Forum Discussion
Quality of Office 365 support is sinking..
Just wonder how you perceive this. I post this here since I have not found a better place to do so. If I discuss this with a support person, all I get is an apology and that they cannot change it...
Over the last, let's say 8-10 months, Office 365 support has dropped in responsiveness dramatically.
That is, if I open a support case for an Office 365 tenant, the admin portal tells me that I will be contacted within 30 minutes. I would also accept 60 minutes or even 2 hours. But fact is that for all the tickets I've opened in the last 8 months, my waiting time for someone contacting me was between 2 days and 2 weeks (!). Adding a note to the ticket every day or so does not help. It still tells me that I am being contacted in 30 minutes, but nothing happens.
Now, I am working for a Microsoft partner. That means that I am using the Office 365 partner portal, accessing many tenants from there for support.
If someone from support does actually contact me, they usually ask me for more information. However, the email I get does indicate the ticket number only. Also in the text they usually write, they do not offer a hint for which problem they contact me. In the partner portal, there is no overall view of all open tickets for all tenants. This means that I need to maintain an own list of ticket numbers with problem description. Or I need to dive in to each tenant and try to find the ticket.
Suggestion: There should be a list on the partner portal level across all tenants..
Sometimes I get an email message telling me that they have unsuccessfully contacted me on my phone number(s). Yet if I check my incoming call log, there was no attempt listed at all. There may be several possible reasons for that, but I am suspicious.
As soon as I am contacted successfully by phone, I usually have to tell those support people that I am not the average user but an experienced Office 365 admin. Otherwise I am asked very silly base level questions. Although my problem description should give them a hint that I usually do not have simple user level issues.
Sometimes the first level support does not have the right level of knowledge. Once they realize that, my ticket is eventually forwarded to another engineer (there seems to be some kind of penalty when they do that. how else could I explain that they sometimes hesitate to do so).
I would have assumed that the information collected would be forwarded too. But that does not seem the case. In one of the recent tickets, I was asked by 3 (!) different engineers to repeat (!) virtually the same troubleshooting steps, each time in 1-2 hour live screen sharing sessions. Each engineer did find the same issues again. When the ticket was assigned to engineer number 4, I refused to do the troubleshooting once again and asked him to consult with the engineers having done the troubleshooting before. He did.. and the result was that the problem was found.
I do not have issues with the support engineers. Especially the 2nd level engineers are very helpful and skilled. 1st level is mixed. One can be lucky and get someone on the phone who is good. Most of the time they have, however, consult with their group leader or something like that.
Last issue I have is that once the problem is solved and/or the ticket is closed, I am asked to fill out a questionnaire. The problem I have with this is that it only asks about the support in general and the performance of the support staff.
There is no question that would give me a chance to rate the response time. So I do have to rate the overall support as BAD, which is in fact very unfair to the support engineer. But there is no other way to get attention into the system.
Anyone has similar experiences with Office 365 support?
I have to say that Office 365 support about a year ago was first class and super fast.
Not anymore, though..
Daniel
34 Replies
100% agree. Support has been terrible for the last 6 months or more. The new online ticketing system is awful too. The only way I get a resource that is helpful is if I open a sev A ticket. Anything lower has been a waste of time. Not sure what's going on, but SharePoint online resources used to be really, really good. Now they just ask the same questions over and over and rarely find a resolution. Very disappointing and frustrating.
- Yup, sometime we wonder why we pay them for? We use Google G Suite and there is a number we can just call or even chat with a live living person!
Yes, I've noticed the same problem after help center modernization. When function of choosing category and subcategory in the support ticket has been retired - the level of support dropped dramatically. Before it took more time to create a ticket, to choose a proper category and make detailed description of the issue, but it was worth the effort. I had always quality responses and fast call-back, sometimes even no call just email where were fixes to my issue.
Now you need to repeat several times your issue, screen sharing session and still sometimes engineers don't understand your issue or ask you to do elementary fix steps which you've already did, and described that you did.
I would love to have back old help center experience.
