As the IT Manager for a multi-location manufacturing company, I have the challenge of providing a secure and safe environment. I deal with many vendors for various applications that we use. One of my pet peeves is support departments. I cannot believe how little emphasis is placed on customer support and satisfaction these days.

I have several vendors that are outsourcing their support departments. This is very frustrating to me. They are a US company, we pay with US dollars and when it comes to support we have to talk to someone who speaks fragmented English and does not understand terms and phrases that we use. It takes me at least twice as long to get my point across and to get the information that I need to solve my issue. Another issue I have is that they are in a different time zone than I am. I specifically ask for support 8:30 am to 4pm Central Time US and they invariably call me at 6, 7 even 10 o’clock at night. I pay for premium support and am supposed to have a call within 4 hours. Most of the time it takes 4 or 5 days to get an actual contact with a person. When I finally get through and actually talk to someone I am even more frustrated when I am told that the problem was caused by an update to the application that is now a FEATURE. Really??? A feature that broke something.

These applications and the issues that come up are critical to the operation of our locations. Why can we not get US support when we are in the US and pay in US dollars? Anyone else have the same issues?

Stepping off my soapbox now.

Deb Hale