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Patch reliability is unclear, but widespread attacks make patching prudent. Go ahead and patch, but watch out for potential problems. |
.First off I know many of you will go …uh huh what do you expect of a company that maps your house.. but I love my irobots… until they don’t work. I
[See the full post at: Patch Lady – when support goes too far]
Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher
Susan asked:
Why do technology items have to constantly have such frustrating customer support experiences? Why is this “acceptable” in this industry?
My working theory is that we (the customers) have been entirely too enthusiastic about the offerings that tech companies have put out there, to the point where they think they can get away with anything (you name it: shoddy service; privacy snooping; astronomical pricing) because we’ll just keep buying. Too many of us simply gotta have the newest, shiniest, coolest toys and those of us who beg to differ are just “haterz gonna hate.” And of course they have their legions of volunteer (or paid) apologists ready to jump to their defense.
This has allowed them to ditch the old view that “the customer is always right” in favor of some, umm, algorithm that calculates it’s OK to turn off some percentage of customers because we’ll keep taking their products no matter how badly they abuse us.
We could use a high-profile bankruptcy (or two, or three) among today’s market leaders to show who’s boss and instill some humility in the brilliant twits running them.
I had one of the first Roombas. No automatic emptying, no automatic charging, barely capable of cleaning a single room with a tile floor and almost no obstructions without getting stuck or missing large swaths of space – not to mention needing to be emptied every ten minutes.
Hair and dirt made it non-functional by causing all the bearings to tighten up and ultimately seize, after way too short a lifetime (mere months of use), so I threw it away. Never craved another one. Great idea but it seems to me it’s too much money to waste on something that’s underdesigned and poorly supported.
If the delivery service claims you’ve received all the packages they sent, Support may well believe them over you. Perhaps they figure you’ll eBay the parts to recoup your purchase price. Sadly we’re kind of past the era where companies trust people and vice versa.
-Noel
There are still some places out there who trust the customer at least a bit.
My Cyberpower UPS has a front panel that displays all kinds of neat info. It can be set to show the line voltage, the battery charge percentage, the power draw of all of the devices plugged into it (the mode I use), run time on the battery at the current power usage level, and other things, as well as visual indicators of online status and what not.
Recently, it began going haywire, either lighting all of the LED segments at once or just a random set, with no possibility of any useful info being seen.
The unit was still under warranty, but only just. I called Cyberpower and described the issue, and in a few minutes they told me the front panel with the LEDs must have failed, so they offered to send a new one (as opposed to me sending the whole unit in for repair). They didn’t need the old one back; they just sent the new one on my word. I installed it, and the unit was returned to proper function.
I am sure that they would have allowed me to send the unit to them for repair if I didn’t want to remove the panel myself, but I really didn’t want to have to find a box and go through the hassle of sending it in, so this worked well.
I recently also had a problem with my Logitech speakers for the PC. The left one would cut in and out… often when it was out, a slight tap on the case would restore it temporarily. It was most likely a cracked solder or the like, but I didn’t see any obvious way to open the thing and check. I could easily reflow the solder to fix it, most likely, but it looked like the speakers would be hard to open without damaging them, and I was not going to attempt that while the warranty was available.
I started a ticket on the Logitech site, and they promptly sent me a whole new speaker set, including the base unit with the subwoofer. They didn’t need the old one back either.
It’s good to know that there are still some out there that prize customer service.
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, KDE Neon
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, KDE Neon (and Win 11)
I had a problem some years ago with A Sony TV Video Recorder which would not work properly — brand new out of the box — and the service people were very uncooperative about replacing it with a new one — persistently so.
The consumer laws in my country (AU) give the consumer the choice about Replace, Repair or Refund of a product under warranty.
The store manager where I purchased the unit was just the opposite. He replaced the unit and when it did not work properly, he offered to replace it with a different brand. The panasonic has been working well for years now.
