I really hate calling customer service numbers and while most companies promise to have excellent customer service, an automated and well built customer computer system, most of them fall short of providing a quick and simple way of dialing in and getting what you want from the vendor. I don’t have a landline and am using a prepaid cell phone and what is annoying is to call a customer and listen through 3-5 minutes of crap. Some vendors even go out of their way and mention all sorts of promotions before you can actually go in and reach a customer …read more

It’s been quite awhile since my issues with the red-ring-of-death (RROD) and working with Microsoft to get everything replaced. Then I had the problems with my Xbox Live service not working anymore.
With those problems there were a number of occasions where I had some telephone conversations and email exchanges with people either employed at or by Microsoft to help their customers that have experienced issues.
For the most part, my experience hasn’t been horrible. It could have been better on occasion but it was nothing like this guy’s.

Pat Thornton, the Journalism Iconoclast, has shared his recent experience with trying to …read more

I was speaking to a friend and fellow blogger, Shea, who shared with me a recent experience she had while trying to deal with someone within Microsoft’s customer service and tech support structure.
Here’s what was shared:
It was a pretty basic call – I was at work, installing Office 2003 (yeah, we’re old school) on my newer PC.  I was using a dinosaur and upgraded.  The dinosaur had a license of Office installed, but since that wouldn’t be used any longer, we were just moving the license to the new PC.
The product key was denied because it was associated with another …read more