Other thing that annoys me, it's when support engineers is asking you to rate their support level while the session isn't closed, and waiting on the line, looking on your screen which rate you will give.
I don't mean to sound like an old man but with over 25 years of IT experience I have seen this scenario play out over and over. It used to be when a smaller company gets bought by a bigger one, I am looking at your Network Solutions, the support was responsive with the little guy then it goes South with the bigger company. It happened again when Cisco bought a company called IronPort good luck getting proper support with Cisco now, it is a black abyss. We have not migrated to O365 yet, we are one of the last hold outs, but our time is coming, and I know two things are certain, their prices will only increase and their level of support will only decrease. No one cares more about your systems (servers, apps, etc.) than you do, keep them on prem as long as you can.
- RussellRead
Microsoft
There are many reasons why the support experience varies between small and large companies, but that doesn't mean to say that support from large companies should be expected to be bad.
This particular thread predominantly attracts those who've got stuck in the system and need help, but we help thousands of customers every day and aim to respond very quickly with the intent of solving that problem on the first contact.
We don't always get this right and some problems are unfortunately more tricky to solve than others. There are lots of folks at Microsoft working in the background who are passionate about making significant improvements to our support experience and I believe the support experience you'll receive from Microsoft will only continue to improve.
Keeping services on prem is currently absolutely the right decision for some people, but for many others moving to online brings significant benefits. Don't worry, I'm not here trying to sell :)
oh Sir Russell how I wish you were a fly on the wall during my last two Microsoft "Technical" Support case calls, and I use the term "technical" loosely, lol, ha ha
I would just love to keep the "Engineers" attention on our call for 2 minutes, seems like they have a dozen Chat windows open and keep regurgitating the same standard rubber stamped replies, example:
Me: Hi, I would like to know how to enable Rights Management on my O365 portal?
Respnse: Hello I am so and so and I am dedicated to helping you and only you, I will solve all of your problems, what issue are you calling about?
Me: um... read my first statement
and round and round it goes
I have had a Dynamics 365 call raised since the 18/04/2018. Which is till waiting for an engineer to be assigned. I have tried raising another call for this call but I am informed they cannot help and to ring the Platform Support Team, they are unable to help because an engineer has not been assigned in the Dynamics CRM team. I keep being reassured that emails are being sent and they are taking personal responsibility to ensure it is actioned - but nothing is heard. I have spent HOURS! on phone calls just trying to get an issue resolved which has been caused by Microsoft.
- RussellRead
Hi Andrew,
Sorry to hear that. If you want to send me the ticket number, we can take a look to find out what's going on.
-thanks, Russell.
Hello RussellRead,
I have three generic questions you might or might not be able to answer.
(btw, I really appreciate very much you taking the time to try to help us here, even if this is not your main responsibility, as I think I have understood on your comments).
Question 1:
I am logged into the Office 365 partner console and see all our tenants. I can open service requests for each tenant. But I do not see anywhere the possibility to see all open tickets across all tenants in one place or view. Should that be or is that not possible at all?
IMHO, it should be possible for MPN partners taking care of several tenants to see all tickets of all tenants (possibly of all users in those tenants having opened a ticket) in one place. Hopefully with some history as well.
Question 2:
When I log into a specific tenant with the same login I used to open tickets, I cannot see old tickets at all. What I see is only the tickets that are currently open. Should I not be able to see all open and closed tickets for at least a couple of months back?
Question 3:
If I, as an Office 365 user, or as an Office 365 MPN partner looking after several tenants, have an issue with the quality of support in general (not related to one specific ticket, but really overall), is there an official way to reach someone responsible for the support process to discuss the issues with?
Explanation: When I address the engineers working on tickets, I do not talk to the right level. Those engineers are interested to fix the Office 365 issue and not the Office 365 overall support process. Talking with their manager won't do either.
Having this discussion here in this forum is a nice refreshment, but at the end I do not get a satisfying answer.
Thanks
Daniel
- I'm finding response times are still mostly OK for my team and I, but it is frustrating that you specifically request a follow up via email and they still call. This is annoying as they always try to call AFTER business hours and we end up with missed calls.
