Why are technical support so unhelpful?

D

deadman_uk

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 30, 2003
Messages
1,982
I don't know about you but i've been into contact with many gaming companies technical support, from Ubisoft, to Capcom to Codemasters and EA. All I can say is wow... just wow, how dumb and/or unhelpful are these people? The sort of advice they give you is more often than not, utter rubbish. Let me give an example:

I recently purchased Resident Evil 5 for PC and suffer from two problems.

1) You cannot configure the mouse thumb buttons in game (button 4 & 5)
2) You get a black screen on cutscenes with Anti-Aliasing enabled in game (this may only be with AMD hardware and in DirectX 10 mode)

I emailed Capcom, including the same system specifications as I have in my signature and this is their reply:

The game was designed for use with the Xbox 360 controller for PC. Using other dual analog stick controllers may work but it isn't guaranteed. Regarding your video issue make sure you have the latest Direct X9 installed.
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First of all, as shown in my signature and in the email to them, I use Vista, so why they suggest I install the latest DX9 I am not sure. Furthermore, I specifically told them I am running the DX10 exe. I had to then explain that a mouse is not in any shape or form an analogue controller and I mentioned that Rockstar's GTA IV had this same issue which they later fixed with a patch. I asked Capcom if they had plans to officially support thumb buttons via a patch.

I then received a second reply saying the Anti-Aliasing issue has been brought to their attention which is satisfactory, however this is what they said about my other issue:

The game was tested using the Xbox 360 controller for PC. As stated before using any other dual analog input device may not be guaranteed.
Click to expand...
They now acknowledge a mouse is not a dual analogue controller, but now class it as a dual analogue input device?!

I don't always contact these companies for technical support, sometimes I do it to help them out. I report bugs and issues to them and if I become aware of a solution, I inform them such as the case with Assassin's Creed where the game every minute sends data to their server which freezes the game temporarly and when entering battle mode or collecting a flag would result in a 3 second freeze. Despite many attempts, Ubisoft denies this happens and insist it's a problem with my computer, when I know it's a very common problem! It's not just gaming companies, it's hardware companies too! Vista takes a few minutes to detect that my external hard drive is plugged in (fine in XP) which I know happens to everyone with the same drive (I've done my research), yet when I contact Western Digital, they deny it. "It must be a faulty drive" or "Please ensure your system is free from malicious files".

Not all technical support is bad, but in my experience, the majority are. I've had positive dealings with BFG and EVGA but geez getting through AMD/ATI thick head about driver related problems is tough, it seems problems reported 6+ months back still aren't fixed.
 
I've found that most of the people that work in those call centers simply don't have the skills or experience necessary to be truly useful. Even the useful people have to become less useful due to corporate policy in the form of restrictions that limit what they can and can not say.
 
deadman_uk said:
Don't they understand that treating customers this poorly results in a negative image of their company?
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I'm sure they do. But tell that to the $8/hr tech support guy who really just couldn't care less. Then tell it to the support executives who have a bottom line to look out for.
 
It makes me want to work for a good, well known computer/game related company. I'd actually care and give good advice.
 
deadman_uk said:
Don't they understand that treating customers this poorly results in a negative image of their company?
Click to expand...

They do but it's all about costs. Does the amount of customers and revenue they lose from bad technical support make paying tech support folks more money, enforcing stricter hiring policies (requiring more experience and technical skill) become worth while? I doubt it. The other thing is that these companies want their technical support to be able to assist only to exacting and minimal standards. In other words they have to be able to accomplish only very little to satisfactorily determine if the problem is with their software or any other variable.

Passing the buck is the order of the day.
 
they made the game for the console, which usually guarantees flawless operation, requiring little to no user support. Why should they give a damn about hiring a team and spending time training them to support the PC version?
 
hardc0re said:
they made the game for the console, which usually guarantees flawless operation, requiring little to no user support. Why should they give a damn about hiring a team and spending time training them to support the PC version?
Click to expand...

Just because it works well on a console doesn't necessarily mean it will work well on the PC.

I understand what Dan_D means, it's all about money but companies should also try and get a good, stable reputation. I'm put off so much by AMD's catalyst support that I'm considering buying an NVIDIA card next time I upgrade, whether it's the right choice or not. That's not good right? A customer moving away due to poor technical support? If people weren't so greedy, we would all benefit I think.

