Support NeoGAF

[Dee Dee]

Serious question for people who've worked/managed support, why do they make you guys do all the fake pleasantries and feigned concern? Do the people writing the scripts and training really think people are stupid enough to believe it's authentic? There can't exist a single customer who doesn't just just roll their eyes at it or do a silent "why the fuck you wasting my time" sigh?

It can really help take the edge off with agitated customers and at the point where you clearly listed the customer their options, and they still insist on another solution, you just go into a robotic "polite" mode, where you keep listing the same options over and over again and add "I really understand that you are frustrated" and "I really wish there is more I could do to help you" and "I'll make the team aware off this issue and we hope to improve the situation soon" and a lot of "but"s.

The sigh and eye rolling usually start as soon as they realize it's an issue that I will just not be able to fully solve without telling them to wait, give me info they don't have or fix something on their side. Sometimes I just don't have the means to solve something, yet people insist I am just incompetent and being an ass to me will make me solve their issue eventually. The politeness is my only shield to deflect that at that point.

By the way, I have snapped several times and told inulting customers that I'll stop servicing them if they keep insinuating I'm an idiot and refuse to accept my explanations - success chance of this is only 50/50 anyway, and you might get fired for being rude to customers. Polite robot tactic works much better with higher chances of keeping your job.

I have on more than one occasion, had a problem resolved by a supervisor after being blown off by regular support, simply because the supervisors have had greater authority to actually make a different decision not on a script. This is why people do it, because it often works. Sometimes they don't and so just repeat shit in a sterner way, but it's always worth a shot if you are not getting anywhere in my experience.

Well, depends on the type of service I suppose. Unfortunately you sometimes offer customers all you are officially allowed to offer, they complain for your supervisor, who just can't be arsed and gives the customers what they asked for to avoid dealing with it and they walk out thinking "I'll never talk to that one support guy again" then post on the internet somewhere about how they got shit for free for complaining long enough and asking for a supervisor.
This is bad.

When a supervisor gives you another solution then a) your support agent messed up or b) the supervisor is an idiot.
I am not saying none of this happens, I am just saying I haven't worked with incompetent colleagues yet, so I assume that people asking for my supervisor must really enjoy being angry over something or just have too much free time and want to see how far complainig will get them.

 

[liquidtmd]

TLR - OP spent four hours arguing online with customer service about a digital preorder in order to enjoy the convienance of not having to drive 10min to the store and buy cheaper on launch day at retail.

 

[stilgar]

Dude, seriously. You want us to read all your transcript? You didn't even bother to extract the "good" parts?

 

[Jimmyfenix]

TLR - OP spent four hours arguing online with customer service about a digital preorder in order to enjoy the convienance of not having to drive 10min to the store and buy cheaper on launch day at retail.

Dat digital life

 

[Mr Reasonable]

Dude, seriously. You want us to read all your transcript? You didn't even bother to extract the "good" parts?

We were all thinking it, surely?

 

[jesu]

Dude, seriously. You want us to read all your transcript? You didn't even bother to extract the "good" parts?

there is no good parts.

 

[show me your skeleton]

you could give george r. r. martin a few tips on lengthy writing.

 

[Tomeru]

This couldve been faster if you were talking to people and not drones...

 

[tiebreaker]

I felt really embarrased for you when I got to the part where you asked for compensation.

Is this a thing??

 

[joey_bone_bomb]

Can't believe I read all of that.

TLDR Lovely customer support girl tries her best to help pain-in-the-ass customer.

 

[jesu]

Can't believe I read all of that.

TLDR Lovely customer support girl tries her best to help pain-in-the-ass customer.

She never even cancelled my pre-order like she said she would
Or like the supervisor said she had.

I put 20 quid in my account because she told me it would make the pre-order go through.
It didn't.

She kept telling me my card was invalid.
I used it twice during the chat and it wasn't invalid.

