In the course of a recent Microsoft Access programming project, we had
three difficult technical problems where we decided to call a support
hotline for advice. This article compares the two support numbers we
tried: Microsoft Technical Support and the Psychic Friends Network. As a
result of this research, we have come to the following conclusions: 1)
that Microsoft Technical Support and the Psychic Friends Network are about
equal in their ability to provide technical assistance for Microsoft
products over the phone; 2 ) that the Psychic Friends Network has a
distinct edge over Microsoft in the areas of courtesy, response time, and
cost of support; but 3) that Microsoft has a generally better refund
policy if they fail to solve your problem.
In the paragraphs that follow, we will detail the support calls we made
and the responses we received from each support provider. We will follow
this with a discussion of the features provided by each support provider
so that readers can do their own rankings of the two services.
Our research began when we called Microsoft regarding a bug that we had
detected when executing queries which pulled data from a Sybase Server
into Microsoft Access. If we used the same Access database to query two
databases on the same server, we found that all of the queries aimed at
the second database that we queried were sent to the first database that
we had queried. This problem existed no matter which database we queried
first. Dan called Microsoft's Technical Solutions Line, gave them $55, and
was connected with an official Microsoft Access technical support person.
As Dan began to explain the problem, the support person interrupted him,
and told him that since it was clear that it was not just a problem with
Access but with the two programs together, Microsoft would not try to help
us. They did, however, have a consultant referral service with which he
would be glad to connect us. Dan then asked if we could have our $55
refunded, since Microsoft was not going to try to answer to our question.
The tech support person responded by forwarding Dan to the person in
charge of giving refunds. The person officially in charge of giving
refunds took Dan's credit card info again, after which Dan asked about the
referral service. It was too late, however - the refund folks could not
reconnect Dan with the tech support guy he'd been talking with, nor could
he put Dan in touch with the referral service hotline. End of Call One.
Our second call came when Dan was creating some line graphs in Microsoft
Access. Microsoft Access actually uses a program called Microsoft Graph to
create its graphs, and this program has a "feature" that makes the
automatic axis scale always start the scale at zero. If all of your data
are between 9,800 and 10,000 and you get a scale of 0 to 10,000, your data
will appear as a flat line at the top of your graph-not a very interesting
chart. Since Dan was writing Visual Basic code to create the graphs, he
wanted to be able to use Visual Basic code to change the graph scaling,
but he could not find anything in the help files that would tell him how
to do this. After working with Microsoft Graph for a while, Dan concluded
that it probably didn't have the capability that he needed, but he decided
to call Microsoft just to make sure. Dan described his problem to the
technical support person, whom we'll call Microsoft Bob. Microsoft Bob
said he'd never gotten a call about Microsoft Graph before. He then left
Dan on hold while he went to ask another support person how to use
Microsoft Graph. Microsoft Bob came back with the suggestion that Dan use
the online help. Dan, however, had already used the online help, and
didn't feel that this was an appropriate answer for a $55 support call.
Microsoft Bob didn't give up, though. He consulted the help files and
learned to change the graph scale by hand and then began looking for a way
to do this via code. After Microsoft Bob had spent about an hour on the
phone with Dan learning how to use Microsoft Graph, Dan asked for a refund
since he had no more time to spend on the problem. Microsoft Bob refused
the refund, however. He said he wouldn't give up, and told Dan that he
would call back the next week. Microsoft Bob did call back the following
week to admit failure. He could not help us. However, he couldn't give us
a refund either. Microsoft Bob's supervisor confirmed Microsoft Bob's
position. While Microsoft Technical Support hadn't solved our problem,
they felt that a refund was inappropriate since Microsoft Technical
Support had spent a lot of time not solving our problem. Dan persisted,
however, explaining that if Microsoft Bob actually knew the program, he
would have been able to give Dan a response much sooner. The supervisor
made no guarantees, but he instructed Dan to check his credit card bill at
the end of the month. The supervisor explained that if Dan saw that the
charge was still there at the end of the month,then he would know that he
hadn't gotten a refund. End of Call Two.
