Well, twice in two weeks I have had occasion to call tech support for one of our automated systems. To be honest, the product is one of my all-time favorites and I have raved about it before. However, I don’t care for the (new) support system.

When you call in, you have no option to stay on hold. There is no person to talk to. Once you select the support option there is a message where you are asked to leave information, then you are sent straight to voicemail. You’re told they will call you back, but instead you get a text, suggesting how to trouble shoot the issue. I’m sure it’s more efficient for them, but it is just like an online chat where they are multi-tasking and not focused on one issue.

This last call took them about an hour to get back to me the first time. Of course, I was nowhere near the machine when they responded. When the text came, I had already figured out the problem, but I decided to play along and see how long it would take to get to the correct solution.

They went through the list of three or four items, which I checked off as done. I’m not sure they believed me as they asked multiple times for me to do the same thing.

This took probably 30-40 minutes as I had to wait for a text response between each suggestion. After none of those suggestions yielded a solution, I finally got a phone call. Again, the same basic suggestions: it has to be x, y, or z. Well, frustrated with the support, I told them I was away from the machine and it would be a while before I could get back to it and check.

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I left it sit for about three hours to see if they would reach out to make sure the issue was resolved. They did not. So, I sent a text back telling them what I found was the solution. This was not one of their suggestions! I didn’t receive a response until a full 24 hours later when they just restated what I had said and asked if it was correct that the issue was resolved. I have yet to reply.

I’m probably still I little upset that they can’t even get my name right even though I have corrected them and stated it clearly twice on the recording!

Hopefully someone out there is paying attention and some changes can be made to make support more personal and prompt!