 

[HiiiLife]

My thumb tired from scrolling fam

Whoever Jessie is she sound like a keeper

 

[Chittagong]

Paging Lionel Mandrake

 

[Grizzlyjin]

My card is fine, I used it twice during the chat.
Rep was lying to me

Everyone says this. If you attempt to make a purchase and it fails, the bank is who you should contact so they can give you more information about why the payment failed. All Microsoft is going to know is that their charge attempt didn't go through. Yes, a payment can fail and you can still use that card for other purchases. Sometimes it can be something as simple as a mismatch between billing information and account information, an expired card, etc. This is especially problematic with prepaid debit cards because they have a tendency of declining randomly for stuff like this because of the lack of billing information card side. Not sure if that's what you have, but I've seen a lot of that.

 

[HeisenbergLannister]

*reads the beginning*
*scrolls to see where it ends*

 

[Bearthgar]

*reads the beginning*
*scrolls to see where it ends*

Lol! Perfect.

OP, I think the lesson learned should be that if the chat can't solve your problem in 30 minutes, it's time to call on the phone.

 

[WAR recon zero]

You managed to kill her AHT

 

[KHlover]

Is this a thing??

It's called "fremdschämen", and if that word doesn't exist in your country's language yet you need to steal it.

 

[Retrobox]

It's called "fremdschämen", and if that word doesn't exist in your country's language yet you need to steal it.

I think "secondhand embarrassment" is generally an acceptable way of referring to this in English.

 

[liquidtmd]

You managed to kill her AHT

Lol

 

[KHlover]

I think "secondhand embarrassment" is generally an acceptable way of referring to this in English.

What an inelegant way to say fremdschämen.

 

[itzknickknac]

Did you make us read so that we can suffer through your pain too??

OP fix your card /s

<insert my card isn't broken loop response> /s

Dude, seriously. You want us to read all your transcript? You didn't even bother to extract the "good" parts?

there is no good parts.

you left out the phone conversation! Spill the juice

 

[names2hard4you]

I gave up reading this. These people working in customer service must be empty shells by this point if they have to deal with shit like this every day.

 

[jesu]

Guy from the Forza Horizon 3 thread

Contacted MS Support last night. I had preordered the Deluxe version but now decided I wanted the Ultimate version. They hooked up a refund immediately.
Now I still prefer the PSN method were you just pay the difference if you change your mind, but still, was a painless process.
Bring on the 23rd.

Not so painless for me.
Thanks Jessie.

I felt really embarrased for you when I got to the part where you asked for compensation.

She had kept me talking for 3 hours at that point and I still didn't have the game pre-ordered.

you left out the phone conversation! Spill the juice

Nothing too interesting.
She verified my card details.
She was American, or Canadian.

 

[LilJoka]

Didn't read it all, but your bank may have just blocked that 1 transaction - did you call the bank to find out about it?

 

[Ade]

I spent a year unable to use prepaid codes. Never got a sensible explanation.

Most recently the charging port on my elite got damaged. Support told me they would send a new one. Was impressed. Package came. In it were....

2 BATTERIES

At least they have a sense of humour.

 

[jesu]

Didn't read it all, but your bank may have just blocked that 1 transaction - did you call the bank to find out about it?

I need to wait until Monday.

In the mean time all three chat reps failed to cancel my pre-order properly.

 

[DeadlyParasite]

That poor customer service rep. I'm getting horrible flashbacks of working in retail.

 

[Catvoca]

I'm with you OP, that first rep and her supervisor clearly messed up, even the second rep was throwing shade at them.

 

[TannerDemoz]

If you like driving so much you should drive down to your nearest store and buy a retail copy on launch

 

[Spyware]

It wasn't hard to read, and not as long as it seems since most of it is just the same chat stuff (and annoying pleasantries that we all know they don't mean). Easy to just skim through.

I get your frustration, especially after reading the follow up where this Joseph-guy figured it all out in a blink. Happy you got it resolved.

Just don't ever ask for compensation again. If they can give you any they will generally do it without you asking for it as a "friendly gesture" or whatever.

