Tech Support Gets Creative
July 20th, 2005 | by Ian Bell
I am going to share with everyone a huge fiasco I found myself in with the folks at Creative Labs. If you remember, I reviewed a Compaq GX5000Z gaming system last November. This is a desktop system developed by Compaq that uses standard retail computer parts; the very same parts you can purchase at your local computer store. Nothing is integrated, and the system uses an MSI motherboard (K8N Neo 2 Platinum) which you could purchase yourself should you so desire.
This Compaq system impressed us so much that we decided to make this one of our test systems for use with testing and benchmarking other computer hardware and peripherals. However once SLI enabled video cards started hitting the market, it was time for a system upgrade. This meant replacing the internal MSI motherboard with a new one; the K8N Neo4 Platinum/SLI to be exact. Moving all of the current hardware over to the motherboard was a piece of cake, with one exception, and that was the sound card.
Creative's new Audigy 2 ZS soundcard is arguably one of the better gaming sound cards on the market (at least in November 2004 when the Compaq system was reviewed). Most of the high-end gaming systems use this card due to its phenomenal sound quality and support for digital surround sound. So we took this card out of the old system and plugged it into the new motherboard. Unfortunately the new motherboard did not recognize the Audigy 2 ZS, meaning this particular card was not truly Plug and Play compatible. So I headed over to Creative's website to download the new driver; easier said than done.
We quickly found that Creative does not really host a complete original driver for this sound card on their website, at least not upon first inspection. All of the drivers listed mentioned an "update" in their title meaning you needed to have the original driver installed before you could install the "update". Well, the Compaq system came with a full system restore CD (how typical of computer manufacturers eh?) so there is no separate driver for this sound card available with the Compaq system. But that's ok right, because this system uses retail parts, just like you can get at your local store — at least in theory. Not true. I e-mailed Creative labs tech support and was told the following:
Dear Ian,
Thank you for reaching us at Creative Technical Support; we appreciate the opportunity to assist you.
With regards to your enquiry, I'm sorry to inform you that currently there are no standalone driver / application available for download from our website. The website downloads are only updates and requires a previous version installed. If you have lost or misplaced the CD, perhaps you can consider purchasing a replacement CD from us.
With regards to getting a copy of the installation cd, you may contact our personnel via the phone to place an order.
Contacting our Customer Service Team toll-free at:
1-800-998-1000
9AM - 6PM CT, Monday - Friday
Closed Public Holidays
Not exactly what I wanted to hear. I went to HP's/Compaq's website and searched for a standalone Audigy 2 ZS driver. You plug in the system name and information and Compaq returns a list of drivers available. The Audigy 2 ZS driver was not there.
At this point I am out of luck and banging my head against the wall. What is the problem!? Ah, Creative Labs has a forum with tech support answers. It came as no surprise that most of the people posting on the support forums simply wanted a driver that worked, and I was now joining the ranks of frustrated users.
The moderators quickly pointed me to the Creative Labs download page where I could find a standalone driver from the version titled "EAX 4.0 ADVANCED HD Driver Update for Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2/Audigy 2 ZS". You see the title says "update" so I assumed you needed to have the original driver installed, since the other updates require this. But after reading the details I soon found out that this is a standalone driver and should work. So I downloaded it, and ran the installation program. It told me it could not find the Audigy 2 ZS sound card on my system. So I posted asking for more help.
It turns out that this is an OEM version of the Audigy 2 ZS card made specifically for HP or Compaq computer systems (this Compaq system is supposed to use retail parts). The Creative Labs moderators, while very friendly, told me it is out of their hands since this is an OEM card and I needed to work with Compaq. Compaq phone support on the other hand told me that the drivers are not listed on their site because Creative prohibits this (I have no idea why).
So at this point I am flaming mad. I have spent a lot of time and energy to get this card to work, and I did not want to fork out money to pay for another one. So I posted a rant on the Creative Labs tech support forums once again hoping to get an answer. In my mind there was some sort of a conspiracy going on (on a playful level of course). Why would Creative create separate drivers for a sound card that is identical to the retail version?
In the end, a Creative Labs moderator was able to find the correct driver on Compaq's website which worked (although it was found under an HP Workstation product). I still want to know why Creative's e-mail support wanted to sell me a new driver disc and why Compaq told me there are no Creative drivers available on their site, when their clearly are.
There really is no clear moral to the story other than tech support just plain sucks in most instances - across the board. They would rather hand you off to another manufacturer than give you clear concise answers. But I guess if they knew the answers, they would have told me, so that makes me assume they are either not trained correctly (I am sure I will get a lot of responses on that one ha-ha) or the line of communication is broken between tech support and product managers/engineers.