Our third call to Microsoft involved using the standard file save dialog
from within Microsoft Access to get a file name and directory string from
a user in order to save an exported file. The documentation didn't make it
clear how to do this using Visual Basic code within Microsoft Access, and
Dan decided to call Microsoft to ask if and how a programmer could do
this. The technical support person he reached told him he was asking about
a pretty heavy programming task. He cheerily informed Dan that he'd called
the wrong number and advised Dan to call help for Visual Basic, not Access
($195 instead of $55 ). This technical support person was extraordinarily
helpful in getting Dan his refund. End of Call Three.
Stymied by our responses from Microsoft, we decided to try another service
provider, the Psychic Friends Network. There are several noticeable
differences between Microsoft and the Psychic Friends Network. Microsoft
charges a flat rate per "solution," which is a single problem and can be
handled in multiple phone calls. As described above, Microsoft may or may
not issue a refund of their fee if they fail to provide a solution for
your problem. The Psychic Friends Network charges a per minute fee. They
do not offer a refund if they cannot solve your problem. However, unlike
Microsoft, they will not charge you extra if they provide more than one
solution per call. We decided to test the Psychic Friends Network by
asking them the same questions that we had asked Microsoft Technical
Support. We called them and were quickly connected with Ray, who was very
courteous and helpful.
Like Microsoft Bob, Ray quickly informed us that he wasn't fully up to
date on the programs that we were working with, but he was willing to help
us anyway. We started off with our first problem: making a connection
from Microsoft Access to two different Sybase Servers. Ray worked hard on
this problem for us. He sensed that there was a problem with something
connecting, that something wasn't being fulfilled either in a sexual,
spiritual or emotional way. Ray also identified that there was some sort
of physical failure going on that was causing the problem."
Do you mean that there's some sort of bug?" we asked. Ray denied that he
knew about any sort of bug in the software. "Are you sure there's not a
bug?" we asked. Ray insisted that he did not know of any bug in the
software, although he left open the possibility that there could be some
bug in the software that he did not know about. All in all, Ray did not do
much to distinguish himself from Microsoft Technical Support. He wasn't
able to solve our problem for us, and he wasn't able to confirm or deny
that a bug in Microsoft Access was causing the problem. We then asked Ray
our question about using Visual Basic to set the axes of a chart. Ray
thought hard about this one. Once again he had the sense that something
just wasn't connecting, that there was some sort of physical failure that
was causing our problem. "Could it be that it's your computer that's the
problem?" he asked. "Is this something that happens just on your computer,
or have you had the same problem when you've tried to do the same thing on
other computers?" We assured Ray that we had the same problem on other
computers, then asked again, "This physical failure that you're talking
about, do you mean that there's some sort of bug?"
Once again he assured us that there wasn't a bug, but that he didn't know
how to solve our problem. "I sense there's some sort of sickness here, and
you're just going to have to sweat it out. If you'd like, you can call
back tomorrow. We have a couple of guys here, Steve and Paul, and they're
much better with computer stuff than I am." To conclude our research, we
asked Ray about our problem with the standard file dialog box." It's the
same thing as the last one," he told us. "There's some sort of sickness
here, and you're just going to have to sweat it out. There is a
solution,though,and you're just going to have to work at it until you get
it."
C o n c l u s i o n s
In terms of technical expertise, we found that a Microsoft technician
using Knowledge Base was about as helpful as a Psychic Friends reader
using Tarot Cards. All in all, however, the Psychic Friends Network
proved to be a much friendlier organization than Microsoft Technical
Support. While neither group was actually able to answer any of our
technical questions, the Psychic Friends Network was much faster than
Microsoft and much more courteous. Which organization is more affordable
is open to question. If Microsoft does refund all three "solutions" fees,
then they will be the far more affordable solution provider, having
charged us no money for having given us no assistance. However, if
Microsoft does not refund the fees for our call regarding Microsoft Graph,
then they will have charged us more than 120% of what the Psychic Friends
charged, but without providing the same fast and courteous service that
Psychic Friends provided.
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