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A Flamingly Crappy Day (Long Read[ON TOPIC])


o Machamp o
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TO THE READER:

This note was written out of anger and to share my experiences with Xbox Customer Serive to a community that ACTUALLY CARES about what I am going through. Please Note: This story does contain uses of starred-out F words. Please do not read if this may offend you in any way. Spelling errors exist so don't flame me for it. And just to let you know, thanks for reading, and get ready to hear about my experience, with a bear. Or Bill Gates Minions. :uzi::uzi::uzi::uzi::grab:boom:boxer

 

 

 

Ok. So today, I feel like dusting off the goggles, and switching on the thermals and the Light Laser Gun. Yes, I am talking about none other than Splinter Cell Double Agent, which I just finished on Tuesday. Obviouslly I wanted to give a go with the "New and Improved" SvM. Now personally I am not a fanboy of 1800-4MY-XBOX becuase of some of their horrible customer service, covered up by people that constantly apolozige that your console is f'd up, and friendly people. Ok, so I power up my 360, overjoyed when I see that little Circle get own3d by the green X. Live blade loads up, and pop, No Xbox Live. I check everything I possibly can, then find out that my internet is down. I patientally wait for an hour for the internet to come back up, and when it does, I rush to put my ethernet cable in that modem so I can snap some necks. Judging from what I have already said about the customer service, you probably figured that something was going to happen, waiting for this climax. Well, wait, and you shall recieve

 

"Your connection to Xbox Live cannot be completed" or something like that. Ohh don't we all love that. I go to test my connection and I see that my IP address isn't confirming. Just perfect, after a day of needles and surprise county essays. So anyway, I call up 18004MYXBOX and hear. "Hey, I'm Max!" F*CK YOU MAX! HELP ME WITH MY IP ADDRESS! "So what can I help you with?" So after some rage at this flamer, I get to the IP help thingy. I do the first step that they tell me, then test my connection. While waiting for the connection to actually connect, *KAAABOOOOOSH* my 360 screen freezes and shows black and green boxes. I hang up with Max, and call back. "Hey, I'm Max!" After saying agent about 20 times, I just go with the flow and try to get help with my frozen screen. After not completing all the steps, they FINALLY get me to a person from half way around to world. So he helps me fix the problem then connects me to the XBL department so I can fix my IP test. So first off, I tell him about my recent experience then he tells me how to fix my ip test. Right off the bat, the 360 freezes. What now?

 

I turn off my 360 and turn it back on, and after about an hour on the phone with this guy, he tells me that I should call someone from my ISP to get my IP address, which I already know. So he gives me a refrence number and hangs up. I look at everything that he gave me, and I find a part that he skipped over after the DNS failed. He forgot to tell me about the dns serrvers. So I fix it myself, and FINALLY it works. I jump up and down then go eat dinner.

 

 

(INTERMISSION)[Go take a smoke break, drink break, beer break, bathroom break, or whatever floats your boat.]

 

 

 

So I finish eating, turn on my 360, pop in DA, hit the Xbox Live option on the game, and THE 360 FREEZES AGAIN. Flaming mad, I call back CS, and just rush Max through all the options and get connected to some girl whos probably from Spain. I tell her whats happening, about my screen freezing, and then she CONNECTS ME TO XBOX LIVE DEPARTMENT.

 

So, I talk to some French guy from Xbox Live, then he redirects me back to the hardware department. What happens next? *EHHNHN ENNHNHN* Call, disconnected. So now, the F-Bombs come out, and I'm cursing left and right around my house, and then call them back. I yell at Max for being an asshole and then he connects me to an agent. So I talk to this Mexian girl, and she FINALLY tells me what I want to hear, PROGRESS! So I'm now waiting for a fu*king week to send my 360 out, and until Feb to get it back. So I seriously think that McS should get better help, and people that talk English for an English number, and not someone who stubles to find their words, and actually someone that can HELP ME QUICKLY. And about Max, screw him, and bring back that woman that connected you to everyone, and gave you advice with your little touch tone keypad

 

Feedback is Encouraged

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I know your pain. I had some 360 trouble a few months back myself. It was the longest 3 weeks of my life since I've bought a 360. Nothing to do but work and party. Off topic, how is the Wii? I kind of want a PS3 so I can play the Sopranos game but then they say that it's not compatible with all PS2 games. Long story short, I'm getting a Wii first. First tho will be my HD TV and surround sound.

