As bad as tech support is getting, I have to tell y'all about a recent event. Digital Juice has always had good support, but in the last few days I had a problem with a DJ product and sent in a support request. I got an email back asking for MY direct number, and their support tech actually DID call me.
How pleasantly unusual is that?

It looks like we'll see a resurgence of good support, driven by a huge number of customers' total disgust with being abandoned after they buy a company's product.

Even Microsoft is trying to mimic a part of Apple's success with the Genius Bars in Apple Stores, by placing knowledgeable staff in Best Buy stores for primarily pre-sales support. (Apple offers very competent post-sales support in the stores.)

From a recent conference I was making a vid of:

Today no business can afford to ignore customer service. One unhappy customer on Facebook can undo a $5M marketing campaign.

Bob.

I went through about 5 or 6 posts about a problem I had with gapper/snipper FX in Vegas when finally the tech support guy told me he actually doesnt have that FX on his machine and cant therefore try to reproduce the problem I have. This was of course after he had asked me to re-install everything...

Tech support is the one thing these days that gets my business. I recently built my new machine for Vegas. Good machine that I configured with IBUYPOWER online. I had very good support on questions before I built it. I had a change I made midstream and they helped me. I got it here and it was great except I had some questions on the changes I made and my lack of understanding some items. After a couple of exchanges by e-mail one day I get a call on my home phone. "Hello, we see you are having some issues and thought perhaps we would call you and see what else we may help you with." After getting up off the floor we went over somethings. Three more calls to follow up on their part plus a question that I felt I was missing a part that showed up on my door step three days later and well, I guess I know where I will buy my next computer!!

It was rare and I have had other follow up since that round on a connector I sent pictures to them about and they gave me the instructions I needed to make my change.

Do I feel I will get that with SONY? No and I am starting a different thread for that one.

Gary

If Sony didn't have this forum, it really would be quite a challenge to use Vegas professionally.

Indeed, this forum and its users are the manual for Vegas.

I called Epson once about a defective out of the package ink cartridge. Aside from the gentleman on the other side of the ocean being unhelpful and snide - He refused to let me speak to a supervisor. he said "I told you how to fix it and no i'm not going to let you talk to him"

Guess who doesn't use Epson printers anymore?

And just to balance things out. I have a Primera Publisher that has been giving me fits lately.

Primera hands down has had some of the best customer service I've used in years.

Willing to work for the customer - after the sale. It's not toll free, but it's not $14.95 like Sony????

Jay,

Humor them. Let them you know have installed 8.0c and persist with your original problem. They will reply. It would be interesting to know what happens after you get past the auto- and basic-reply and get to the real issue. In my experience once you reach a tech, they are able to resolve issues. Of course if you are reporting a bug the resolution may be just an acknowledgment of the defect and perhaps a workaround, not necessary a bug fix.