The other day I went through a rather mundane challenge... I was running Office365 on one machine - but didn't like that machine, returned it and got another one, a new one. Well all I needed to do was re-install Office365, that I need to edit and see revisions of research reports.
Well - the process started by noon on Thursday, and I was finally done on Friday by close to 10 AM - close to 24 hours. I don't want to dig into the details - but at some point I started tweeting about my progress and created this Storify if you want to visit some of the highlights you can find them here.
But what we can learn from this is, that the reality of customer support, even at a deep pocketed company like Microsoft, is ... pretty sad. Maybe I had a bad day, was just unlucky, had agents at the end of their shift etc... but I don't believe that - given the nature of the observations I was able to make.
Solid Products - less support
All issues seemed to be around downloading and installing the Office365 install files. I realize they are huge, but not larger than other downloads I do (development environments, legally purchased movies etc). This whole problem could have been avoided with a more solid, fault free download.
And typical, like many high tech companies - Microsoft tries to not eliminate the problem at the root - but implements workarounds... I was surprised Office comes with repair tools - a quick repair tool and a internet repair tool (which takes longer, not sure why the internet name would make it look like it take longer, but ok). And indeed these tools work, on the original machine one of the repairs helped me to install Office365. But how about instead making sure that the install files are not having issues in the first place? The leaner approach that certainly is.
Worse - Microsoft bends its own rules. At least the ones from the past when a Windows program needed to un-install again. I have seen plenty of bad and unclean uninstalls - but I never in my 20 or so years of using Windows (ok, dated myself Windows 2.1 was the first Windows I ever used) - had a program that would not un-install itself... but now I had Office from Microsoft themselves - and knew I was in trouble:
And finally I cannot prove it - there maybe an issues with authentication with Microsoft. Somewhere between Microsoft ID and Office email address there was a snafu. Can't pin point what it was, it surely wasn't solved by deleting browser properties - we tried this three times - but something in the back-end did not work (as I could not log in).
Confused about Microsoft ID - don't worry Microsoft is, too
In all three conversations I had with Microsoft 1st level support - they had me try to login with my Microsoft ID and alternatively with my new Office365 email ID. Well turns out - as confirmed by the last support agent who finally fixed my problem - it has always been and is only the Office365 ID you should use to login into Office365. Seems intuitive - but 3 support agents had me try another path. How and why it finally worked - I was not privy to the root cause.
Support best practices are... hard
Interesting enough - every of the 10 agents I talked to asked for a callback number in case we would get disconnected. Very good practice - only you need to call back when the line drops. In my case 3 times. So why ask for the number when you do not call back - or your agents do not have the capability to call back?
And of course you should have a knowledge base and trained support agents. I mentioned the confusion on the Microsoft vs Office365 ID. But we also went down dead ends like switching browsers, deleting cookies etc. At no point I had the impression the agents were working on a cohesive script.
Moreover you want to make sure your agents know where to transfer calls. All first level support agents knew I had a problem with Office365 - but I got routed twice to the wrong 2nd level support. No idea why. But frustrating for the customer and this costs Microsoft real money.
It was good to see, that I was a member of four personal, warm transfers, but I had to start from scratch every time. It does not look that the agents are working on one common system - as I had to re-answer same and similar questions again and again.
But on the downside there is always some signal and signal strength loss with every transfer in the VoIP ether - so two times the 3rd level agent could not hear me anymore... so obviously the signal boosting does not work well enough.
Lastly - global remote support is not an easy task. But you should be aware of the time zone where you client is in. One 2nd support agent told me that the next level of support is gone - because it was after 10 PM PST, but well it was 9:17 PM PST.
Needless to say every agent I talked to was friendly, patient, polished and professional.
Make your support agents life easier
Only the 9th agent logged a case and I got a service request number. But all other agents beyond 1st level always asked me for a service request number... so make it a practice to log a case and generate a number right away.
And anyone who came up with these order number format nncnccnn-nnnc-nnnn-nccn-nncnccnnncnn needs to call India and pass 10 order numbers across the line every day... it took me 2-3 minutes to get that monster across the phone line... so make it easier for the support situation.
Social practices are ... harder
I wasn't private about the problem anymore - used the Twitter hashtag #OfficeSaga and tweeted every step along the way. Some follow Twitter users re-tweeted. I addressed tweets to @Mircrosoft and @Office. But the social pickup came when it was all done... and typical social networks - a Twitter user replied - even before me (inside joke guess at #HANA speed):
Since then - nothing, nada, zilch... so when you engage in social relationship management - then you need to monitor earlier, be faster and round the interaction up.
Biggest Concern
The agent that managed to help me at the end of the day is working in a team, that is only available 9-5 PST. That is hardly enough coverage for software support in a country like the US. Yes - I had an option to continue to emergency and productions issue support - but that did not seem adequate for an Office install issue - I have been on the other end too many times to do this... but Office buyers and users deserve a better time coverage in my view. Unless Microsoft shows me, that I am the only one calling in in after hours... but empirically I doubt that - since I got the custom due to unexpected call volumes... message right at 8 AM. So plenty of backlog.
Advice
If you are in charge of support somewhere and reading this - hope your team does better. If not and you are aware of the weak points - then address them asap. If you think you are stellar - then pick up the phone and try a few warm transfers and see when the nth agent can't hear you anymore.
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MyPOV
Maybe it was just bad luck. But it showed some systemic issues in customer support, that I would have thought a well funded, high tech company like Microsoft would solve better. Concerns me about the general support experience out there. Good luck next time you have to call 1-800...