I am VERY grateful for the Creative Labs forum moderator that pointed me to the driver download on Compaq's website, it's unfortunate that he decided to close the forum thread before I could thank him (I guess he had enough of me at that point).
What's sad is that there is a lot of money being wasted on tech support that simply does not have the capacity or knowledge to do their job. They would rather sell you something than solve the problem.
What Creative needs to do is offer standalone drivers on their website that are clearly marked as such. And Compaq/HP needs to make sure that all of the drivers for their systems are categorized correctly and listed in the right sections of their site.
Have a horror tech support story? Post it below, I would love to hear about it.
Post Your Comment...Comments
Simon Neirinck on Jul 21st, 2005 at 2:05 AM:
I've also been in some trouble with Creative. I bought a Zen Micro past year and I'm using it about 8 hours a day. Now after three months - while having the Zen in my pocket - my music started to distord while moving around.
I started looking at Creative support and it seemed like I wasn't the only one. The solderings of the headphone jack were useless.
I still had warranty so no problem, I would just send it back. Now that's where the fun started.
I contacted some guys at the forum who did the rma already, and it became clear to me that creative doesn't fix the problem, they just send you a new one. I guess 90% chance that the solderings brake again :).
Now I was very satisfied with my zen because I didn't have the other problems like battery draining and stuff. So then I thought what the heck, and screwed it open to let someone at work resolder the pins. Everything is running smooth now for 5 months. (btw: it seems like this headphonejack problem is going on yet since creative's jukebox; way to go creative :s)
The Gadget Guy on Jul 21st, 2005 at 6:20 AM:
Even for those of us who have "retail" Creative sound cards (I have 3 or 4 of them of various incarnations), the drivers on their site are a mess. All my Windows re-installs I've done in the last few years I've been able to do without having to install the original drivers from the CD, just using the ones from their web site, but it involved downloading and installing multiple files and updates, some dating as far back as 2003, and much confusion on my part over which files are needed and what they are. I don't know why they can't just keep an up-to-date driver set on their site in one install file. Other companies manage it just fine, and other companies even manage to keep OEM versions of drivers to download.
Rob Stow on Jul 21st, 2005 at 10:52 AM:
A couple of years someone I was chatting with at a local pub mentioned that she had just gotten a brand new Dell and needed help getting it to run. I went home with her and it took me 20 seconds to see that I needed to crack open the case and check for things like a loose ATA or drive power cable. I was astounded to see that there was simply no hard drive at all. I told her to call Dell in the morning and tell them that there is no hard drive in her computer. I then left thinking that my part was done and Dell would quickly get a new hard drive to her.
Three weeks later I bumped into her again at the same pub and she literally broke into tears. She had been on the phone to Dell techies many, many times in that interval and she was no closer to getting her problem fixed. She described what was happening when she talked to Dell and I simply couldn't believe it was possible. I went home with her again called them myself to experience it first hand.
I was on hold for most of the first 45 minutes before I was finally connected to a techie. I told the techie right off the bat that there was no hard drive in the computer, but he had a script to follow and there was no room in the script for common sense. After questioning me for 10 minutes and having me do things with the computer and report results back to him, he finally agreed that there was a "hard drive problem". So, of course, the very next thing he wanted me to do was reformat the hard drive. There was absolutely no budging him from this position: he *explicitly* stated that his script said to tell me to reformat and there was no going on to the next step until I reported back that I had done just that.
I was ready to pull my hair out after going through this just once, but the owner of the computer had been going through the same thing several times a day for three weeks. I told her not to call them anymore and talk to a lawyer instead. Two days later a courier company came and packed up her computer and returned it to Dell.
Jim on Jul 21st, 2005 at 2:49 PM:
From my experience, you are right about the money being wasted on helpdesk to people who don't have the capacity or training to do their job. This experience I am talking about isn't from dealing with a helpdesk, but from doing helpdesk work. Far too often the "training" is just listening in to calls, then when you feel confident yourself you pick up some headsets and go live. You learn most of what you know through doing the job!
It's an unfortunate situation I've found for many a tech support job - hire someone cheap, they learn quickly on the job or leave, the company gets to keep them at low wage and hence makes a killing. The biggest loser in the whole thing are the poor people who rely daily on those undertrained, underpaid and overworked tech support people who got tricked into being thrown in the deep end for something that was way above their head.
Walt on Jul 21st, 2005 at 6:41 PM:
"What's sad is that there is a lot of money being wasted on tech support that simply does not have the capacity or knowledge to do their job. They would rather sell you something than solve the problem."
BRAVO!!!!
I've worked tech support for several years now and can attest to this exactly. Our department here has the highest employee turnover rate of any other department in our company. We continually hire underqualified, or non-qualified individuals in hopes that a couple might stick around. Worse yet, those same under and non-qualified individuals are consistantly promoted into higher levels of support so that the people who are qualified can deal with the increased volumes of customer inquiries because they are capable of actually serving the customers.
