We have all had our horror stories with technical support phone calls. Unfortunately I found myself over the past few weeks dreading a call that I knew would not go well. The story:
Because of the nature of my career I spend a lot of time in both Canada and the United States. A year ago I did the math and decided that on this path it would be cheaper for me to have a cell phone account in each country rather than pay the roaming costs of either. I therefore find myself a client of both Rogers (in Canada) and AT&T, formerly Cingular (in the US).
Because Rogers is more committed to selling and supporting Blackberry than they are Windows Mobile devices they do not tend to have a very good selection of PDAs, and the ones they do have are rather pricey. Because of that I bought my new PDA from AT&T, but take it back and forth and just change the SIM card as needed. Of course I had to get the phone unlocked by AT&T first, but they were happy to do so.
Unfortunately AT&T customizes their devices somewhat for their own network and needs, which is perfectly understandable. That does not prevent the device from being used on other networks, it just makes it difficult to find all of the right settings. The problem is that Rogers is completely unwilling to support any phone that was not bought from them. So when I was able to connect the phone to my e-mail but not surf the web, I was frustrated... and very alone. Every time I spoke to them I felt like banging my head against a wall. They seem to have this disdain towards anyone who works with non-Rogers phones, non-Blackberry devices, and especially Microsoft. It is amazing that they do not print on their business cards that 'We are not a Microsoft shop!'
So this morning I prepared myself mentally for another such battle. They went through all of the questions with me, but every third question reminded me that it was a non-Rogers device that they did not support. I understand that, but suspect that I am not the first person to encounter this problem, and was surprised they had absolutely no help to offer.
I then decided to call HTC directly. As it was a branded phone (I suppose the cellular equivalent of an OEM product) I did not hold out much hope that they would talk to me, let alone help. Let me go through the points that DID happen:
- A real person answered the phone... no automated systems!
- The person who answered (Tatiana) spoke fluent English, and was a Technical Support Representative, and not a receptionist who was going to route my call.
- Despite the fact that I did not buy the phone from them she was willing and even eager to help me with my issues.
- She asked me a series of questions, checked a number of settings with me, and then found the solution to my problem!
I was in shock. There was nothing wrong with the phone, but because of the differences between the AT&T network and the Rogers network there was a setting the Rogers had never heard of that in three seconds solved my problem! Worst of all, Rogers did not want to help me, despite the fact that I pay them in excess of $300 per month.
I thanks Tatiana profusely and then rang off, only to remember another issue that I had with the phone that I was curious about. I called back, and this time reached Shelly. I told her that the phone I had did not have a feature that my old HTC S710 had, the Internet Sharing tool. She explained that this was because AT&T wanted users to connect to the network a specific way, and hid that feature. However she did not think they actually removed it from Windows, and helped me find it. Thanks Shelly!
I currently own two HTC devices, both purchased within the last year. I do not know when I will need a new PDA or smart phone, but you can bet that when I do I will look closely at HTC, because I now know how great their technical support is. That is important to me because it shows that the company cares about its customers. Thanks ladies!