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I think you are a great story teller.

My 360 died a few mins ago. I'm not calling right now though, for fear of going through that...

So if I won't have my 360 back till febuary, and Wii's are sold out everywhere, what the fuck am i supposed to play?!?!

Time to DS it up I suppose :drunk

 

If you have the means, you do what I did after my 2nd xbox360 death....buy a backup system. Now when I send one in, I have a spare to use in the meantime.

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I am in the business of building and running contact centers, and I despise how Microsoft has approached their customer service call centers. I point to them as the classic way of NOT doing the job right.

 

The agents are all outsourced, which is not bad in and of itself, but has definite complications. The biggest problem is that the agents are not empowered to actually DO anything, and they are not permitted to deviate from their scripts, make exceptions, or provide definitive answers.

 

In addition, there is no service level agreement between the outsourcers and Microsoft that regulates how long Microsoft will take to respond when the outsourcers bump a question to the big M.

 

What Microsoft did was say that they don't care about the quality of service as long as they don't have to be involved. I interviewed with them a couple of times for a position in the department that has oversight on some of the outsourced contact centers, and it was clearly a pathetic, useless department. Not to say that it didn't pay well, and as I was unemployed at the time I could have used the money, but fortunately something better came along.

 

Now I am building a call center for a software company that started in Malaysia, and the whole Malaysian culture is focused on politeness and courtesy and respect (as long as you leave the whole jihad aspect out of it). They are quite focused on making sure the customer is so happy with their experience that they will recommend us to their friends and peers. Not something that Microsoft cares about at all.

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#1. My XBOX is on life support now since its "Unplayable Disc" error message. I called customer support and was told I need a new one.

 

#2. No troubleshooting was involved, other than asking my name. My problem wasnt properly addressed, however something tells me it couldnt have been fixed over the phone but I certainly would have loved to hear some empathy and or compassion from the person reading the script to me.

 

#3. David, I liked your post about outsourcing and call centers...I worked at a CSC for Dish Network for 2 years doing Advanced Tech support for our Satelites and Recievers and we had outsourced one center. The common first sentance out of everyones mouth was "Thank God you speak english"...I dont think outsourcing is bad but in my experience it has been slightly less compassionate and more of a position-filler. During my tenure at Dish, I was able to fix roughly 70-80% of all my calls for that day, and frankly took a LARGE amount of pride in helping fix a problem that someone had. I just dont feel like I get that when I call Microsoft...

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I feel your pain dude ;

I'm in the verge of shotting fucking Max if i hear him one more time and when I get connected with the middle-eastern dude and I tell him that my 360 is scratching the disk (about 5 games all from different stores and different publishers) and making them unplayable he tells me to go to the retail store and switch disk. :confused:

 

I really don't like racial profiling but I was so close to asking him if he knew Borat.

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I really don't like racial profiling but I was so close to asking him if he knew Borat.

Seriously, why do people not want a job with MS, I mean I know its a 6-9 job, but seriously, people who are desperate would take it, and they dont need to outsource jobs or anything to get people to work.
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If you have the means, you do what I did after my 2nd xbox360 death....buy a backup system. Now when I send one in, I have a spare to use in the meantime.

 

Well that doesnt really work for me. Cuz since my mom is buying me a wii and a few games for it, then if I do have to go without a 360, theres my solution. Luckily for me, I have a 2 year warranty from Best Buy, not to mention a warranty from microsoft for buying it before 2006.

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