Consumer ICT Support Is Mostly Poor Quality

[Nullack]

It seems with most hardware or software that I buy, most vendors have adopted the "lets outsource the support to the third world countries where we can pay them a bowl of rice a day for the same job" support approach. When are they going to realise this doesnt work?

 

I'm an ICT professional and I can tell yas that I'd never get away professionally with doing the sort of crap that some vendors are doing these days. Here is the common pattern that they seem to be following:

 

1. Dont engage the Microsoft Windows Hardware Quality Labs certification process or certify the hardware/software for Windows

2. Self sign any drivers so that it is not exposed to MS Windows WHQL tests like running Microsoft Driver Verifier

3. Put what developers they do have on an unrealistic project schedule for developing device drivers

4. Outsource the support to India, and to supply the support based on flowcharts that instructs users to do things like "reinstall" or other generic timewasters.

5. Specifically dont allow support to do any real debugging, any real static or runtime testing

5a. Get support to pretend to do testing, whey they can "find no problem" without even identifying the exact conditions in which the problem exists

6. As soon as something else which even remotely might be related be identified as a possible cause, blame that and close the ticket.

7. Wait six months for such a wave of ticked off customers to be reached that new builds with some fixes is eventually released.

8. Or if you are a well known sound card hardware manufacturer, never release a set of drivers that pass Microsoft driver verifier

 

In fact, sometimes I have gotten better support from open source platforms like Linux, where package owners have actually responded with debug builds, symbol analysis and some on, then followed up with new compiles addressing the problem. In comparison to "pro" and "commercial" groups.

 

God help Grandma though, with the total BS that some vendors try to push onto consumers in ICT.

[mr don]

It seems with most hardware or software that I buy, most vendors have adopted the "lets outsource the support to the third world countries where we can pay them a bowl of rice a day for the same job" support approach. When are they going to realise this doesnt work?

 

I'm an ICT professional and I can tell yas that I'd never get away professionally with doing the sort of crap that some vendors are doing these days. Here is the common pattern that they seem to be following:

 

1. Dont engage the Microsoft Windows Hardware Quality Labs certification process or certify the hardware/software for Windows

2. Self sign any drivers so that it is not exposed to MS Windows WHQL tests like running Microsoft Driver Verifier

3. Put what developers they do have on an unrealistic project schedule for developing device drivers

4. Outsource the support to India, and to supply the support based on flowcharts that instructs users to do things like "reinstall" or other generic timewasters.

5. Specifically dont allow support to do any real debugging, any real static or runtime testing

5a. Get support to pretend to do testing, whey they can "find no problem" without even identifying the exact conditions in which the problem exists

6. As soon as something else which even remotely might be related be identified as a possible cause, blame that and close the ticket.

7. Wait six months for such a wave of ticked off customers to be reached that new builds with some fixes is eventually released.

8. Or if you are a well known sound card hardware manufacturer, never release a set of drivers that pass Microsoft driver verifier

 

In fact, sometimes I have gotten better support from open source platforms like Linux, where package owners have actually responded with debug builds, symbol analysis and some on, then followed up with new compiles addressing the problem. In comparison to "pro" and "commercial" groups.

 

God help Grandma though, with the total BS that some vendors try to push onto consumers in ICT.

 

Or, in the case of some commercial vendors like Apple, they build confusion into using their product as part of a feature.

 

- Back up music? Tough! Gotta use Itunes!

- Can't have multiple profiles on your Ipod? Tough! It's a feature!

- Itunes getting bigger? Tough! They include their apple movie player bundled with it... And it is big!

- Etc, etc...

 

Apple is confusing, but it is a feature, because it is part of DRM (Digital Restrictions Management)

 

Echo?

 

Goodbye Apple! Your killing me! My Phillips MP3 player auto installs in XP or higher, drag & drop music, no libraries or 200 MB downloads required just to "access" it.

 

No worries that I have too many users, I can use it how I want, immediately after adding, no creation of playlists necessary!

[hazelnut]

MrDon can you please use the big ''add reply'' button instead of the little 'reply' button.

Then you won't be quoting what the previous poster says all the time.