Microsoft - They aren't eating enuff dog food.

I believe that Microsoft’s MSDN subscription is a very handy product and one which is super helpful to developers worldwide. In addition, I believe that cookies are pretty handy when used correctly and I have lots of them on my PC happily letting web sites call me “Rick” and welcoming me back.

Hoohkay. With that out of the way:

I’ve got a problem with a Microsoft App. Shocking, I know.  I futzed with a dll and, <boom>, I toasted the application.  I don’t have my MSDN CDs with me so I zip on over to the MSDN site to just download what I need. Simple. Well, I thought so

I get to the web site, log in and get into this loop of being asked for a password, saying welcome, and being flipped to the asking me for a password page again.  Growl.

MSDN has an online, live, help system.  24x7 designed to help with nit things like this.   The entire transcript is below. Take a quick read and then scroll on down for some commentary.

————————————————————————————

Welcome to the MSDN Online Concierge

The session has been accepted.

[jerry]

Hello and welcome to MSDN Online Concierge. How may I assist you today, Rick?

[Rick Segal]

I'm trying to get to the down loads page and I keep getting a page about managing my sub. [Ed note: the response below took less then 1/4 of a second. Tells ya I’m not the first person with the problem]

[jerry]

1)Close all Internet Explorers excluding the current chat window. 2) Open Control Panel and select the Internet Options item. 3) Under the General tab, click the "Delete Files" button in the Temporary Internet Files area. Click to add a checkmark to the "Delete all offline content" item and then click OK. 4) Click “Delete Cookies”, then click OK. 5) Under the Security tab, set the Security level for the Internet zone to "Default Level". 6) Under the Privacy tab, set the Privacy level to Default. 7) Under the Content tab, click Publishers. Remove all Trusted Publishers. 8) Under the Advanced tab, click "Restore Defaults"; then clear (uncheck) the "Enable third-party browser extensions" option. 9) Under the Program tab, click Reset Web Settings. 10) Apply the change and open a new Internet Explorer. Try to access the MSDN Download Site again.

[Rick Segal] This isn't cool, it deletes cookies to ALL my sites. What are the specific cookies/files for MSDN that I need to kill

[jerry] But this issue is really of cookies

[Rick Segal] By cookies you mean that MSDN's cookies are currently, on my machine, a problem?

[jerry] The cookies associated with the download site will lead you to a looping problem.

[Rick Segal] ok. So how would I find out exactly which cookies those are so i can avoid deleting all of the cookies and offline content on my computer.

[jerry] I am not sure on this

[Rick Segal] Would it be possible to ask someone or email someone and then email me? I am not in a rush so I can take the time to do it right.

[jerry] I can not get the answer for you right now, it will maybe in several business to get the right answer for you, Rick

[jerry] Sorry, it's several business days

[Rick Segal] That would be fine, Jerry, I just would like to do this correctly on my machine so as to not mess up all the other programs. I can give you my email address if you'd like.

[jerry] Is that E-mail address valid for you to get the E-mail? [email protected]

[Rick Segal] That would be correct. If you email someone inside Microsoft, I am sure this information is available and I will wait to hear from you.

[Rick Segal] I appreciate your help.

[jerry] It's my pleasure to help you

[Rick Segal] Have a good holiday and don't let cranky customers mess up your day.

[jerry] Thank you, Rick, ,thank you for using the MSDN Online Concierge service. We are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Please feel free to come back at any time again

————————————————

Whew.  Let’s start with some fun stuff.

The live chat software isn’t LiveMeeting or any other recognized piece of MS technology. When the chat started Microsoft’s anti-spyware phreaked out. It still worked even after I said no, block it, pretty funny.  Too bad as this a perfect opportunity to show people LiveMeeting in action. No dog food at this table.

As I mentioned inside the transcript, 1/16 of a second after I hit the send button on the problem that whole delete *.* checklist flew into my machine.   

This points to a much larger problem and one that you should pay attention to if you are launching software or services: Don’t screw somebody else because of your problem. 

Had I done what jerry suggested, my Air Canada “remember me” settings would have been blown away, for example. It means that if I don’t have my FF number handy/memorized, I’m not able to do things on the Air Canada site.  And lets not even talk about telling me to just set everthing to default.

You have a responsibility to know what your software does, what it modifies, and what people need to do in order to back you or your problems off the machine.

This points to the other big issue: Outsourced customer/technical support.  Here’s a guy that is trying to do the right thing. Give me a solution to my problem. The split-second jerry is ‘off script’, uh oh. He is just hanging in the breeze, thank you Microsoft.  Doesn’t know, doesn’t have an easy way to find out and has to tell the customer (who had paid thousands of dollars for MSDN) that it will be several days before an answer will be coming. Totally not his fault, rather Microsoft’s for not arming this guy better.

As a side note, I try to be extra nice to technical/customer service people because I really believe that those people are just trying to make a living and the issues with service rest with the home office executives.

