Cowboy said:
They take the info first. I am not sure I agree with this 100%, but
it guarantees payment if you are the one at fault. If your issue is
fixed by the patch, the charge will not go through. Not the best
situation always, but it has always worked for me when I called on
company business outside of free MSDN calls.
you will get charged, your payment will be canceled later on or you'll
get your money back if it took too long and hte payment fell through.
Nevertheless this is very awkward for a single reason: the customer
experiences a strange thing with their product. The least they can do
is try to help FIRST. It's a customer for crying out loud. The customer
however is in a bad position: what if the issue the customer runs into
isn't a bug? Then the customer WILL get charged!
But the lame thing is: the customer doesn't know that and also doesn't
decide this. MS does. So if MS finds it not a bug, you'll get charged.
Every product you buy comes with warranty. Not MS software. If you
think it's broken, you always have to be prepared to pay.
You sell your own software for a living? If so, ask yourself if your
customers are willing to pay you first and then you look into their
bugreports and if it's a bug you pay them back and if it's not a bug
but their fault, you charge them for a couple of hundred dollars.
If you think that's a great way to deal with your customers, I hope
I'll never become a customer of yours.
Having said that, I find that many people do not troubleshoot their
own stuff prior to complaining or asking questions. I answer a great
many questions here, as well as from friends (mostly on IM). A great
number are easily googled or found in MS documentation. I am sure PSS
has the same issue. If you find a problem that is solved by a patch,
call PSS and stay on the issue at hand; if you are right, no charge.
If you ramble into how to place an ObjectDataSource on a page, it is
your dime. Yes, I am being overly simplistic, but it happens. "While
I have you on the phone" = $.
hey, customer support means supporting customers. If you don't want to
support customers, simply don't setup customer support facilities. It's
as simple as that. And before you start claiming MS customer support is
top notch: it's beyond horrible. I haven't ever come across one
software company who sat on patches for 2.5 years without publicly
releasing them and got away with it.
Another example? There are still un-released VB6 patches. The problem
is, if you want them, you have to pay, no matter what. Isn't that a
great way of dealing with customers? Why not put up a darn webpage and
let the customer download the stuff tehmselves? MS apparently finds
OFFICE users clever enough to update their systems by themselves,
however DEVELOPERS are apparently too stupid to patch their own systems
so they have to jump through hoops to get a patch.
I have great experience with PSS, when I have to call them. If I can
google or ask someone, I avoid the call. When I call, it is generally
a patch issue (even I have called on something that was not MS's
fault).
Using PSS from outside the USA isn't that great. To say the least.
The site is checked by MS legal and protects MS. I do not fault them
for this, although I wish we could stop suing each other in this
country (and world?).
As a customer, I don't see why legal stuff is my problem. Look at it
this way: a customer buys a license to a MS product. The customer runs
into a problem. The customer then tries to ask MS for an update/fix for
that problem. MS put up a huge wall to keep that customer out. Most
other software vendors have download sites for patches. Oh, MS has
those too, just not for developer software, because developers
apparently aren't required to update the software they live in for 8-10
hours A DAY.
Bottom line: If you are sure (or reasonably sure) you have an issue
fixed by a patch, make the call and you will not be charged. You will
be asked for payment info, but they will not charge. If I am
incorrect, let me know.
what's a bug is decided by MS. So if you get charged or not is decided
by MS. If I buy a radio in a radio store I get a warranty on it, say 1
year. If I find a feature not working as expected, I go back to the
radio store and they definitely won't ask me to pay up first or pull a
credit card before I even have to ability to speak up. In fact, if I
say to the radio store: something is broken, they fix it for me, and
most radio stores have policies that an unhappy customer is helped,
perhaps with a free new one, no matter what. You know why? Because a
happy customer stays with the company, and it's much cheaper to KEEP a
customer than to get it back once he's gone to the competition.
that last word is key here. As soon as there's firm competition on the
developertools market, MS will change the policy, however they
apparently don't have to.
FB
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