ATI CustomerCare

[ben6]

http://www.ati.com/support/customercareus.html

http://www.rage3d.com

ATI is changing Customer Service support system and calling it CustomerCare:


What is ATI CustomerCare?
ATI CustomerCare is our commitment to ensure that our customers receive a positive product experience from installation to usability and performance. BUILT BY ATI retail customers will be entitled to; 30 days of complimentary access to telephone support (toll charges may apply). This new support commitment applies to all BUILT BY ATI RADEON 7000, 8000 series and TV Wonder retail products and ongoing.

All BUILT BY ATI RADEON 7000, 8000 series and TV Wonder retail product customers are required to warranty register their products online, to receive complimentary (free) Access to telephone support. This includes support for BUILT BY ATI Retail Value and BUILT BY ATI Retail Premium products.

Online product warranty registration for your BUILT BY ATI RADEON 7000, 8000 series and TV Wonder retail products will be made available shortly.

Customer Service contact information, including telephone support numbers is available here: http://www.ati.com/support/contact/contact.html

What other options do I have for getting no-charge support? Does this apply to all ATI products?
ATI offers unlimited FREE access to online resources, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at http://www.ati.com. These resources include a searchable Knowledge Base, comprising of How To and Troubleshooting InfoBase's, Email support, Drivers and Software Updates, Setup & Installation Tips, Driver & Software Installation Instructions and Frequently Asked Questions.

What happens after my 30 days have expired?
After the 30 days of complimentary Access to telephone support has expired, you are eligible for pay for access telephone support available at a pay-per-minute rate charged to your phone bill. You are also eligible for no-charge email support via our online web form located at http://www.ati.com. The ATI website contains valuable information available 24 hours, 7 days a week. These resources include a searchable Knowledge Base, comprising of How To and Troubleshooting InfoBase's, Driver and Software Updates, Setup & Installation Tips, Driver & Software Installation Instructions and Frequently Asked Questions.

There is now a 900 number to call ATI. For built by ATI cards you get 30days of free tech support so make sure to break you card within a month. After 30 days you get charged these rates. Discuss about what you think of this change in this thread

 

[Ichneumon]

That sucks ass.

That's not an improvement, that's an attempt to PR-speak a downgrade in support services into something good.

ATI used to always have phone support. Sure, you paid $$ if you had to call long distance since they would never get an 800 number. But that whole 900 number idea? that's crap.

Their phone support always took days and days anyway, I know, I actually tried to work out a problem with them on the phone once... it was an endless series of you call me-I call you horseshit. If ATI thinks their crap phone support is something people should pay per-minute for, they'd better improve their phone support a HELL of a lot.

 

[ben6]

Ichneumon I agree completely. I can't even dial out to a 900 # from here.

 

[Above]

In the world of the big boys we call this structure of diversified paid and unpaid support a "conflict of interest" and it does not hold much hope for the customer. But since when did ATi "Care".
In fact, ATi may actually take it as to their advantage that their products are troublesome and in the case of the multimedia items, complicated.
ATi, please act like you are a responsible company and do "Care".

 

[Freon]

Both eVGA and Hercules offer free 800 tech support. I've used both. It was a nice experience.

I think Visiontek does, too.

 

[ben6]

I've given this a lot of thought. I really think this is a bad move by any company. I would rather they have cut off telephone tech support alltogether than charging by the minute and using a 900# . Maybe some people don't think telephone support for a product is important, but I think it's very important, as there's times where the videocard is the only one you own, and if have a major problem , where going online is a problem (rare but I suppose there are computer owners not online (I know there are), telephone support may be the only option.

This just leaves a bad taste in my mouth

 

[Tahir2]

I can see why they did that.
1 nasty reason is:

There is a lot of support to be done out there and you can make a killing from it... Just business as usual.

I work for a customer support company and the support side makes more money than the actual product.

 

[Pete]

As IBM discovered and rode to consistent profits, services and support are far more lucrative than products.

But offering services and support for other hardware is far different from charging for your own product. ATi should offer at least 60 days.

 

[Sharkfood]

Another explanation (.. especially if you read some of the testimonials on Rage3D ..) is to simply try and curb an influx of useless support calls and create an availability for people that truly need help.

I have read *droves* of threads from people over there that explain how they spent 3-4 hours on support trying to out-argue a support agent that a dual-headed card shouldnt have 2 monitors in the windows monitor definitions (1- primary, 2- Default Monitor.. like every Matrox, NVIDIA and ATI dual-headed card ever made).. or people calling in and hogging equal hours trying to get an ATI support guy to walk them through resoldering components from failed pencil-trick voltage mods and what not.

From the testimonials of long wait times and broken support, this would suggest an influx of call volume and likely staffing requirements to accomodate this that disallows proper training to have really qualified support agents available for *true* get-your-card-up-and-running tech support, versus droves of people with imaginary 3dmark score issues on their Celeron 600's and broken agp slot pieces from attaching liquid coolers improperly.

So although I'm not 100% certain, it would seem a good corrective measure to put a limit on the "free" in order to help reduce volume of "free loaders" that may be plugging up the system with requests for support that really lie outside the realms of what ATI envisions phone support should be. A reduction in volume means smaller staffing, and smaller staffing can generally mean a better level of training.

So maybe this is a corrective action to truly help *improve* overall support?