 

[Wolfe]

Everyone says this. If you attempt to make a purchase and it fails, the bank is who you should contact so they can give you more information about why the payment failed. All Microsoft is going to know is that their charge attempt didn't go through. Yes, a payment can fail and you can still use that card for other purchases. Sometimes it can be something as simple as a mismatch between billing information and account information, an expired card, etc. This is especially problematic with prepaid debit cards because they have a tendency of declining randomly for stuff like this because of the lack of billing information card side. Not sure if that's what you have, but I've seen a lot of that.

They never even charged his card apparently.

Everyone jumping down OPs throat is cracking me up, dude is not at fault here.

 

[ambar_hitman]

Omg I read through entire chat :O


The book was better IMO

 

[jesu]

If you like driving so much you should drive down to your nearest store and buy a retail copy on launch

I'd rather spend the money I have in my MS account.
The money the chat rep took from my card and put into my MS account and said that would make my pre-order go through.
Which didn't work.
But I still have the £80 in my account.

 

[xkramz]

You had more dialogue than superman did in his own movie.

 

[horkrux]

OP wasted an entire evening on a pre order.

I wasted 15 minutes to read through all of this

There is no winners here...

 

[samn]

OP just because you wasted 4 hours on this doesn't mean we gonna waste our time too

 

[DOWN]

I read it for some stupid reason and I feel like OP should have just called his bank...

 

[ScatheZombie]

She never even cancelled my pre-order like she said she would, or like the supervisor said she had.

She kept telling me my card was invalid.
I used it twice during the chat and it wasn't invalid.

How do you know that? She said it would take up to 3 days to process. You posted this yesterday. It probably won't actually be cancelled until Wednesday.

And that's not how that works. Your card being invalid, or failing to complete a transaction, on one specific day has nothing to do with whether it's valid or being able to make purchases today. There's a dozen reasons a transaction could fail. Multiple failures generally lock out the purchasing method (that specific CC) for awhile (or forever) as an anti-fraud protection method. She was telling you exactly that. For whatever reason, your card at that time failed the transaction, their anti-fraud kicks in and invalidates that card on their end for that purchase.

That's pretty standard procedure for online storefronts nowadays.

 

[CAR105 3]

Since when is Neogaf a Novel publishing site?

 

[demigod]

How do you know that? She said it would take up to 3 days to process. You posted this yesterday. It probably won't actually be cancelled until Wednesday.

And that's not how that works. Your card being invalid, or failing to complete a transaction, on one specific day has nothing to do with whether it's valid or being able to make purchases today. There's a dozen reasons a transaction could fail. Multiple failures generally lock out the purchasing method (that specific CC) for awhile (or forever) as an anti-fraud protection method. She was telling you exactly that. For whatever reason, your card at that time failed the transaction, their anti-fraud kicks in and invalidates that card on their end for that purchase.

That's pretty standard procedure for online storefronts nowadays.

THE CARD WAS NEVER CHARGED, no history of it being declined. Holyshit people.

 

[Samaritan]

Don't preorder games.

 

[Spyware]

Oh, wow. People claim to have read it but still don't see the problem. People don't read it but still feel like throwing shit at OP anyway.
Gosh.

TLDR:

OP thinks the pre-order of FH3 was done with both account balance and Visa card.

Somehow - by the change of the system, by OP doing it wrong or anything else - the Visa wasn't actually linked to the purchase. The system only checks for the money on OP's account when trying to get the payment... where OP doesn't have enough money. Payment fails.

OP gets no real info about this, just a notification of a payment failure.

OP contacts support to figure it out. Support person 1 plus manager completely misses the fact that the card isn't linked to the purchase and keeps claiming something is wrong with OP's card or bank, when in fact the card was never a part of the purchase.

Support person 1 tries many different things sounding like the problem is on OP's side at all times. Eventually actually does solve the problem without knowing it and then claims to have cancelled the pre-order which can't even be done.

