I’ve worked in customer support. And while my experience was in a highly technical field that required more than rote recitation of troubleshooting scripts, I understand the reasoning behind them: when the majority of the problems a call center receives can be fixed with three or four standard steps, it only makes sense to walk people through them.
So for those times I find myself unable to resolve an issue on my own (mostly in relation to Internet or cable service) and end up calling customer service, I do so with a good idea of what they will want me to do; I call prepared, and my issues are often resolved quickly.
Often. But not always.
Four months ago I purchased an Asus 1005HA netbook in preparation for my trip to Europe. It’s slim. It’s slick. It has an eight hour battery time. I love it.
Well, I love it except for the fact that it periodically refuses to boot and I have to ‘restore’ it to its factory settings. The good news is that this is easily done by holding the F9 key while the netbook boots. The bad news is that everytime I do this, it wipes out all the software I’ve installed, all the writing I’ve done, and all the pictures I’ve saved to it.
After the eighth time this happened, I called ASUS’ technical support and had the following conversation.
Me: Less than four months ago I purchased an ASUS netbook. Recently, I’ve been having issues with it refusing to boot. I’ve restored it to the factory settings, but after a few days I have the same problem again.
ASUS Customer Service: Have you installed anything on it?
Me: Yes. Firefox. Yahoo. AIM. Nothing particularly invasive.
ASUS Customer Service: It’s possible you have a virus.
Me: The netbook hasn’t been on-line since the last time it crashed. It couldn’t have caught a virus.
ASUS Customer Service: Alright. [pause as the next step is looked up] Let’s restore it to the factory settings. I need you to…
Me: …hold down F9 as it boots. I’ve done that. Eight times.
ASUS Customer Service: …
ASUS Customer Service: Oh.
ASUS Customer Service: Well, let’s do it again.
Me: A ninth time?
ASUS Customer Service: Yes.
Me: We…can. But I’m fairly sure I already know the outcome. In a few days, it will crash again. After restoring it three times and having the same problem, I thought there might be an issue. After five, I was pretty sure there was. And after eight…well, after eight times, I think the mystery has gone out of what will happen next. Barring a miracle, I have my doubts that a ninth attempt will heal whatever illness has struck down my netbook.
ASUS Customer Service: …
ASUS Customer Service: I really need you to restore it. And then if…
Me: When.
ASUS Customer Service: …if it crashes again, we can move onto an RMA.
Me: Right. [pause] You realize that every time it crashes, I lose all the work I’ve done on it?
ASUS Customer Service: …yes.
Me: And that the chances of it crashing for a ninth time are extremely high?
ASUS Customer Service: …yes.
Me: So let me get this straight. You want me to restore it and use it for the next three to five days knowing that any work I do on it will be lost when it crashes again?
ASUS Customer Service: Yes.
Me: [after about ten seconds of silence] Got it. What is the reference number for when I call back? …
ASUS: 1, D’jaevle: 0
Of course, there’s no way in hell I’m going to restore it, use it, and wait for it to crash again. I’ll leave it in it’s comatose state and call back in a few days with an excellent story about how it struggled valiantly for a few more days before succumbing for a ninth time.
So. Yes, I understand the importance of the troubleshooting steps customer service reps aref forced follow.
But the demise of common sense is just…tragic.
Ive worked as a Customer Service Rep for many years and our Motto was : The customer was always right ! And thus I would issue a tracking number for the unit to be returned! Obviously, you were not treated with ‘kid gloves’!!
The next time, Id ask for the Manager!!!
I don’t know why, but I expected a little more fight, especially after as many iterations of factory resets as you’d gone through. Then again, I wouldn’t have put up with eight…my limit would have been four, after which some variant of Linux would have gone on that sumbitch.
This is apropos of nothing, but I never see you online anymore…I miss talking to you. :-)
Most of the crashes occurred during my trip to Europe, with little recourse but the reset button.
I could have escalated the issue; but instead of spending another 20 minutes dealing with a manager that day, I waited a day or two and spent only five when I called back.