You know what drives me crazy....

....Well lots of things do (inefficiency, illogical arguments, and much more) but today's craziness is caused by poor customer support.

Being in the Support Business, and having been there much of my life, I am a fair judge of customer support. I believe I am understanding of what a person manning a phone can and can not do. When you received good support you feel good, like you were heard and understood, and bad customer support can make you feel like beating someone down.

So today I'm trying to deal with IT Support; not because I don't know what I'm doing, but because things are just not set up right for what I'm trying to accomplish. I wasn't calling to blame or judge or make life worse; I just wanted it to work right.

So of course it goes badly...

AC: "Hi, I'm trying to do -this- and the default is not set up so I can not see anything. I believe this is the same problem a coworker of mine had regarding the default not being set."
IT: "Did you try and login?"

AC: "Yes, that is how I know I can't see anything."
IT: "Well tell me what you see."

AC: "The page frame (a section of a page on a portal for you non-geeks) is blank and there are no options, errors, or notes of any kind. In fact the HTML for this page frame is empty."
IT: "You mean the whole site is down? You need to call production Support."

AC: "No, the site is up, my default page is not set up right in the system. That is why I called you guys. Can you see my default page and change it?"
IT: "We don't do pages here, we do workspaces, let me see something."

--Time passes--

IT: "Ok, you need to log in to this special email and get a new password."

AC: "Wait, I had a valid password. Why did you change it?"
IT: "I needed to. Trust me, I do this every day. I know what I'm doing."

AC: "Ok, so hold on while I do that."
IT: "Well I wasn't going to hang up on you."

--Login works, but is very slow, got new password. Problem does not get fixed--

AC: "So now what?"
IT: "It must be a problem with your email account, you just didn't get the right information."

AC: "Um, email is working fine. I got the email that the system sent, and that part all worked. The problem is with the page being blank."
IT: "Let me think a moment."

--Several moments pass--

AC: "Ok, can you just check my default workspace and make sure it is set up right? As I said I have a coworker who had the same problem, and it was resolved by changing the value from NULL to a real page."
IT: "No, that is another team. I'll log a case with them for you."

AC: "Wait, you said you do workspaces. Why can't you do this?"
IT: "I can help you edit one, but not set it up."

AC: "Great. Can you send me the case # via email along with a phone number to directly contact them?"
IT: "I'll ask them to contact you."

AC: "Well I'd like that information so I can follow-up with them myself."
IT: "They will contact you."

AC: "So what do I do if they don't? Can I call you back?"
IT: "No, I can't help you further so calling me back is not a good idea. Honestly you will get a call back, we provide excellent customer service here."

--6 hours later, no call back--

However, I will have the last laugh. Once the case is closed I get to fill out a customer survey. *Evil Grin*