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Old 01-06-2008, 07:31 AM   #1 (permalink)
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Location: New England
Worst Tech Support

My son got his first Webkinz for Christmas. Apparently, so did every other child in the nation, because when we went to sign up, the signup server kept crashing. Eventually we got through, but some elements are missing because the signup script didn't complete. I sent an email, and nine days later, we get this response:
Quote:
Hello,

Thank you for your question. You have discovered a problem with your account.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We have forwarded your information to our technical wizards and they are in the process of fixing the problem.

Please check your account periodically to see if the issue has been resolved. If your issue is not resolved within two business days of receiving this email, please REPLY to this email with your full account information to let us know that you are still experiencing the problem.

Please include the following information in your reply so that we may help you better:

Username:
Secret Code:
Date of Birth:

Contact Name:
Contact Phone:

Location of the Problem:
Problem/Error Description:

Webkinz World is "as is" or 'as available'. There are no warranties/guarantees either expressed or implied. Please refer to the User Agreement for full details.

Thank you,

Webkinz Customer Support
Essentially, "Hi. We're pretending that we read your message. If we actually get around to fixing your problem, we won't bother to let you know. If it isn't fixed, we probably are ignoring you, so start again and this time send all your personal information over an insecure email link."

WTF?

And, beside all this, they put a note on their website acknowledging the signup problem and that they are working to fix it. Couldn't they have mentioned that in this email?
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Old 01-06-2008, 08:39 AM   #2 (permalink)
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Location: East-central Canada
Quote:
Originally Posted by Redlemon
My son got his first Webkinz for Christmas. Apparently, so did every other child in the nation....
*Ahem* ...I think you mean continent.

This looks like the company is overwhelmed with its success and has resorted to a heavily automated system to deal with problems. Your e-mail could have been one of tens...or hundreds of thousands just like it. Just imagine how many employees they have to deal with the sheer number of customers.

Yes, the support sucks, but realistically you can't expect the same level of support as a well-established and reputable company selling a product with a long history.

I saw no fewer than 5 Webkinz floating around at Christmastime. No fewer than 2 belonged to adults.

EDIT: Holy crap. I just found out that Webkinz are made by Ganz, a Canadian company. Their office is just north of where I live. (For the record, I only first heard of Webkinz last month.)
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Last edited by Baraka_Guru; 01-06-2008 at 08:45 AM..
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Old 01-06-2008, 11:23 AM   #3 (permalink)
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Location: Spokane, WA
sounds like the world of warcraft launch.
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Old 01-06-2008, 11:32 AM   #4 (permalink)
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Location: San Marvelous
I've never heard of Webkinz and I won't know what it is until I finish here, when I'll do a web search.
If the purpose of this thread is to expose the worst tech support ever, I nominate Quicken. The program never worked as advertised. I got zero satisfaction from tech support. If you go to their discussion board you'll still see people who are terribly upset. I will never again buy Quicken or any Intuit product.
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Old 01-06-2008, 11:45 AM   #5 (permalink)
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Location: middle of Whywouldanyonebethere
I have got you all beat. I called HP... and got someone that I figured was from god knows where. Couldn't understand a lick of what the guy was saying. I gave the phone to my friend, an ex-Geek Squad employee. He said he was from GS and used his old (expired) number, the guy no longer had an accent...

Moral of the story. You aren't really getting people over in god knows where, it is just some asshole screwing with you!
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Old 01-07-2008, 07:18 AM   #6 (permalink)
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Location: New England
Quote:
Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru
This looks like the company is overwhelmed with its success and has resorted to a heavily automated system to deal with problems. Your e-mail could have been one of tens...or hundreds of thousands just like it. Just imagine how many employees they have to deal with the sheer number of customers.

Yes, the support sucks, but realistically you can't expect the same level of support as a well-established and reputable company selling a product with a long history.
I don't mind an automated response, if someone took 5 minutes to edit it before it went out to everybody. What really ticks me off is the "send your password through email" part of it. That's just not right, especially when dealing with kids.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Aladdin Sane
I've never heard of Webkinz and I won't know what it is until I finish here, when I'll do a web search.
If the purpose of this thread is to expose the worst tech support ever, I nominate Quicken. The program never worked as advertised. I got zero satisfaction from tech support. If you go to their discussion board you'll still see people who are terribly upset. I will never again buy Quicken or any Intuit product.
Clearly you aren't on a Mac; check out QuickBooks can still delete data, Intuit warns - Network World. Just allowing the software to attempt to auto-update can delete gigs of your files.
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Last edited by Redlemon; 01-07-2008 at 07:20 AM.. Reason: Automerged Doublepost
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Old 01-08-2008, 01:08 PM   #7 (permalink)
Junkie
 
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Location: The Danforth
Quote:
Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru
*Ahem* ...I think you mean continent.



EDIT: Holy crap. I just found out that Webkinz are made by Ganz, a Canadian company. Their office is just north of where I live. (For the record, I only first heard of Webkinz last month.)

Where are they? We bought one for our niece last August from Treasure Island Toys in the Beaches I think it was.
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