Other side note: David Sifry, CEO of Technorati, was personally picking up the phone and helping customers during the time when people were writing the company off as dead. I know because I called, got him, got help, got a call back, and got a follow up email. He didn’t know me, doesn’t care if I am a VC or the Pope, just rabid desire to help the customers.

The point of these two side notes: Don’t leave your people hanging and walk the walk before you talk.

There are hundreds of thousands of people using MSDN and paying for it. After more then 10 or 100 people call/email/chat with the same problem, a very granular checklist can be offered up to the support people.  Even better: Make the “having trouble” section of your web site as helpful as you can with all sorts of issues people come up with. 

Anyway, for your start-up, remember these things:

1. Delete *.* or Format C: may solve the issue your product is having but it may screw others. Get specific and granular.

2. Give your people the tools they need to support the customers along with a fast path to get to the right people.

3. Walk the Walk. You go serve the customer, directly, and feel the pain.

The best part of this story? Jerry Ding.

While I’ve been typing this, Jerry sent me an email message with a third party tool that deals with this cookie issue and one of Scoble’s (go figure) channel9 links. Plus he asked if I’d check out both and let him know which I thought was better.  I’ll be doing that while trying to steal this guy into one of my portfolio companies.

Well done, Jerry, you are a great example of good people making all the difference in the world.

Comments

[the head lemur]

You are waffling, my Boy! You haven't drunk enough Kool Aid. You probably don't even have a NET. Passport. The other news is that Scoble Has your identity.
http://scoble.weblogs.com/stories/2004/12/15/scobleblogroll.html
you are in the 't's.
But needing Scoble as a backup is sort of like getting amourous with a porcupine.

You are right about guys like Jerry, the bad news is that there are way too few of them, and the guys that do talk might as well be wearing cheerleading outfits.

[Randy Charles Morin]

I think you have to remember that 99% of the planet think you eat cookies and have no idea that there are cookies on your hard-drive. And I suspect that if they knew, they would actually open the computer and try to find/eat them. The help desk clerk gave you the answer for that 99%.

[Rick Segal]

Hi Randy,
I think you are right but there is the larger issue of what happens when people don't actually know what is what on the machine. It seems to me a 'reset' button, if you will, that deals with your app and yours alone would accomplish the same task for the 99% without messing up other things and potentially creating calls for other vendors and additional frustrations for the consumer.

P.S. Thanks for the nomination.

[Norm Waite]

Your remarks on what software "should" be are fine but, sadly, a bit misdirected, seed on stony ground:

Last time I needed to know what was in my browser's cookie collection, I just found the relevant file and read it. Easy enough. For how cookies work, the right IETF RFCs are enough. If nothing else works, then trap the internet protocol packets and look at the cookie data. Possibly build a 'Web site' (say, two pages of code), connect to it ('local loopback'), and do the cookie interaction things to modify your cookies. But working directly with the cookie file should be the easiest way.

Maybe Microsoft's Way is to wait until enough people scream loudly enough, and then add a feature. So, they could add another 50 screens to click on -- the first time, for much of a day -- to permit users to manage their cookie collection; horrors that users would be able just to tweak a cookie file directly from an IETF RFC!

For Microsoft's software, yes, in places they do have some good work. I recently dropped my resistance and changed over to XP. Some of XP is good, at times quite good. If the NTFS lost my data, then I'd get TORQUED, but so far NTFS looks solid. However, one point is that, with Posix extensions, etc., NTFS is not really just one file system but has some really obscure 'options' that mean it has multiple 'personalities'; further, it's just SUPER tough to get a clean definition of even just what a tree name is, etc. Clean definitions are to good software what bedrock is to a solid office building. Really tough to build good software on mud and sand.

But, not all of Microsoft's software is good: Once I was trying to use something and over 10 times I typed in the same fairly long material and, for several slightly different causes but for no good reason, had the Microsoft software delete what I had typed. Same thing on another issue. Same thing on a third issue. About that time, I started screaming curses at the software. Screamed enough to get a sore throat for a few days. Yup, for some of Microsoft's software, I don't like it. Understatement.

Really, what I deeply profoundly bitterly hate and despise is the entire Xerox PARC bean bag 'cogno-psycho' 'direct manipulation' 'intuitive' GUI. Every way I can, I use XP ignoring the mouse and icons (can't pronounce them, spell them, type them, look up their meanings in a dictionary -- a few thousand years ago, the Roman alphabet was a big step forward over 'icons', and it took the Xerox PARC 'cogno-psychos' to set us back before the Romans) and concentrate on keystrokes, text windows, and scripts instead. Sure, would like to have something better than a directory full of scripts with the directory name in an environment variable, but while waiting for something better very much do not want something much, MUCH worse such as some 'California dream'ng' 'funny smoke' inspired cogno-psycho GUI nonsense.

