🚀 go-pugleaf

Please excuse the crossposting.
 
Did you ever run across a company that gave you bad service? How about one
that went out of its way to be helpful? Today I ran across one of each.
The bad company was Microprose. The good one was Media Vision. Here's what
happened:
 
I've been having problems trying to get a CDROM game called Mantis
Experimental Fighter to run. It would go through the opening scenes and
then the video would die - nothing on the screen. So I called Microprose's
technical support line. They are only available from 9 to 5 so I had to
take some time off from work so that I could be in front of my PC as I
talked to them. Since they have no 800 number (none was listed in the
doc that I looked at), I had to pay for the call myself.
 
Someone answered the phone, listened as I described the symptoms, and
said that the problem was that I was running Smartdrive as a disk cache.
I asked that person if he would stay on the phone while I edited my
config.sys file and rebooted. He proceeded to tell me that if commenting
out Smartdrive did not solve the problem, then he did not know what was
wrong and I should send the disk in for an exchange. When I mentioned that
the game came on a disk with another game that my son likes to play every
day, that the disk had been bundled with my CDROM drive, he said that
Microprose was not responsible for manufacturing the disk and that they
therefore would not be responsible for it. With that he concluded the
conversation and hung up. So I finished editing the config.sys file and
rebooted. The game still did not work (didn't surprise me a whole lot
either).
 
Figuring that the chances of getting two jerks in a row were pretty slim,
I called back Microprose and talked to a second person. This one told me
that he had no idea what was wrong and that I should send in the disk.
When I told him about the disk being bundled, he repeated the same line as
the first person. When I asked what I was supposed to do, he told me to
contact the disk drive manufacturer.
 
So there I sat, blown off two times in a row by the people who wrote the
game and who had probably written the installation software as well. Since
they didn't press the disk, they wouldn't do squat. They did not coach me
through a re-installation of the game, they offered no technical
expertise, they did not admit that their software might have a problem,
they simply said they didn't have a clue as to what was wrong except that
the disk was probably bad and they had no obligation whatsoever to help me
out. The whole total impression I got was that the technical support people
were giving me the bum's rush so that they could handle their quota of
hourly calls as fast as possible. This coupled with their disregard of any
ethical obligation to support their software as well as their wonderful 9
to 5 support hours and their lack of an 800 number left me seething.
Microprose's commitment to their customers sucks! It'll be a long time
before I deal with them again.
 
After dealing with (or being dealt with) Microprose, I called Media Vision,
the manufacturer of the CDROM drive - not that I had much choice, who needs a
$50-$60 plastic frisbee? I had some hopes of getting some help from Media
Vision as I had called them when I first got my drive for help in
installing some other games and they had been polite and helpful back
then.
 
Media Vision came through like a champ. That's the only way to describe
it. The technical support person led me step by step through a completely
new installation starting from scratch. We discussed using alternate
interrupt vectors and other such esoterica common when dealing with CDROM
drives. The only problem was the game still didn't work.
 
When I mentioned my problems in dealing with Microprose, he expressed some
surprise, but did not comment upon it very much. What he did was to give me
his name (Hi, Jeffery if you ever read this) and his extension. Then he
switched me over to Media Vision's customer support line after telling me to
ask for a new disk. He said that if they gave me any problems I should call
him back. It wasn't necessary. Customer support put me on hold for a
moment (probably to talk to him) and told me they would send me a new disk
on the spot (no hassle about sending in my old disk first or even ever).
 
What a difference in attitude! Media Vision knows how to spell "customer
satisfaction". Jeffery has my vote as employee of the year. Seriously
folks, this experience in dealing with Media Vision was not atypical. My
previous calls to them were along the same lines. Of course, one has to
take into account the rebound effect from recently dealing with
Microprose, but still, the difference was great.
 
I don't go around making a hobby of praising companies. Typing this post
took an hour (I type slowly) out of my day, but sometimes you just have to
pay back a little bit of what you get.
 
                            Buy Media Vision.
                            Screw Microprose.