Tech Support: The Good, Bad & Ugly

Vizio and Microsoft score high marks on this consumer tech support report card. Apple, AT&T and LG do not fare as well.

Over the last few months, my friends, my family and I all had some tech support issues… with a combo HD-DVD/Blu-ray Player from LG; a camcorder from Hitachi; a Vizio TV, a Media Center Desktop PC from Dell and HP (using Vista Service Pack 1); a switchover from Cable to DSL and back to Cable a whole house Wi-Fi audio system and an Apple iPhone.

Which do you think got fixed first, what was last? Wrong! Keep guessing.

Since hardly anything in this high tech age works perfectly from the get go, it is sometimes the manufacturer’s or service provider’s customer/tech support that makes the difference between a happy, repeat customer and a pull-out-the-hair, I- will-always-hate-this- company experience. And, unfortunately, thanks to all the new features, even usually reliable TV makers have added, the learning curve or usability experience is also going downhill fast.

The Good
If you throw in the fact that many products now have to partially rely on the Internet or cable and telephone companies, well, you do the math. The odds on getting good service from almost any service provider is not good. If you look at some recent industry statistics, a few of the of the most notorious offenders in the “we don’t care about you” product categories are… Microsoft - in all aspects of computing and Vizio - in TVs.

But surprise-surprise friends, neighbors and family recently had great experiences with the customer and tech support groups at Vizio and Microsoft. Both companies (on an image improvement campaign) were quick to answer the phone and unbelievably quick to solve a problem or two and to act on the issues with the least amount of hoops to jump through. And they were the leaders during our recent excursion into customer and tech support hell.

My neighbors 60-inch Vizio Plasma TV purchased at BJs wholesale club wouldn’t work at all except for an occasional blurry screen. My neighbor called the phone number on the install booklet and Vizio sent out a repair person in one day. He diagnosed the problem and offered either an on-site repair which might take a few hours or a replacement TV. My neighbor chose a replacement and the unit arrived on schedule and was up and running perfectly the next day.

In the case of Microsoft, many of the video features expected to be cleaned up by the download of Vista’s first system upgrade called Service Pack 1, actually caused more problems for my experienced PC and video-editing friends. But after getting Microsoft tech support and the group specially assigned for Vista issues, my friend was guided through every stage of the download, re-install and even helped out with some user-caused problems. Microsoft took over his PC with a newly revamped remote repair console, walked and talked him through the issues and made sure the system worked before signing off.

The Bad
Now my insurance guy, who relies on his iPhone for making money off my family and others and, even more importantly, needs to be there for the occasional home or car emergency, was out of luck the last few weeks. The usually reliable Apple Inc. not only didn’t admit it had a problem but its partner, AT&T, also relinquished its spot as a top customer care provider by not having a fix ready for its increasingly vulnerable network. What made matters worse is, if you also had AT&T DSL or AT&T landline service, it was nearly impossible to get through to the new Ma Bell, because they didn’t anticipate how many resources the wireless and wired company would need to deal with for severe technology issues in two unrelated parts of the company.

Apple’s iPhone problems resulted in consistently bad cell-phone reception everywhere in the country for many users over the iPhone-AT&T network. Many iPhone-ites were also effected by almost non-existent web- browsing and loads of related and unrelated issues that occurred at the same time. But Apple, known for mostly manageable iPod tech support and above average Mac Computer support was unprepared for the newest iPhone problem.

What may make matters worse, now that a quick fix for iPhoners was put in place, was that reportedly, the company will not ramp up for any further disruptions believing that its customer base is so loyal that it will put up being a sucker. The recent iPhone patch, and AT&T fix, is supposed to be only temporary. So my insurance guy and yours, too, might be out of service again soon.

Phone and computer companies have always been known for disrespecting their customers, but a CE - TV maker? And what happens when the TV maker needs an online support system to solve its problems? Recently my niece had some issues with a terrific LG HD-DVD/Blu-ray player. I have the same unit and agreed to make the call to LG, while she chased her kids. I got through fast enough to tech support, who diagnosed the problem over the phone and indicated, that the problem was known and because my nieces’ warrantee expired, it would be $154 to repair it. She loves the player and because she is unluckily one of the people who collected many movies on HD-DVD she was willing to repair it.

Now things got interesting when customer support asked me to hang on while I got switched to the pickup and delivery part of LG, where my packaging directions would come from. The 25-minute wait on hold led me to hear that LG provided support for technological issues for everything from washer dryers to DVD players on their web site.

In addition, the message stated there are firmware and downloadable fixes for many products. The wait was so long that I peeked at the LG web-site and voila, there was a known anomaly about the player and a suggested “free” upgrade and fix for it…. talk about one hand not knowing about the other. My nieces’ download was quick, her device working perfectly, no money spent and now I await the issue to affect my player.

The Ugly
But now the fun really starts. I have an original five year-old HP media Center PC in one room and a new video-enabled Mac in another and a ten year-old rebuilt Dell in another. All I wanted was enough band-width to run my small home network so that I can edit video and audio files and transfer the same from room to room. Cablevision wanted another $40 a month to renew my contract for high-speed voice and data and TV. AT&T ‘s local adds talked about a new DSL even faster than Cable and with this speed I could use Cinema Now, Netflix and other services and actually save money on pay cable stations.

No matter what service I chose it would need a video (HDTV) capable N level router from D-Link, Linksys, 2wire or Belkin. I chose 2wire because it came for less money with the AT&T package. Just say the nightmare started then because there was not enough bandwidth to run my printer no less do some fancy footwork with room to room audio and video. AT@T, which seeming took at least 25-45 minutes to reach after each call, blamed its 2wire for not operating properly. I quickly dumped Ma Bell and switched back to Cablevision which promised to actually have a technician in my home who knew about routers, bandwidth and whole home media. 

The technician arrived bright and early and had the phone and Internet working in minutes and my brand new D-Link N-series video-gaming-everything Wi-Fi router in hand. Browsing speed went up 300-percent and with that speed, I was confident that my whole home video solution, albeit a little more expensive with Cablevision, would be a reality.

The expert and very patient Cablevision guy couldn’t get the D-Link router working, even after a 3-way call… the Cablevision guy, the D-Link guy and Cablevision. I was ready to give up multimedia for good when a support lady from Cablevision called to say she had about 100 calls last month concerning the same issue and that D-Link forgot to do one small software upgrade in its product which could and would disable any Internet access for any Wi-Fi product linked to a users’ home network.

I called D-Link and, this time, a sheepishly low voiced, level two tech support man admitted that, yes, their products had a bug that might make any and all of their new super video routers not work with a high speed home system. I then had to disconnect the router, reattach the modem and download a patch from the D-Link web site, log on again with Cablevision. Only then did my home network miraculously appear.

But, wait, there’s more! In the time it took to fix this D-Link problem, my PC was apparently vulnerable to attacks from the outside during its sporadic Internet access and, you guessed it, it was full of spam and viruses.

A quick call to my anti-virus maker’s hot line (Webroot Anti-Virus) was actually answered in less than a minute. The support person was already aware of this latest spam-virus menace and, like the good Microsoft repair man (can you say Maytag?), cleaned-up my hard drive and restored my sense of self worth and faith in mankind and computer kind for another day.

Do you all have any nightmare stories of times wasted on hold?  I’m sure you do. So share and we can compare notes…