Stubborn Customer Service
Yesterday afternoon I called Asus Support to ask a few questions. After a rather long wait listening to bad elevator music, I finally was connected to a gentleman with an Indian accent. I cringed a bit because of the tendency to outsource CS to out of the country centers, but I tried to squish my concerns and remind myself that there are good outsourced representatives... sometimes. This was one of those times. It began as it usually did, with the gentleman, who I'll just call CS, asking for the SN ID of the laptop. Looking at the bottom of the laptop there were only three numbers, an alphanumeric SN, a four digit VN, the windows OS number, and a model number. The conversation went something like this:
Me: It's 8co[blah blah blah blah]
CS: *pause* It won't start with an 8 or have letters. It's a 12 digit number.
Me: Are you sure?
CS: Yes.
Me: And it's on the bottom of the laptop, right?
CS: Yes.
Me: But there are only two numbers on here, well three actually, and one is labeled SN, one VN, and one the windows XP number.
CS: Check again. It won't have any letters.
Me: I did. Like I said, it clearly is labeled SN and it has numbers and letters.
CS: That's the serial number, and it'll be 22 numbers and letters. I need the SN ID, and that's 12 digits.
Me: There is no other numbers, and this one is *counts it out loud* 12 alpha numeric digits. The only other number is a four digit VN.
CS: That's not it. it's a 22 digit number.
Me: *getting frustrated* There IS no other number.
It went on a bit longer until I finally hung up on him, convinced he was reading from the standard customer support manual and refusing to believe he might be wrong. Refer to this site with photos of where to locate the serial number; lo and behold there are letters mixed with numbers. Now I know there are many a clueless customer who calls, but sometimes reps to just believe them when they say there are only two numbers on the sticker.
In the end I went to a local shop to ask them and, if necessary, let them deal with Asus CS for me.
Me: It's 8co[blah blah blah blah]
CS: *pause* It won't start with an 8 or have letters. It's a 12 digit number.
Me: Are you sure?
CS: Yes.
Me: And it's on the bottom of the laptop, right?
CS: Yes.
Me: But there are only two numbers on here, well three actually, and one is labeled SN, one VN, and one the windows XP number.
CS: Check again. It won't have any letters.
Me: I did. Like I said, it clearly is labeled SN and it has numbers and letters.
CS: That's the serial number, and it'll be 22 numbers and letters. I need the SN ID, and that's 12 digits.
Me: There is no other numbers, and this one is *counts it out loud* 12 alpha numeric digits. The only other number is a four digit VN.
CS: That's not it. it's a 22 digit number.
Me: *getting frustrated* There IS no other number.
It went on a bit longer until I finally hung up on him, convinced he was reading from the standard customer support manual and refusing to believe he might be wrong. Refer to this site with photos of where to locate the serial number; lo and behold there are letters mixed with numbers. Now I know there are many a clueless customer who calls, but sometimes reps to just believe them when they say there are only two numbers on the sticker.
In the end I went to a local shop to ask them and, if necessary, let them deal with Asus CS for me.