I have a policy to deal with these people — I never buy that brand again, in anything, and I warn friends of my experience. I also recommend the store where I got such good service from the manager.
You might say “what difference would that make”. Maybe not much, but it is my way of dealing with companies who provide such poor service on their products.
It is surprising how word gets around.
mbhelwig
SONY is notorious for poor service and warrantee resolution. From my first Walkman and a later audio item it was the same, ignore, obstruct, or saddle the unfortunate owner with an arcane return process and hoops to jump through. My last SONY product was in the early 1990s and from reviews on Amazon, Yelp, etc. it appears if has not changed.
No matter how good the sale, if an item said warrantee issues have to be resolved by the maker, I will not buy until I have researched the maker’s reputation. I also avoid items that change for the sake of change every few months since that in an of itself tells me repair or replacement with alike item is NOT going to happen.
Fortunately social media does have one good, it is a mighty big squeeky wheel if you are looking for action.
I wouldn’t touch a Sony product with a 10ft pole since the time they’ve decided to install rootkits on their customers PCs. Also, that incident was not exactly isolated.
https://makezine.com/2011/02/24/sonys-war-on-makers-hackers-and-innovators/
Susan Bradley wrote, in the original post:
Seriously of the three promised replacement parts, only one was shipped, the base vacuum robot in particular was not shipped. So off I call again to ask then to follow up. And they indicate they will have to look into it with UPS as it must be a shipping problem.
That would indicate it was in more than one box, unless they mean to tell you that UPS opened the box and took some stuff out. If there was more than one box, there would be more than one tracking number. I’d ask them for the additional tracking numbers so that you could try to figure it out. If they can’t give you one, you know why!
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, KDE Neon
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, KDE Neon (and Win 11)
Susan Bradley wrote, in the original post:
Seriously of the three promised replacement parts, only one was shipped, the base vacuum robot in particular was not shipped. So off I call again to ask then to follow up. And they indicate they will have to look into it with UPS as it must be a shipping problem.
That would indicate it was in more than one box, unless they mean to tell you that UPS opened the box and took some stuff out. If there was more than one box, there would be more than one tracking number. I’d ask them for the additional tracking numbers so that you could try to figure it out. If they can’t give you one, you know why!
Even better: just sign up for the package-management services that UPS and Fedex offer. They’re free, and they’ll notify you as soon as a shipment is entered into their system that has you as the addressee.
You get tracking info before the package is even picked up at the first point in the delivery chain – and it works.
I do have tracking account with UPS. They show one shipment. I know from purchasing them before it should have come it at least two boxes – one for the robot, another for the clean bin.
Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher
Oh dear. I thought about getting a Roomba, but decided against it – although I love the idea of a gadget that would vacuum for me! – mainly because I learned long ago not to purchase appliances unless you can take them back to the shop and kick up a fuss when they don’t work. Then the store will replace them, all right. Otherwise, once they’ve got your money……………………..
Amazon Logistics has had a lot of difficulties with their delivery drivers. In my own case, they could not read the difference between a 3 and a 5 on the apartment numbers. Partly the fault of my apartment community, as they chose a really lousy font for those numbers. Even the Post Office doesn’t get things right every time due to that font.
My point is, the humans who actually make the deliveries can’t always make sense of every number on every residence in every neighborhood. With a bit of practice, our local Amazon Logistics folks have gotten better, but the Postal Service doesn’t assign a regular carrier to our route, so the misdeliveries just keep happening. The latest goof by USPS nearly cost me a fine with our City due to a vehicle excise tax bill being misdelivered during a snow storm.
It happens in every delivery service, not just Amazon or UPS.
-- rc primak
I’ve always put robots that vacuum for you in the same category as one-coat paint, non-drip paint and silent/lightweight hoovers. Great ideas, but in practice more of a marketing con than a viable product, and not to be trusted.
As for customer services, I’ve had pretty mixed experiences in recent years. There are some who pull out all the stops to help you, and there are others that are more interested in the feedback survey you’re going to receive immediately afterwards than in resolving the actual problem.
