Tech Support Insanity

If you recall, some days ago I mentioned I was having some problems with the outfit that sends me comic strips. It's a subscription service. One pays for it. Not a whole lot of money involved here, just 99 cents per month (paid as an annual fee) but the point is that a promise of service should be honored regardless of the cost of that service.

Here is what is happening:
I should get some 36 strips emailed to me each day. Well, if they all are updated by the creators, that is. If the strip is not updated and submitted to the service the day before publication then I would not get that strip in my email. Online, however, I am told which strips failed in this manner. Example: "Bewley was not updated this day.  View last strip" which includes a link to that strip which displays the last strip they have by the creator.

Sometime in the past several weeks, it came to my attention (quite by accident) that one particular strip sent in the email did not match what displayed online for that particular day. So I began an informal audit comparing the online display with what I received in the email. After a short period, wherein I noted several anomalies, I submitted a complaint. What I received in return did not please me.

I have worked as tech support both formerly and informally. Therefore, I have certain expectations of how it should be done. In my stints as tech support, I was expected/instructed to treat the customer with respect and assume a problem existed. I was expected/instructed to verify the problem, if possible, through investigation and then attempt to resolve it to the customer's satisfaction or explain why it could not be resolved.

We had some leeway in how, or whether, we provided updates on our progress. We would offer updates, more often than not, and provide them in a more or less timely manner. We would always acknowledge the complaint and inform the client/customer that we had received it...

What I received from this comic strip service, however, stunned me. I would get an email acknowledging the complaint (routine and automated) and assigning it a number followed by a support tech's short blurb  in another email. All fine and dandy. But then I would get an email (apparently automated) stating:
 "Your request (#some number) has been deemed solved.
To review, comment and reopen the request, follow the link below:
http://[site name].com/requests/some number"

I was later informed that these replies were sent to the client/customer when a tech responded to a client/customer in any way. That is, the problem was not solved (or, as I would say "resolved") but the client/customer  was told that anyway through automation.

When I performed tech support, I always gave the client/customer my name (first name only) for further contact purposes. Not so with this version of tech support. The form and content of these particular and erroneous automated responses could (and, in my case, did) confuse the client/customer about the status of his/her complaint.

Fittingly, perhaps, one of the strips (the one that has not matched the online strip) is called "What The Duck." And there was also this: