The Worst Customer Service Ever

When I started this blog, my goal was always to help other businesses by offering tips and advice based on my own experiences as a small business owner, and on my professional training as a programmer and project manager. I wasn't looking for a platform or to make a name for myself, I just thought I could be helpful and maybe tell some interesting stories (also, if I'm being brutally honest, I also like to talk at length, so a blog seemed like a good outlet for a socially awkward person like me).

Today's post is nothing like anything I've written before. I can only call it helpful in that, at best, it is a perfect example of what not to do. Sometimes, a company does something so bad, its only purpose could be to serve as a warning to others. Today, I want to talk about the worst customer experience I've ever had.

The Setup
For those that don't know, my work laptop has actually been dying for the last several months. Some of the components have stopped working, a few keys on the keyboard are starting to fail, and it's just generally been going to pieces. This has, obviously, made getting my work done more difficult than normal. Last month, I finally reached the point that I didn't feel I could work around the issues or put it off any longer, so I spent a good deal of time researching options, and purchased a new laptop online from one of the major computer manufacturers. I've decided not to name names here, though really, I have every right to. I could easily turn this post into a bashing session, but ultimately I think the point is still the same without calling out a specific company for their terrible practices - any large company could just as easily be this bad, without proper checks and balances in their system.

In any case, suffice it to say that I purchased the new laptop online, from a reputable 3rd party retailer, and had it shipped. Since I had to buy it anyway, and it was for work, I went ahead and purchased a much higher end model than I normally would, with some upgraded hardware that would be useful for the graphic design and rendering work I sometimes do. Now normally, I would have bought the parts and built the computer myself from scratch, as us IT people often do, but I was in a rush to stop using the nearly useless old computer and get up and running again, so I couldn't afford the time to wait for all the parts to come in - I needed an out of the box solution this time.

The Problem
So the laptop arrives, and I start working on getting all my software installed, my backups of my work files moved over, and all my settings configured the way I need them to do my work. It was a beefy system, with nearly triple the RAM (memory) of my old computer, a current generation processor (fully 5 steps up from my old computer), and a high end graphics card, so I expected everything would be fast and smooth, and I'd be back to work in no time.

Much to my surprise, the new computer was sluggish, unresponsive, and seemed to be really struggling running even basic programs. "Windows," I thought to myself, "always making the newer versions bigger and slower." So I started doing a full system clean despite the fact that it was brand new, and should be running much better than my old computer did even if it hadn't been on its last leg already.

I downloaded all the Windows updates, updated all my drivers, deleted a bunch of unnecessary junk they install on new computers to spam and advertise at you, all the free trial software that runs in the background at all times slowing down the machine, and all the other things us techies use to clean a system and speed it up for everyday use. Nothing changed. I did some diagnostic testing, and determined that the graphics card was faulty. It told Windows it was working properly, and the software that came with it claimed everything was fine, but the card was not actually functioning - it never turned on when a program required additional graphics resources or rendering, so it effectively didn't exist. This was why everything was running slow - the system thought it was using the graphics card to run programs, but the card wasn't doing anything, so it all slowed to a crawl.

Now, these high end graphics cards are extremely expensive, easily accounting for $500 or more of the system price, so having it not work perfectly is completely unacceptable, especially since the whole reason I'd chosen a system with a dedicated graphics card was to improve my ability to do graphics rendering work. Obviously, this was going to have to be fixed.

"Support"
After trying for a few days to fix it myself with re-installs, software patches, alternate drivers, and other low- to mid-level tech support troubleshooting (that is my job, after all), I decided it really must be a hardware problem and beyond "normal" fixing, so I'd have to go to the manufacturer to verify the hardware failure and have the part or whole machine replaced. At this point, I'd already done everything that a level 1 or level 2 support representative would try to fix the problem, and had come up short. So I looked up the manufacturer's info, and contacted support.

They didn't offer tech support over the phone unless you paid them (this was a red flag), they only offered online chat. God knows what you're supposed to do if the computer won't even turn on. I quickly explained to the level 1 tech, whose entire job is basically to get people to reboot and see if the problem goes away, and asked to have the matter escalated to a level 2 tech who might have actual troubleshooting knowledge to see if there were specific things related to their brand I should try that I hadn't already thought of.

Much to my surprise, the level 1 tech refused to escalate the issue. Using their support interface, he connected remotely to my computer, and pulled up the device manager to show me the graphics card was "working" (i.e. the software was not actively displaying an error). I stated again everything I'd done to troubleshoot the issue myself, and pointed to some of the benchmark tests I'd run to prove the card wasn't kicking in to handle the load it was supposed to. He was polite, but unhelpful, insisting that since the device manager said everything was fine, there was nothing they could do. It was my problem if the system did not perform as expected under "specific circumstances in individual programs."

