Today I hit a slightly different tack.

It seems more and more companies are making it more and more difficult to get quality customer service in any shape, form or fashion.

Yea – I know it's a tough world and cutting costs is important.

But there are some things though that drive me up a brick wall, mouth foaming with words that would make a blue jay blush in embarrassment.

I had a small problem with the transfer of a domain name. No biggie. I'd registered a name and someone wanted to buy it. Great!

How to transfer? No problem (I thought) – just go to my administrative login and do it there. Nope. Can't change the owners name there.

OK – there's a menu of items – everything BUT transferring ownership.

So – next step – call customer support. Right. I called – and got transferred to the company's voice mail. But – here's the rub. Their Voice Mail Mailbox was full. After the cheery metallic voice told me that – it hung up.

And again. And again. Next day – I actually got someone. English however was not their first language. I explained my problem. They gave me an answer. The wrong one. I told them that. They said – contact our customer service via e-mail. The address is on our site. Thank you – and good-bye.

Steam erupting from my ears – I went back into my administrative command area. Ah Ha! There's the icon for on-line support. Click it on. Crack! I'm thrown out of my admin screen and into another that asks me to login.

Words of various and vile nature swirled in my mind. But then – I espy a small box saying for questions and customer support – click here!

Success! Midnight will not fall tonight! I dutifully click, get my Outlook primed and ready and fill in my request. Another click and it's off into cyberspace. Now to sit back and wait.

The Response Comes in Record Time!

I waited but five minutes and got a response! Fantastic. Until I read the missive. It said in effect: "For support, you have to use our support form." "Click here."

Those words that were swirling away in head found their way to my tongue.

I clicked with a vengeance. Got the form.

Now ... the form said anything in RED had to be filled out.

OK. I filled out everything that was red-coded as mandatory.

OOOPS!

Click. Ooops! Got shot back to the form. "Everything in RED is mandatory" said the error message. I looked. Everything in RED was filled out. I clicked again. Within the blink of an eye the little weasel came back – with the same message.

Now those words were coming thick and fast – falling off my tongue almost as fast as promises from a politician's mouth.

I then tried filling in every field. What's ya know! It seemed even the "non-mandatory" fields were mandatory. The form went through.

I got a confirmation.

On the confirmation e-mail was an address for customer service and support.

You got it – the e-mail address given was the e-mail address on the website. The very same one that got returned asking me to use a different address.

If you offer "live" and on-line support – CHECK IT OUT PERSONALLY!!!

That means for all you CEO's, Marketing Directors, Support Managers – once a month call in for some support. Then send in a customer service request. Do it from your home phone and home computer. Use a pen-name. Use a personal e-mail address. Use dial-up.

See how your system works. See IF your system works.

Then raise holy hell next day at the office and fix the problems!