For some unsolved reason the system accepts OP's card for purchases of services, games and money for the account but it doesn't want to accept it as a backup option for the failed pre-order. Again, maybe because of the recent change to the store and stuff.

Support person 2 "resolves" the situation very quickly and smoothly (checking what went wrong, informing of what will happen now) and agrees that it was handled wrong by the first pair.

OP will have the game as soon as the system tries to charge again, maybe tomorrow but at least within 3 days, since the account balance now covers the whole amount.


TLDR2
Had OP gotten Support person 2 from the start there would have been immediate information that the pre-order was only checking for money on the account, not the Visa, and OP needed to add ~£16 to the account for the payment to go through. OP would have saved 4 hours and gotten much clearer info.

 

[Lego Boss]

OP had to sit in chat for FOUR HOURS!

I would have been asking for compensation after 40 minutes, no way this is OP's fault.

Secondhand embarrassment? LAWLZ this is MS a multi-billion pound tech corporate they can't process his payment.

In all honesty, OP was a paragon of patience, l would lose my shit ling before this, but then again l seem to attract poor customer service (yeah, yeah, say l wonder why?!)

 

[andythinkpad]

OP had to sit in chat for FOUR HOURS!

I would have been asking for compensation after 40 minutes, no way this is OP's fault.

Secondhand embarrassment? LAWLZ this is MS a multi-billion pound tech corporate they can't process his payment.

In all honesty, OP was a paragon of patience, l would lose my shit ling before this, but then again l seem to attract poor customer service (yeah, yeah, say l wonder why?!)

Give me a break. OP probably fapped a couple time in that 4 hour.

 

[jesu]

How do you know that? She said it would take up to 3 days to process. You posted this yesterday. It probably won't actually be cancelled until Wednesday.

And that's not how that works. Your card being invalid, or failing to complete a transaction, on one specific day has nothing to do with whether it's valid or being able to make purchases today. There's a dozen reasons a transaction could fail. Multiple failures generally lock out the purchasing method (that specific CC) for awhile (or forever) as an anti-fraud protection method. She was telling you exactly that. For whatever reason, your card at that time failed the transaction, their anti-fraud kicks in and invalidates that card on their end for that purchase.

That's pretty standard procedure for online storefronts nowadays.

Because the third guy told me they can't cancel preorders until they have been paid for.
So she lied about the pre-order being cancelled.Because I hadn't even paid for it yet.

My card never failed btw.
As the 3rd guy told me, they weren't even trying to charge my card, they were trying to charge my MS account.
Jessie lied about that.
Contacting my bank was a pain in the arse, but that's another story.

I phoned my bank anyway, there was no attempt to take the money on the 14th or the 17th like Jessie said.
BECAUSE MS DIDN'T TRY TO TAKE MONEY FROM MY BANK ACCOUNT ON THOSE DATES.
She lied about that.

Oh, wow. People claim to have read it but still don't see the problem. People don't read it but still feel like throwing shit at OP anyway.
Gosh.

TLDR:

OP thinks the pre-order of FH3 was done with both account balance and Visa card.

Somehow - by the change of the system, by OP doing it wrong or anything else - the Visa wasn't actually linked to the purchase. The system only checks for the money on OP's account when trying to get the payment... where OP doesn't have enough money. Payment fails.

OP gets no real info about this, just a notification of a payment failure.

OP contacts support to figure it out. Support person 1 plus manager completely misses the fact that the card isn't linked to the purchase and keeps claiming something is wrong with OP's card or bank, when in fact the card was never a part of the purchase.

Support person 1 tries many different things sounding like the problem is on OP's side at all times. Eventually actually does solve the problem without knowing it and then claims to have cancelled the pre-order which can't even be done.

For some unsolved reason the system accepts OP's card for purchases of services, games and money for the account but it doesn't want to accept it as a backup option for the failed pre-order. Again, maybe because of the recent change to the store and stuff.

