How can I escalate issues in Office 365?

RussellRead I'm glad you're interested in and following this and similar threads in the community.  I hope that beyond just servicing your interest you're able to share information up the line which will make positive change in the Office 365 experience for everyone.

I know this isn't an escalation forum, but I'm going to start by inviting you to review my issue anyway.  Those are #7825985,  #7644160, and #30126-6412441 (an older system I guess?).  In particularly I'll draw your attention to #7825985 and my response on 3 May 2018 at 15:41 PDT, to which I haven't had a response and don't believe I'll be receiving one.  I'm very glad if you can goose anybody on that topic.

To the more general topic: I think it's a given that Microsoft perceives little benefit, even cost savings, in providing poor service at any level, and in particular for a product that is key to their strategic plans like Office 365.   The only reason it should happen then, is because of a failure of perception, or a failure of intervention.  Here, then, for however much it helps,  is a bullet point of things I think about my O365 Support interactions in the 8 months since we migrated to O365:

• I don't think that it matters at all whether support is provided by senior VPs, 3rd party contractors in Bangladesh, or the self-aware copy of Windows 2020 running the call-center on your secret moon base.  Quality is about solving, mitigating, or at least acknowledging and documenting.
• I don't think that support technicians at any level should be allowed to close a ticket EVER without express written consent of the customer, or an override by a highly placed manager (or the moon-computer).
• It is the height of folly to believe that the same resources which try to answer a question asked by, say, my mom, are in a position to respond to any question that I could conceivably call to ask.  One of the most important tasks for support is to as quickly as possible figure if it's me or my mom on the phone and to put us together with the right team.
  
  • My mom is way more tech savvy than she'd have you believe though.
• Stubbornly soldiering on in the face of dissonance brings rapidly diminishing returns.  It doesn't matter if it's because of a communication barrier, or supporting the wrong cricket team.  Escalate or at least reassign as soon as you see it.
• Talking on the telephone is nice and immediate but I hate phones.  Bring back the "E-mail me" button, please. 
  • E-mail is self-documenting.  For phone calls you have to rely on the technician's accuracy in reporting.  When they say I'm too stupid to understand the answer they gave me, it's entirely subjective when recording the details of a phone conversation.   If we're working over e-mail the evidence is right there in print.