How not to run technical support!

Looks like Hosting365 customer and technical support isn’t alone at the bottom of the pit. Technorati is probably the worst I’ve seen yet. Actually that’s not true, it’s the second worst as nobody could be as bad as Hosting365.

Long story short; I’ve lost my login details to Technorati. I tried to have them emailed to me via their Web site, but the site wasn’t working properly. These things happen so I’m not complaining about the site not working. So, I filled in their form informing them of the problem (i.e. their Web site wouldn’t allow me to apply for a new password). I was absolutely amazed by the automated email response.

Dear Technorati User,

Thank you so much for taking the time to drop us a line. If you are reporting a problem you may be having you will be contacted by a support technician once we have had a chance to review your message.

If you don’t hear back from anyone within a week, please accept our apologies for the delay as we may be experiencing a backlog in Support. [snip]

Am I wrong in thinking that of all companies, an ‘Internet’ based company should understand the importance of speed when it comes to customer support response times? I know AOL has had some knocks in recent years but when I was there during the mid 90’s the technical support was second to none (I’m not saying it was because of me). They had chat rooms that enabled users to connect within minutes and have direct access to a support person who was both friendly and helpful. That is of course assuming they weren’t experiencing a connection problem

12 years later, not only is Technorati an Internet based company, it’s a blog-type company which should understand better than anyone, the importance of immediate responses. 24 hours is pretty slow for this type of company but a week?!!! That’s just not good enough. They don’t even guarantee a response within a week. In fact, judging by their email, I’d say they’re assuming it’ll take more than that.

Perhaps they really do only care about the success of Microformats, something I’ve been concerned about for sometime.