bad customer service: where to complain?

I sent this to xbox.com tonight:

I would like to register a complaint about a customer service representative. He repeatedly gave incorrect information that he insisted was official Microsoft policy that could have cost me $60 in new charges in addition to not solving my issue. He also did not listen to what my issue was, as evidenced by the half dozen to dozen times that I had to re-explain it to him in detail during the 1 hour and 35 minutes that I was on the phone with him before he finally let me speak to a supervisor. I ask that you please check to see if this conversation was recorded for quality assurance purposes, and that if it has you review our conversation.

I called this evening (Thursday, November 20, 200 to follow up on the call I made yesterday (ref # [removed for blog].) The issue is that one and only one of my LIVE Arcade games (Shotest Shogi) will not let me play it even though I am signed into Xbox LIVE at the time. (All of my other Arcade purchases work just fine.) He told me that before he could "escalate" my issue to the next level up (and before I could speak to anyone else,) I had to create a new LIVE account, repurchase the game under that Gamertag, and see if it worked before any solution to the DRM problem could be found (at a cost of $10 to me.) He then told me that in order to access LIVE Marketplace, I would have to purchase a Gold subscription (at ~$50.) He said that Netflix can be accessed with a Silver Account, but in order to go online and use Marketplace I had to have a Gold account. He also said that Shotest Shogi had a different license agreement than any other game offered through LIVE Marketplace, and that it was the only game on LIVE that does not allow access to it on anything but the original purchasing console even when the purchasing profile is signed in to LIVE. He said that because it is a license issue, there is nothing Microsoft can do about it and I should create another profile to repurchase the game through.

The agent was polite in his tone and demeanor, but it was repeatedly made abundantly clear by what he said that he not only did not know what he was talking about, but that he would rather make up incorrect information than refer me to an agent who was more familiar with my type of issue. I concisely gave only what information was necessary for the resolution of my issue, but he kept asking irrelevant questions that I answered several times before he would put me on hold for 10 minutes only to come back and ask me again. He then got confused by the extraneous details that he had asked for (such as why I had at one time sold an Xbox that I used to own) and kept trying to answer questions that I didn't ask. He also repeatedly forgot the answers to the questions he had asked.

When he finally let me speak to a supervisor, the supervisor was able to hear my issue, try a resolution with me, and then explain what they needed to do next and how many days it would take. This conversation (I think the supervisor's name was Jim) only took about 20 minutes. My issue is now being worked on under the new reference # [removed for blog]. Jim confirmed that the information the previous agent had given me was incorrect.

Perhaps the most troubling instruction that the first agent today gave me was to sign into my brother's account and repurchase the same game using his MS Points. It was not the agent's intention that I steal, but nevertheless his complete lack of familiarity with Xbox LIVE, its membership levels, the MS Points system, Gamertags, LIVE Marketplace, and DRM management led to his instructing me to use his account (and his MS Points) to make a duplicate purchase. This level of ignorance of Microsoft policies is inexcusable in a customer service representative for the Xbox 360 console. More outrageous was his unwillingness to listen to anything but the questions he thought I was going to ask him and his propensity for making up wrong answers and claiming that they are official Microsoft policy.

Please write to me to let me know how Microsoft is ensuring quality customer service experiences.

Gamertag: Case Legal
support reference # [removed for blog]

 

Posted by Graven on Thu Nov 20, 2008 @ 10:18 pm EDT | 0 Comments