After yet another horrible phone support experience, I’ve decided to start blogging about some of my experiences with different vendors and products. These bloggings are only my experience and opinion and other than claiming that I did experience this, there is no basis in fact or documentation. But why would I lie? If my opinion ever changes I will update this post.
One day, I decided to open a case with symantec. After doing an update backup exec started failing with a crypic message that wasn’t very common on the internet. Google having failed me I decided to use this support contract that syamntec charges for yearly. I wen to their website, registered, logged in, and then began the process of opening the case. I got so far as to where the form wanted an email confirmation key. I checked my email. Nothing from symantec. I double checked my email in the account information then went back to the page requesting the key and clicked the “re-send key” button. Nothing. I pushed the back browser button once, not leaving the site, and got the phone number.
The first call was the worst. I ended up in licensing. Who told me I had to call support and that they would transfer me. They transferred me to support who I could tell didn’t really listen to my problem and transferred me back to licensing. Licensing listened, and shot me back to support. Now each time I was transferred the line got more staticy and the accent got more thicker. And wouldn’t you know the last transfer was so horrible that I could not make out a word and was forced to hang up. For a few moments I contemplated picking up day drinking. After a cool off period I called the support number back and got a clean line with a person with a minimal accent. I explained the problem with the website, and this person told me that I simply needed to wait longer for that email. And that I wasn’t in the system yet and I had to wait. Well, it had only been a few hours since I registered on the support site. I resigned to wait a little longer for that key email. But it has been several days now I still have yet to receive the email. This person did confirm that they did have my contact info from 4+ years ago and a few employers ago. But that wasn’t much help. I told this support person that I would wait for the email, but maybe they could help with the original problem. I described the problem with backup exec. The line immediately started getting staticy and I then it all went silent. I said “Hello?” a few times and hung up. Please make note, this is a land line, in my office, and I we don’t ever have issues with our phone.
The original issue is not resolved. I still can’t open an online support ticket, and I obviously cant’ open one with phone support either. I’m noticing a trend in support. They make it real easy to buy their crappy product. And almost impossible to get any help for it.
Syamntec used to be a quality company a few years ago with lots of innovative and functional technologies. I rate their antivirus (SEP) among the worst. Free Microsoft Security Essentials is better and cleaning a system than the high dollar SEP. And don’t even get me talking about Norton. Backup exec does a great job at enterprise backup. But Windows 2008 Backup is faster and way more reliable. Once Microsoft converts that technology to an enterprise backup solution, Backup Exec is going to go away.
