

Want to irritate users? Learn from MSFT support 'engineers' - lighttower

While searching for a response to a MS Office performance issue, I encountered posts from <i>many</i> angry users. 
(e.g.  May 15th post http:&#x2F;&#x2F;goo.gl&#x2F;YdPSH6 from Jonathan and many others like http:&#x2F;&#x2F;goo.gl&#x2F;vqpaEO Feb 14 response from Seiscons)<p>What&#x27;s interesting, is that the users were not angry because of the software bug -- rather -- they were angry because of the way they were treated by MSFT support &quot;engineers.&quot; These &#x27;engineers,&#x27; rather than solve problems, they act like phone operators that simply put you on hold and 
(BEGIN LOOP) 
1. transfer you to another department 
2. only to find that you were transferred to an irrelevant person 
3. who will transfer you elsewhere
(END LOOP)<p>This behavior irritates users enormously more than simply admitting you have no solution, or that the bug wont be fixed, or even to say your problem is not priority. Giving users the run around is definitely the WRONG POLICY.<p>Specifically Re MSFT: I don&#x27;t understand why MSFT doesn&#x27;t implement a policy like HN or stackoverflow where responses are downvoted if they are wrong&#x2F;irrelevant or they simply link to another forum without providing the solution to the OP in their post. The &#x27;engineers&#x27; compensation can then be based on the #upvotes minus #downvotes -- that will give them an incentive to help users.
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lighttower
Here are the live links to the post above

May 15th post [http://goo.gl/YdPSH6](http://goo.gl/YdPSH6) from Jonathan

Feb 14 post [http://goo.gl/vqpaEO](http://goo.gl/vqpaEO) from Seiscons

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lighttower
MSFT moved the MAY 15 conversation - now it's at
[http://goo.gl/HgyuXf](http://goo.gl/HgyuXf)