People, if you have any good (or bad) technical support stories to share, please do.
 
deadman_uk said:
People, if you have any good (or bad) technical support stories to share, please do.
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I had pretty good tech support from Atari when the D2D game I purchased didn't supply a correct serial number for registering and upgrading to Witcher Enhanced version.

They were prompt, easy to deal with, and didnt piss around. Was good! :D
 
deadman_uk said:
It makes me want to work for a good, well known computer/game related company. I'd actually care and give good advice.
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If you got paid what they do, you'd probably stop caring after a while too. Tech support is a very non-motivating job position.
 
people at mcdonalds hate their job even with that soulless smile on their faces.
I wonder how many spit filled burgers their pushing out a day.
 
If people are worried about their tech support giving their company a bad image then why do so many place outsource this dept to India?

ANSWER! They don't care! Its all dollars and cents! If the companies products are generally good then you will keep on buying their products!
 
Mark_Warner said:
Because they don't get paid enough to care.
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I really don't believe a pay increase would make people who don't care enough to do their job well suddenly start caring. Unless they're in danger of being fired, why should they? I've worked with plenty of people like that, and it's never had anything to do with how much we were being paid to do the work.
 
I understand the issue with scripting, but part of the problem is basic reading comprehension (and this is nothing new).

I still think one of the funniest cases I've personnaly seen was right after Luclin launched for Everquest in 2001. There was a busted item combine that involved an item called a "Humming Orb" with a quested hammer. My friend wrote an extremely detailed support request and the emailed response from the support team was great.. it started with:

"I'm sorry to hear about your sound problem..." and proceeded to link him to the technical support department.

Talk about reading one word in an entire email and completly ignoring the rest of it.

I have to say in the past year I've contact support at only 2 or 3 companies (since I can fix almost anything myself it really is a last ditch effort) and the only one I got good support from was EVGA.
 
This is a work around, but it may work fine for your needs - ever used Autohotkey? You might be able to whip up a little script that you can run when you play the game to remap your mouse button keys for you. A little something like...

Code: 
#IfWinActive <GAME WINDOW TITLE>
    xbutton1::<DESIRED KEY FOR FORWARD BUTTON>
    xbutton2::<DESIRED KEY FOR BACK BUTTON>
#IfWinActive
 
rgratto2 said:
This is a work around, but it may work fine for your needs - ever used Autohotkey? You might be able to whip up a little script that you can run when you play the game to remap your mouse button keys for you. A little something like...

Code: 
#IfWinActive <GAME WINDOW TITLE>
    xbutton1::<DESIRED KEY FOR FORWARD BUTTON>
    xbutton2::<DESIRED KEY FOR BACK BUTTON>
#IfWinActive
Click to expand...

Thanks but I am now using my PS2 controller which I actually now prefer over the keyboard and mouse. Even with the thumb buttons being used, the camera gives me a headache when I move the mouse... urgh the mouse support on RE5 is poor, no other game makes me feel like this. With the controller, I am fine.
 
Spewn said:
I really don't believe a pay increase would make people who don't care enough to do their job well suddenly start caring. Unless they're in danger of being fired, why should they? I've worked with plenty of people like that, and it's never had anything to do with how much we were being paid to do the work.
Click to expand...
What people put into their job is most of the time directly related to what they get out of it. Whether that be money or satisfaction, the more they get, the more they give. Of course, there are some people who won't put any effort into their work no matter what the circumstances, but those kinds of people are the minority.
 
It seems half the time, the person on the other end doesn't know what he or she is talking about, possibly due to a lack of training. It's ironic, I am asking for help yet a lot of the time, I actually know more about the problem than the person I am talking to does.
 
my answer to the OP about tech support being whack is... because the customer isn't always right! and tech support staff are stuck with shitty wages listening to idiots who don't know how to follow any basic trouble shooting tips and EXPECT the answer from a guy who answers the phone to whiners all day
 
Yes, customer isn't always right but I know I am right most times because I do my research, I know from reading other peoples comments explaining the exact same problem. As I said, I often contact companies with solutions to their problems but they act as if the problem never existed.

What troubles me is when companies send you an email later saying something like: "You recently conacted us for technical support, how was your experience with us? please click the URL below and leave us feedback.... we value our customers and always try to improve the service we offer"

When a company's technical support is that poor and people here say the company doesn't care about its customers, why do some send emails like the one above asking for feedback?
 
That is stupid. The game was released on PC. Therefore it should entirely be designed to have it's users interface with it through a PC's primary means, the mouse.
 
ever occur to you we, i mean, er, they pretend they don't know what they're talking about? xD
 
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