Support person 2 "resolves" the situation very quickly and smoothly (checking what went wrong, informing of what will happen now) and agrees that it was handled wrong by the first pair.

OP will have the game as soon as the system tries to charge again, maybe tomorrow but at least within 3 days, since the account balance now covers the whole amount.


TLDR2
Had OP gotten Support person 2 from the start there would have been immediate information that the pre-order was only checking for money on the account, not the Visa, and OP needed to add ~£16 to the account for the payment to go through. OP would have saved 4 hours and gotten much clearer info.

Thanks, that explains it perfectly.
The purchase went through on Wednesday btw.

Can't believe I read all of that.

TLDR Lovely customer support girl tries her best to help pain-in-the-ass customer.

When was I a pain in the ass?
Who was leading who on?

I was drunk by the time I spoke to the 3rd guy, but at least he knew what was happening.

Again when was I a pain in the ass?

 

[jesu]

TLR - OP spent four hours arguing online with customer service about a digital preorder in order to enjoy the convienance of not having to drive 10min to the store and buy cheaper on launch day at retail.

I don't drive and I wanted to make sure I got the Friday early access that I was trying to pay for.

 

[LuvOfThaGame]

Because the third guy told me they can't cancel preorders until they have been paid for.
So she lied about the pre-order being cancelled.Because I hadn't even paid for it yet.

My card never failed btw.
As the 3rd guy told me, they weren't even trying to charge my card, they were trying to charge my MS account.
Jessie lied about that.
Contacting my bank was a pain in the arse, but that's another story.

I phoned my bank anyway, there was no attempt to take the money on the 14th or the 17th like Jessie said.
BECAUSE MS DIDN'T TRY TO TAKE MONEY FROM MY BANK ACCOUNT ON THOSE DATES.
She lied about that.



Thanks, that explains it perfectly.
The purchase went through on Wednesday btw.



When was I a pain in the ass?
Who was leading who on?

I was drunk by the time I spoke to the 3rd guy, but at least he knew what was happening.

Again when was I a pain in the ass?

Why didn't you just call 8004myxbox and could've had this knocked out in 10 minutes? Chat customer service is ALWAYS second best with any company over actual chat phone service. And yes, pre-orders at this time can't be canceled until charged. Hopefully that gets fixed soon. She may have been mistaken between the difference in a credit card check to see if funds are available, kind of like prepaid gas pumps, and actual hold charge. Again, a phone call and I doubt any of this would've taken that long. After the first 10 minutes, I'm just closing chat, hanging up, and calling back again to speak to someone else. Unfortunately, their are a lot of people bad at their jobs. All MS can do is be made aware of the poor job someone did for you and retrain or fire/rehire someone else. It's not like it's MS policy to give you a hard time. Glad it eventually got worked out.

 

[StrongBelwas]

Gosh as someone's whose worked in a similar environment to poor Jessie here it just boggles my mind that you would keep going on and on and on when it was clear they weren't going to give you what you wanted. Like was being that much of a pain in the ass really worth it?

 

[jesu]

Why didn't you just call 8004myxbox and could've had this knocked out in 10 minutes? Chat customer service is ALWAYS second best with any company over actual chat phone service. And yes, pre-orders at this time can't be canceled until charged. Hopefully that gets fixed soon. She may have been mistaken between the difference in a credit card check to see if funds are available, kind of like prepaid gas pumps, and actual hold charge. Again, a phone call and I doubt any of this would've taken that long. After the first 10 minutes, I'm just closing chat, hanging up, and calling back again to speak to someone else. Unfortunately, their are a lot of people bad at their jobs. All MS can do is be made aware of the poor job someone did for you and retrain or fire/rehire someone else. It's not like it's MS policy to give you a hard time. Glad it eventually got worked out.

Not only was she wrong, her supervisor was wrong.
Both of them lied to me.

I used chat because it was a method offered to me to fix my situation.
What happens if I phoned up and Jessie answered!?