I have not received the kind of service I would expect from Microsoft. My suggested options were unacceptable.
Here is a saga of great frustration with Microsoft Complete customer service on a laptop ( a Dell Inspiron 15 with an AMD CPU, 15.6 ” touchscreen, 8 GB memory and 1 TB hard drive )*I purchased in June of last year – 2016. By the way, I paid about $130 for this 1 year support agreement on both hardware and software.
I had ignored the fact that the Wi-Fi connection would not connect until this week. I know that was stupid but I thought I was doing something wrong – not that it was a hardware failure.* I final decided to deal with this beginning on February 27, 2016. I spent 5 hours on the phone in total on that day while having a Microsoft technician remote into my laptop using my hardwired connection to my router at home.
He ran the same diagnostics that I had. I must have told my story over 5 times to various people I talked to on my calls that day. I was given two choices to resolve my hardware problem.
Take my laptop to one of four stores in the Bay area – a distance of 100 – 125+ miles for me from a suburb of Sacramento, CA. I couldn’t believe that there wasn’t a store in the state capital area! They would repair it or replace for an additional fee. I was also told there might be a deductible of $50-100.
Send my laptop in and wait 2-8 weeks for it to be returned to me.
I talked to the support line twice on the next day but wasn’t able to hear or understand what was being said to me. So, the gentleman I was speaking with last on Tuesday said that he would call me at 8:00*AM my time on Wednesday. Needless to say he did not call at 8:00 AM. I was able to get through to someone who explained he was the only one taking calls to tier 3 and had to take inbound calls and couldn’t call me because of this.
I COULDN’T BELIEVE THAT MICROSOFT WAS SO LEAN THAT THEY ONLY HAD 1 PERSON AT THE TIER 3 LEVEL TO DEAL WITH UNHAPPY CUSTOMERS. WOW!!!!!
As a result, I decided to contact the closest store and see what my options were if I brought it into them.* The manager I spoke with was very accommodating and I made an appointment to meet her at her store on Friday early afternoon*in Corte Madera which is near Santa Rosa on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge – a 200 mile round trip..* Her name is Addy. I would recommend her very highly because she was someone at Microsoft who really seemed to care about my concern.
She offered to get me the best price she could on a replacement laptop as mine was no longer available. I was going to pay about $50 to get*a new one which was equivalent in features.
Later on Wednesday afternoon, I was contacted by a “manager over*tier 3*– Microsoft Complete support”. He offered me the option to do what is called an advanced exchange. If I sent my laptop to them, they would send me a replacement once they knew mine was en route. I was able to print a label and packed my system in the original packaging and took it to the UPS store near me. I received a tracking number which I have been following. I still have not received the promised replacement laptop and here it is late on Saturday afternoon.
If you feel like I do, this is a reason to believe all of the other similar stories I have found about Microsoft’s poor commitment to fulfilling their responsibility to its customers.
As much as it is my power to do so, I will never buy another hardware product from Microsoft. I wonder if they support their own hardware like the Surface platform, or the Windows phone*or Xbox. Comments are very welcome and share this story everywhere you can.
I will comment if and when I receive what was promised me. I have tried to contact the person who promised me the replacement twice yesterday with no success or answers to my voicemails. I also asked the manager I was potentially going to visit and she said she would do her best to help me.
It is so bad that I would almost encourage my client to drop Microsoft’s products from their systems and go to Linux and Google apps or move to Apple exclusively for hardware and software – procuring these through a source known as TechSoup – an organization dedicated to getting hardware and software products for 501c3 organizations at a very reduced cost and many times even free.
I will be sending a copy of this*post to every on-line community I can find and blast Microsoft off the face of the Earth – figuratively speaking.
Here is a saga of great frustration with Microsoft Complete customer service on a laptop ( a Dell Inspiron 15 with an AMD CPU, 15.6 ” touchscreen, 8 GB memory and 1 TB hard drive )*I purchased in June of last year – 2016. By the way, I paid about $130 for this 1 year support agreement on both hardware and software.
I had ignored the fact that the Wi-Fi connection would not connect until this week. I know that was stupid but I thought I was doing something wrong – not that it was a hardware failure.* I final decided to deal with this beginning on February 27, 2016. I spent 5 hours on the phone in total on that day while having a Microsoft technician remote into my laptop using my hardwired connection to my router at home.
He ran the same diagnostics that I had. I must have told my story over 5 times to various people I talked to on my calls that day. I was given two choices to resolve my hardware problem.
Take my laptop to one of four stores in the Bay area – a distance of 100 – 125+ miles for me from a suburb of Sacramento, CA. I couldn’t believe that there wasn’t a store in the state capital area! They would repair it or replace for an additional fee. I was also told there might be a deductible of $50-100.
Send my laptop in and wait 2-8 weeks for it to be returned to me.
I talked to the support line twice on the next day but wasn’t able to hear or understand what was being said to me. So, the gentleman I was speaking with last on Tuesday said that he would call me at 8:00*AM my time on Wednesday. Needless to say he did not call at 8:00 AM. I was able to get through to someone who explained he was the only one taking calls to tier 3 and had to take inbound calls and couldn’t call me because of this.
I COULDN’T BELIEVE THAT MICROSOFT WAS SO LEAN THAT THEY ONLY HAD 1 PERSON AT THE TIER 3 LEVEL TO DEAL WITH UNHAPPY CUSTOMERS. WOW!!!!!
As a result, I decided to contact the closest store and see what my options were if I brought it into them.* The manager I spoke with was very accommodating and I made an appointment to meet her at her store on Friday early afternoon*in Corte Madera which is near Santa Rosa on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge – a 200 mile round trip..* Her name is Addy. I would recommend her very highly because she was someone at Microsoft who really seemed to care about my concern.
She offered to get me the best price she could on a replacement laptop as mine was no longer available. I was going to pay about $50 to get*a new one which was equivalent in features.
Later on Wednesday afternoon, I was contacted by a “manager over*tier 3*– Microsoft Complete support”. He offered me the option to do what is called an advanced exchange. If I sent my laptop to them, they would send me a replacement once they knew mine was en route. I was able to print a label and packed my system in the original packaging and took it to the UPS store near me. I received a tracking number which I have been following. I still have not received the promised replacement laptop and here it is late on Saturday afternoon.
If you feel like I do, this is a reason to believe all of the other similar stories I have found about Microsoft’s poor commitment to fulfilling their responsibility to its customers.
As much as it is my power to do so, I will never buy another hardware product from Microsoft. I wonder if they support their own hardware like the Surface platform, or the Windows phone*or Xbox. Comments are very welcome and share this story everywhere you can.
I will comment if and when I receive what was promised me. I have tried to contact the person who promised me the replacement twice yesterday with no success or answers to my voicemails. I also asked the manager I was potentially going to visit and she said she would do her best to help me.
It is so bad that I would almost encourage my client to drop Microsoft’s products from their systems and go to Linux and Google apps or move to Apple exclusively for hardware and software – procuring these through a source known as TechSoup – an organization dedicated to getting hardware and software products for 501c3 organizations at a very reduced cost and many times even free.
I will be sending a copy of this*post to every on-line community I can find and blast Microsoft off the face of the Earth – figuratively speaking.
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