Fun_People Archive
30 Oct
Microsoft Technical Support vs. The Psychic Friends Network

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 100 16:43:18 -0800
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Subject: Microsoft Technical Support vs. The Psychic Friends Network

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From: Gene Spafford <spaf@cerias.purdue.edu>
From: nobody@EUNUCH.DDG.COM (Dallas, by way of Werner)

    Microsoft Technical Support vs. The Psychic Friends Network

In the course of a recent Microsoft Access programming project, we had
three difficult technical problems where we decided to call a support
hotline for advice. This article compares the two support numbers we tried:
Microsoft Technical Support and the Psychic Friends Network. As a result
of this research, we have come to the following conclusions: 1) that
Microsoft Technical Support and the Psychic Friends Network are about equal
in their ability to provide technical assistance for Microsoft products
over the phone; 2) that the Psychic Friends Network has a distinct edge
over Microsoft in the areas of courtesy, response time, and cost of support;
but 3) that Microsoft has a generally better refund policy if they fail to
solve your problem.

In the paragraphs that follow, we will detail the support calls we made
and the responses we received from each pport provider. We will follow this
with a discussion of the features provided by each support provider so that
readers can do their own rankings of the two services.

Our research began when we called Microsoft regarding a bug that we had
detected when executing queries which pulled data from a Sybase Server into
Microsoft Access. If we used the same Access database to query two databases
on the same server, we found that all of the queries aimed at the second
database that we queried were sent to the first database that we had
queried. This problem existed no matter which database we queried first.
Dan called Microsoft's Technical Solutions Line, gave them $55, and was
connected with an official Microsoft Access technical support person. As
Dan began to explain the problem, the support person interrupted him, and
told him that since it was clear that it was not just a problem with Access
but with the two programs together, Microsoft would not try to help us.
They did,however, have a consultant referral service with which he would
be glad to connect us. Dan then asked if we could have our $55 refunded,
since Microsoft was not going to try to answer to our question. The tech
support person responded by forwarding Dan to the person in charge of giving
refunds. The person officially in charge of giving refunds took Dan's credit
card info again, after which Dan asked about the referral service.  It was
too late, however -- the refund folks could not reconnect Dan with the tech
support guy he'd been talking with, nor could he put Dan in touch with the
referral service hotline. End of Call One.

Our second call came when Dan was creating some line graphs in Microsoft
Access. Microsoft Access actually uses a program called Microsoft Graph to
create its graphs, and this program has a "feature" that makes the automatic
axis scale always start the scale at zero. If all of your data are between
9,800 and 10,000 and you get a scale of 0 to 10,000, your data will appear
as a flat line at the top of your graph -- not a very interesting chart.
Since Dan was writing Visual Basic code to create the graphs, he wanted to
be able to use Visual Basic code to change the graph scaling, but he could
not find anything in the help files that would tell him how to do this.
After working with Microsoft Graph for a while, Dan concluded that it
probably didn't have the capability that he needed, but he decided to call
Microsoft just to make sure. Dan described his problem to the technical
support person, whom we'll call Microsoft Bob. Microsoft Bob said he'd
never gotten a call about Microsoft Graph before. He then left Dan on hold
while he went to ask another support person how to use Microsoft Graph.
Microsoft Bob came back with the suggestion that Dan use the online help.
Dan, however, had already used the online help, and didn't feel that this
was an appropriate answer for a $55 support call.  Microsoft Bob didn't
give up, though. He consulted the help files and learned to change the
graph scale by hand and then began looking for a way to do this via code.
After Microsoft Bob had spent about an hour on the phone with Dan learning
how to use Microsoft Graph, Dan asked for a refund since he had no more
time to spend on the problem. Microsoft Bob refused the refund, however.
He said he wouldn't give up, and told Dan that he would call back the next
week.

Microsoft Bob did call back the following week to admit failure. He could
not help us. However, he couldn't give us a refund either.  Microsoft Bob's
supervisor confirmed Microsoft Bob's position. While Microsoft Technical
Support hadn't solved our problem, they felt that a refund was inappropriate
since Microsoft Technical Support had spent a lot of time not solving our
problem. Dan persisted, however, explaining that if Microsoft Bob actually
knew the program, he would have been able to give Dan a response much
sooner. The supervisor made no guarantees, but he instructed Dan to check
his credit card bill at the end of the month. The supervisor explained that
if Dan saw that the charge was still there at the end of the month,then he
would know that he hadn't gotten a refund.  End of Call Two.