- RussellRead
Thanks for the feedback. If you've specifically requested communication via e-mail, the support teams shouldn't be calling unless there's a good reason to attempt a call. And certainly the teams don't intentionally call after hours, we'd much rather speak with you to help you resolve the ticket.
In future, if this happens, please do add a note to the ticket to re-iterate that you don't require a phone call and that you want communication to occur via e-mail. You can also use the feedback opportunity after the ticket is closed to feedback on your experience.
If it's persistent, let me know the ticket numbers where it's happening and I can help to feedback to the teams too.
Which reminds me of another little .. hmm.. annoyance?
It happens that I work on an issue until late night. Then I decide to open a support ticket because I'm stuck.
I am in CET time zone. When I open a ticket at 10pm, it obviously will be routed to the team that is active at that time (covering the US timezones for example). I know that I am not called back in the night, but I still add a remark in the text of the ticket that I am in the CET timezone and I wish to be contacted during the CET business times.
Yet, if someone contacts me, they try still in the middle of (my) night.
Based on this discussion here, I would assume that there are different support partners covering different timezones around the world. And apparently they are not able (or do not know how?) to transfer a ticket to another support team that is covering the customers (my) timezone...
Daniel
- RussellRead
Thanks for the feedback. Generally speaking, the support team who receive your support ticket are going to take the opportunity to resolve as fast as they can - this is probably why they try to contact you.
If you've explicitly asked to be contacted between a certain window, that should be honoured where possible. If you are routinely contacted outside of your normal availability/working hours, just let the support team know which times/days work for you and they should assign the ticket to somebody who's on-shift at that time.
We do have many teams and they are spread geographically, however, we do have sites that operate 24x7 too. If you submit a ticket at 10pm CET, you will route to one of our 24x7 global English teams. These teams know how to transfer tickets so there shouldn't be a problem in getting somebody to support you during your business hours.
If you don't have success after asking the support team to assign your ticket to somebody who can speak with you at a time suitable for you, use the opportunity to provide feedback when the ticket is closed. If it's persistent, let me know the ticket numbers and I can also get that feedback to the teams.
In my experience, it depends a lot on the engineer handling the ticket. Some support engineers are skilled and good. Some are new bees and if I get a feeling that they dont undersand the ticket, I have to push to escalate the ticket.
Lots of good feedback here, and I can definitely agree with some of the key points. In particular when the new support experience was introduced I expressed my concerns about the "30 mins callback" promise, as well as the negatives of turning this into a "call center" experience - having limited option to categorize the issue and relying on someone on the other end to follow up with some basic Q&A before support even acknowledges the issue.
With all the money Microsoft is making now from O365, I would definitely love to see a trend of bringing more support in-house, limiting the number of vendors, or at least sticking to vendors that offer qualified people, not just the lowest cost.
Unfortunately most of the people directly responsible for the support experience are not on these boards afaik, so tagging few others instead. Anne Michels RussellRead, can you please forward this to the appropriate teams/people?
- > In particular when the new support experience was introduced I expressed my concerns about the "30 mins callback" promise, as well as the negatives of turning this into a "call center" experience
When I jumped on the Office 365 train in 2015 I was blown away by the support in a very positive way. Just call the number, get someone competent on the phone and resolve the issue in 30 minutes. Escalating a ticket was extremely easy, when the 1st level support technician was in over his head. Needless to say, that this tremendously helped to convice upper management to hop on board.
A year or so later, a call to the support line only resulted in some person explaining me how to open a ticket through the admin portal (what a joke).
Today I don't even try to call support anymore and just open a ticket. But that system is so broken, you can't even add technical details because the textbox (it isnt even a text area) is so small and limited. I usually just write someting along "HALP. OneDrive Broken. Cannot add user." just because the system doesn't let me add any specifics.
Oh, and I usually get an answer within three to ten days.
Office 365 management effectively crash landed the super sonic airplane that was Office 365 technical support.