Five years from now Alexa can fix the Roomba. But not an iRobot, since it is under contract with Google.
-- rc primak
Susan,
I had the similar issue with MS web store. I ordered a surface since business required it. It was to ship and delivered in 2 weeks. After 2 weeks called support, I got an MS support person that barely spoke English. I asked where it is. He look it up and says it was shipped. I said that I do not have it. He would look into it and will call me back. Two days later no call back. I called again. Got another that understood every second or third word. Had to use short sentence to get her to understand my issue. She said that not ship since back order. Why did the first call person not tell me that? She could not say. I asked when back order will be 2 weeks or more. After three weeks, no info again. Call again got another that that seems to understand and speak English. She said that it was shipped yesterday. Four days later got the surface pen. Wait a few days and call again. Got another support person that seems to have been drunk or high as a kite. Finally asked for supervisor. Supervisor said that all three items (Surface, mouse, and pen) were shipped separately and delivered. No they were not. Asked for tracking number that he finally gave after several yelling moments. I look it up and only one of the three was delivered. I asked if he look at the tracking. He said that he look at their system and not the tracking. Their system showed that it was delivered. Mostly one item delivered makes it that all are in their system. Got feed up with MS and try to cancel the order. Could not. Had to cancel with Credit card company. When to local store, and got it in less than 1 hour. Never order anything thru MS website.
When dealing with customer service reps who are not proficient in English, yelling or any other rudeness does not get you better service.
Yes, I know that. I was clam with the reps.
I lost it when the supervisor did not want to give the tracking number of the three separate packages. The yell did help since it turn out he was just a training supervisor. The actual supervisor heard the yelling and started to direct him what he needs to do in the background is what I heard.
I have a PHD in understanding broken English. The result of talking to tech support people for over 20 years. 🙂
Red Ruffnsore
Heh.
There’s one trick that tends to make at least some customer service reps pay attention and be polite.
Go with standard NATO voice-comms English, with procedural structure too.
(Well, it does help having learned that in the military, like myself… no, not a NATO member country here…)
No reason to reinvent things – international military comms procedures have been specifically designed to be workable with people whose language skills are rather variable, and link quality as well…
So rc, you are fluent in Indlish? That’s what is spoken in most cases. You’re lucky.
Can’t go wrong with a manual Bissell: no batteries, no electricity, no fancy, and it works forever.
I still have a canister vacuum I bought from Montgomery Ward in 1975 that I still use. I paid around $80 for it and it still works great! Only thing is, I can’t get bags for it anymore, so I empty the bag myself.
I find helping with the housework means I don’t need a treadmill or exercise machine and it makes my wife happy. Being retired has some rewards, no rocking chair for me.
Thank you, Woody for letting me vent on your platform. At least it made me feel a bit better to get out my customer support frustrations.
Thank you Susan for venting. These companies that have lousy customer support (such as iRobot) will only change their ways when a geek like you who has a platform with many readers catches them in the act. It’s possible that customer support for others that follow will get better because of your detailed rant. Yeah, yeah–I know it’s unlikely. It irritates me that this company appropriated a name that has fantastic connotations for me: “I, Robot” the first publication in the Robot series by Isaac Asimov. That’s where the Three Laws of Robotics made their first appearance, and I will paraphrase to fit the situation:
First Law
A robot may not soil a living room or, through inaction, allow a room to get dirty.
Second Law
A robot must dock onto the Clean Base except where such action would conflict with the First Law.
Third Law
A robot must evacuate its debris bin as long as such evacuation does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
This keeps happening because we don’t pay for support up-front. Consumers are wooed by the features and benefits, but it’s not often that we ask how good the support is before buying. By the time you do need the support you’re trapped, and in one way or another you’re spending time and money again. The manufacturers / developers are like Lily Tomlin’s Ernestine the Operator skit snorting, “We don’t care, because we don’t have to.”
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