If I liked, he said, I could pay to receive level 2 tech support, and they would be able to troubleshoot the performance of individual programs. I refused, again stating that I wouldn't pay for tech support for a faulty component, and that I wanted the matter escalated. At this point, he offered to bring a supervisor into the chat to assist us. I agreed.

After about 10 minutes of waiting, the supervisor connected into the chat. He was rude, condescending, and refused to listen to my evidence. He repeated what the level 1 tech said, used the remote connection to show me a few things on the computer, explained what those things meant incorrectly (proving that, like the level 1 tech, he didn't actually know what he was talking about, but was just following a script), and refused my request to conduct any form of test to prove the card was actually functioning. He stated that the device manager, which is only actually intended to identify conflicts or report when a piece of hardware is non-responsive, proved that the card worked correctly, so that fact that it wouldn't run in any particular program I wanted it to was "my problem." He again offered to have me pay for higher tier tech support to troubleshoot my "specific software problems," and when I asked again for him to prove the card was working the way he claimed it was by performing a diagnostic test, he disconnected the support chat without notice, and closed my case with tech support entirely (I received an email notification a few seconds later stating that my issue had been marked as "resolved").

So during the course of the 3 hours I was online with the support department in chat, I was given misinformation repeatedly, lied to, insulted, talked down to, refused support or escalation for a brand new product I'd paid for and did not receive the promised features, and then was hung up on (by a manager!). Needless to say, I was outraged.

I called their support phone line (the one you have to pay for), and asked for a manager. The customer service rep refused to transfer me, stating they could only escalate support calls for paying customers, and told me my issue had been marked as resolved, and that they did not provide escalation for customer service or support chat issues. I informed the representative that I wouldn't pay for support, but that I also wouldn't be keeping the machine, since it was defective. If they wanted to keep me as a customer, they'd have to address my concerns. He refused, stating again that it was "my problem" if the software didn't run as I expected it to. I'd given them a final opportunity, despite everything, to save the sale and have me keep the machine, and they'd flatly refused.

Resolution
After all this, I contacted the 3rd party retailer who I'd actually bought the machine from (and I will happily tell you that this company was New Egg, and they are a FANTASTIC company). They were amazed to hear about the issues I'd had with the laptop manufacturer's tech support, and told me they'd be happy to send me a replacement for the laptop (same make and model) at no charge. They also offered to send me to their own tech support department, who handled standard troubleshooting for the hardware they sold, just in case there really was something simple that I'd overlooked that would get the graphics card working properly.

I took them up on this offer, and spent a quick 10 minutes on the phone with their support department, who easily confirmed via the very benchmark testing I'd asked the manufacturer to perform that the graphics card was indeed faulty and not responding to system requests. He offered to replace the unit for me, but when I explained about the trouble I'd had with the manufacturer and asked him for other options, he told me they would instead allow me to return the unit for a full refund (store credit), so I could select a different model from their store. This is normally not allowed, as defective units are sent back to the manufacturer and replaced with the same model, but because of my issues, he said they were happy to make it right themselves. I agreed, and he emailed me the necessary paperwork to send the laptop back to their depot, and the store credit would be issued once the laptop was received back at the warehouse.

Now THAT is customer service. It really shouldn't have been so hard, right?

Lessons Learned (or "What Not to Do")
So what can we learn from all this? Clearly, big companies can have a problem where one or two rude employees can really sour things for customers, and those types of people can be hard to ferret out due to random monitoring and slow turnaround time on complaints resolution (or willful disregard of customer complaints!). Having customer service reps who have no training on dealing with the products they're supposed to support is a huge issue. Expecting people to pay for tech support for something that might be defective is an absolutely terrible policy. Ultimately, all of this falls under not putting the customer first. If you treat your customers like they're just units of business, and not thinking, feeling people, you're going to get burned.

There are a lot of companies out there that get this wrong, because all they care about is the bottom line, or this quarter's numbers. It doesn't matter if you're big or small - losing sight of why your customers choose you over your competition is always a bad idea. I'm not going to tell you the name of the company this laptop was from, because I think that damages the integrity of my story, but I will tell you clearly that I will NEVER buy a product from this company again, no matter what. And anyone who asks me in person for advice on hardware, I'll tell them to avoid that company, because they're terrible, and they treat their customers terribly.

The best advice I can offer you is this: do your research. It's not enough to find a product you think you want for a price you're comfortable with - the internet is an amazing tool. Use it. Find out what other customers have to say about the company you're thinking of doing business with. A simple Google search can give you tons of information on the company's reputation and past dealings. And if the results are grim, DON'T use them. The only way these big companies will ever learn to stop treating people like a resource to use up and throw out is if we hit them in the wallet. Make them pay for their poor performance by denying them the sales they need to survive. If we as consumers demand better treatment, the companies will eventually have no choice but to comply. We have the money, so we have all of the power, if only we exercise it.

So what do you think about my story? And how about you - what's the worst customer experience you've ever had? What's the best? Let me know in the comments!