Still, I'm thrilled to have a demand paged virtual memory operating system 'embedded' in some dozens of virtual memory address spaces of 4 GB each, with a gorgeous hierarchical file system, a fantastic TCP/IP stack, an Internet connection commonly at 40 Mbps, more software than I can easily keep track of (downloaded, commonly at 50 MB or so each), etc., THRILLED!

The world's most popular desktop operating system gets so much third party software because it has so many users and gets so many users because it has so much third party software and, net, is a natural monopoly. "Quantity has a quality all its own": Desktop computing is no longer 'important' in computing and, instead, now is nearly all of computing.

They way Gates & Company worked to get both the third party software and the users, along with the operating system itself, was a masterstroke, brilliant. Others had plenty of chances and blew it. Thus, at this point, to a large extent, Microsoft can do or not do what it wants.

E.g., I well remember one of the computer industry's higher executives standing on the stage of an auditorium with no doubt the world's best collection of computer science talent and get really TORQUED at two suggestions from the audience that computers, networks, e-mail, etc. used for information, interaction, and collaboration could have a 'business case'. In wildly strong contrast, exp(10**10) times better, when Gates saw TCP/IP, SMTP, HTTP, and HTML, he 'got it' quite well right away and acted. No dummy. Big difference. HUGE.

If enough people don't like Microsoft's software, then there will be some changes, from third parties, Microsoft, or just end user written code (heck, I wrote two utilities yesterday). But, the world has a few billion more people who are not yet up to the level of computer user novices and, thus, a rich field for Microsoft.

Microsoft seems to have become much like many other very successful companies, in their middle age, "If you want to buy something, then you know the number to call. But, please don't call on a Wednesday because that ruins two weekends."

But, I get to type this on XP using my favorite text editor, first learned over 30 years ago, with my large macro collection (Eager for something better? Yes. Seen something better? No!) and an excellent third party spelling checker, while XP plays Kiri Te Kanawa singing the Puccini 'Gianni Schicchi' aria "O mio bambino caro"! Things could be worse; tough to have them better!

[james governor]

i tend to think scoble deserves some credit. the fact he has put the threads out there- so that people (internal or external to MS) can reel in the solutions to problems like this.

its no accident it was channel 9. where would jerry ding have been without the url?

[Rick Segal]

James,
The channel 9 stuff is pretty good, agree. The actual URL he sent me was the wiki for IE. That's for a different post actually!

Thanks for stopping by.

[David Sifry]

Rick,

I totally hear you about understanding the customer's pain. Thanks for the kind words...

Dave

[Alex Barnett]

Hi Rick,

Just so you know, I've passed on this post to MSDN team. Thanks for the feedback (seriously!).

Alex.

[J. Random Poster]

Norm,

Could you be any more long-winded?

[Chunni Babu]

This is true for most customer services. The folks there are trained to be like robots, and respond to certain questions in a pre-defined ISO certified, 6 Sigma compatible way - it is a way where CSRs are dictated to use a predefined f**** PROCESS, instead of their brains to handled issue. If your issue is not a predefined one it will be rounded to the closest pre-defined one. The moment you try to place questions that are outside the boundaries of the process, they will desparately and unreasonably force you to remain inside. In the world of processes, there is no scope for independent thought or investigative analysis - every problem has already been identified and documented!

I bet that jerry probably knew the specific cookies to delete, but had he spent the extra time and used his brain to solve your problem in a custom manner, he would have hurt his career.

Heck the other day the cable guy was at my place and because I was not getting sound on one of the HD channels. The first thing he did was to pull the cable out of my sound receiver and plug it directly to the TV, because sound receivers are not supported.

[Chris Maddocks]

"Don’t screw somebody else because of your problem."

Amen. I had a similar frustration with Microsoft's DRM'd media solution: http://chrismaddocks.com/blog/2005/08/31/goodbye-windows-media/.

You're lucky you got in touch with such an excellent support rep!

[Los]

Interesting write up, I thought I was the only one who had the myriad of issues with this abomination known as MSDN. I was hoping you'd touch on the "Redesign" of the site which made it nearly impossible to find your subscriber downloads, or when you found the subscriber downloads link, how it would redirect to the page you just clicked from. (They have fixed this by adding a "Hi-Tech" solution know as a HYPERLINK to the front page for subscriptions). The whole online concierge thing is a joke, they talk to you like you are a Windows Illiterate always catering to the LCD. I don't even bother with the chat an more, I tried asking them a question and they told me I would have to call the 1-800 number for resolution. What is this Chat for? Most of the issues they can answer are probably for Windows users who are new to the platform.

Q: How do I download a file?
A: Right-Click on the link and choose save target as...
Q: What's right click?
A: Please call our 1-800 number for further assistance.

I have used MSDN for 2 years the best thing they have going for them is the transfer speed. The interface is lacking.