can't they hire people that actually know what they are doing?


Sorry, I'm having some difficulties with XBL and support is really not helping me. I just felt I needed to rant.

[JasonA]

I cant understand their accents either, but unfortunately racism is when you refer to someone as being middle eastern person (you racist evil bastard) lol only kidding...

I know what u mean though

[StrayBezza]

I totally agree. The people who work the support lines are fucking useless. i recently had my 360 crash and burn on me so, as you would imagine, I spend a fair bit of time calling Microsoft and their support team. None of them, and I mean NONE had a tossing clue what they were doing. They had zero product knowledge, they were clearly reading from a script.At one point I told them (it had got to such a frustration point) that green and red lasers were shooting out of my 360 and burning holes in my fucking walls and carpet......unbelievably she paused and clearly started to look thru her fucking manual to find a solution!!! Jesus. So, yes you are absolutely justified in ranting. The least I would expect from Microsoft is to employ someone who can a) talk b) understand the product they are meant to be providing 'support' for.

Wankers.

p.s Lost planet is awesome.

[Curry]

Here in the Netherlands we get Belgians, who also speak with funny accents :P They're always sweet when they find out my mail address is info@xboxic.com though :+

As for MS not caring about their support desk: it's just outsourced capacity, like 90% of helpdesks in this world. They can negotiate the contract and the agreements, but not the people answering your call. And yes, cheap helpdesk service providers often use Indians and other foreigners, who are so much cheaper per hour than Americans or Europeans. Some Dutch companies are experimenting with helpdesks in Suriname, because Dutch is the native language there and they're three times cheaper. Facts of life :)

[Praetorian]

an annoying fact. They should sort it out somehow, BT do it as well.

[JasonA]

yes dont get me started on BT !!! but I hate call centres full stop. I bet all the middle east get English people, and we get all middle east people.

[Studley]

The only time I've ever needed to ring them, they were really helpful. And multi-lingual: the guy I was talking to got distracted halfway through the call and had to put me on hold, when he came back he forgot who he was speaking to and starting talking to me in fluent German :D

Like Curry said, MS are hardly the only ones that outsource helpdesks, because it's cheap and it makes perfect business sense. I do have an issue with poorly-trained staff though. When my broadband stopped working, the tech support person I spoke to was not only reading off a script, but they could barely speak English either, so even though I already knew exactly where the fault was, the only way they could survive the call was to keep reading things like "go to the bit on your computer where it says 'Start'".

PS - Rainbow Six is awesome