Our third call to Microsoft involved using the standard file save dialog
from within Microsoft Access to get a file name and directory string from
a user in order to save an exported file. The documentation didn't make it
clear how to do this using Visual Basic code within Microsoft Access, and
Dan decided to call Microsoft to ask if and how a programmer could do this.
The technical support person he reached told him he was asking about a
pretty heavy programming task.  He cheerily informed Dan that he'd called
the wrong number and advised Dan to call help for Visual Basic, not Access
($195 instead of $55). This technical support person was extraordinarily
helpful in getting Dan his refund. End of Call Three.

Stymied by our responses from Microsoft, we decided to try another service
provider, the Psychic Friends Network. There are several noticeable
differences between Microsoft and the Psychic Friends Network.  Microsoft
charges a flat rate per "solution," which is a single problem and can be
handled in multiple phone calls. As described above, Microsoft may or may
not issue a refund of their fee if they fail to provide a solution for your
problem. The Psychic Friends Network charges a per minute fee. They do not
offer a refund if they cannot solve your problem. However, unlike Microsoft,
they will not charge you extra if they provide more than one solution per
call.

We decided to test the Psychic Friends Network by asking them the same
questions that we had asked Microsoft Technical Support. We called them
and were quickly connected with Ray, who was very courteous and helpful.
Like Microsoft Bob, Ray quickly informed us that he wasn't fully up to date
on the programs that we were working with, but he was willing to help us
anyway. We started off with our first problem: making a connection from
Microsoft Access to two different Sybase Servers. Ray worked hard on this
problem for us. He sensed that there was a problem with something
connecting, that something wasn't being fulfilled either in a sexual,
spiritual or emotional way. Ray also identified that there was some sort
of physical failure going on that was causing the problem." Do you mean
that there's some sort of bug?" we asked. Ray denied that he knew about
any sort of bug in the software. "Are you sure there's not a bug?" we asked.
Ray insisted that he did not know of any bug in the software, although he
left open the possibility that there could be some bug in the software that
he did not know about. All in all, Ray did not do much to distinguish
himself from Microsoft Technical Support. He wasn't able to solve our
problem for us, and he wasn't able to confirm or deny that a bug in
Microsoft Access was causing the problem. We then asked Ray our question
about using Visual Basic to set the axes of a chart. Ray thought hard about
this one. Once again he had the sense that something just wasn't connecting,
that there was some sort of physical failure that was causing our problem.
"Could it be that it's your computer that's the problem?" he asked. "Is
this something that happens just on your computer, or have you had the same
problem when you've tried to do the same thing on other computers?"  We
assured Ray that we had the same problem on other computers, then asked
again, "This physical failure that you're talking about, do you mean that
there's some sort of bug?" Once again he assured us that there wasn't a
bug, but that he didn't know how to solve our problem. "I sense there's
some sort of sickness here, and you're just going to have to sweat it out.
If you'd like, you can call back tomorrow.  We have a couple of guys here,
Steve and Paul, and they 're much better with computer stuff than I am."
To conclude our research, we asked Ray about our problem with the standard
file dialog box."  It's the same thing as the last one," he told us.
"There's some sort of sickness here, and you're just going to have to sweat
it out. There is a solution,though,and you're just going to have to work
at it until you get it."

Conclusions:

In terms of technical expertise, we found that a Microsoft technician using
Knowledge Base was about as helpful as a Psychic Friends reader using Tarot
Cards. All in all, however, the Psychic Friends Net work proved to be a
much friendlier organization than Microsoft Technical Support.  While
neither group was actually able to answer any of our technical questions,
the Psychic Friends Network was much faster than Microsoft and much more
courteous. Which organization is more affordable is open to question.  If
Microsoft does refund all three "solutions" fees, then they will be the
far more affordable solution provider, having charged us no money for having
given us no assistance. However, if Microsoft does not refund the fees for
our call regarding Microsoft Graph, then they will have charged us more
than 120% of what the Psychic Friends charged, but without providing the
same fast and courteous service that Psychic Friends provided.

Microsoft Tech Support (800) 939-5700
The Psychic Friends Network (900)-407-6611

© 2000 Peter Langston