Truth be told, frontline support is your best bet anymore sadly enough, the higher up you go, the less competance you will encounter.
These individuals are trained at "getting people off the phone" not fixing problems.
Speaking of which, I am at work now, and just got off the phone with a customer that I spent over an hour with because one of the people they are promoting from customer service into tech support screwed up the registry...Mind you this individual is usually challenged in their ability to chew food without choking on their own saliva, but that is irrelevant at this point ;)
If people want to know what is happening to tech support today, I give you exhibit A!!!
Granted there is the regular barrage of stupid people that we deal with on a daily basis, and some people are easier and better served by referring to other support given certain conditions. The habit of tech support just passing the buck is now standard practice, and sadly it has become that way because of the very practices in which the "technicians" are hired to begin with.
I can't speak for everyone who works tech support of course, but I do remember the days when tech support used to be a place where you would find some of the smartest and most knowledgeable people in most organizations due to their overall versatility.
I would like to appologize personally for the incompetance of administration, and the restrictions that have been placed onto their real technicians due to the inadaquacies of the idiots they hire.
Most of us genuinly do want to help the customers that contact us. Then again, those of us are qualified for these positions don't read scripts, and we usually appologize when we run into those barriers of things we cannot support, and most of us real techs will try to point you into the right direction even when it oversteps the boundries of the support we are authorized to provide.
My thoughts. If the people want better tech support. Stop supporting BAD tech support by calling them, or contacting them at all. Complain as much as you possibly can regarding policies the techs have to adhere to.
Mind you that when you speak with a few hundred people every week, you aren't going to make everyone the happiest customer on earth because all of those customers will obviously have their own definition of support and what they think you should do. I am of course referring to people who will call up their ISP and request support for a video game or printer, or those that contact any support they have a number to and complain nobody will help them because their manufacturer, or relavant support is in India and they do not speak english.
/end rant
power on Jul 21st, 2005 at 8:16 PM:
for those frustrated byt the creative "driver upgrade" package don't install it,(?) instead unzip it with winrar and simply point windows at the drivers it contains!
SoreGums on Jul 22nd, 2005 at 1:59 AM:
I am a tech support person....
short and sweet, working in organisation that have sucky management is where the nightmare starts. I work in one of these.
User rings me up and say why hasn't this happened yet? my desired response is "because thats the way it is suck it up OR complain to your manager who might complain to his manager who might then complain to my managers manager and then they might sort out the process, but that would be pretty amazing if something actually changed..." but of course you can't really say that, you just sit there and say "work in process dont have an ETA" silence, wait for them to go "Ok, bye" then answer the next call....
All comes down to the managers, you get good ones and you get **** ones
MetalPhreak on Jul 22nd, 2005 at 6:18 AM:
Yeah, I've got a creative jukebox 3. Headphone socket completely broken. plastic and everything. Just from a small knock on the plug :x And you think it would be easy to get it fixed even if I paid for it? Think again... :( If you think customer support from manufacturers is bad in america, its even worse in Australia. I find that the stores you buy stuff from tend to be more helpful.
I did have to RMA a HDD to Western Digital once though. Their whole process is very simple and I got a replacement within 5 days of sending the harddrive OVERSEAS to singapore. Thats how quick it was. Even with 2-3 day shipping there and overnight DHL back. :)
Ian Bell on Jul 22nd, 2005 at 8:06 AM:
To JohnM:
If you visit the Creative Labs website, you will notice that the Discussion forums are categorized under the "Support" tab and section of the Creative Labs website. Saying the forums are there for "user interaction" is a false claim.
Secondly, if you read my article, you would have noticed that I contacted BOTH Creative Labs and Compaq. I shared with everyone my e-mail response from Creative. They would rather sell me a new driver CD than try to solve my problems.
Has anyone else noticed that companies are adding discussion forums on their websites as a means for cheap tech support? I know that Dell has discussion forums that people use. I also notice now that all too often in the instruction manual's under the help or support section, they direct you to their website forums for help rather than give you a tech support phone number.
Thanks for all of the feedback, these stories are great. Keep em coming!
dylan on Jul 22nd, 2005 at 11:47 PM:
sometimes with the tech support lads, they actually do know what they have to troubleshoot, and are more than willing to help, othertimes there just absolute dolts, as for the audigy, I had just a plain audigy that wouldnt be detected, xp would pick up the firewire controller but not the soundcard, I used to have an sb live, and I had the setup files for that, but what you do is, you run the setup for the sb live\audigy, then you go to the temp folder and copy out the extracted files, the setup wouldnt detect the card, but the extracted files would install the driver anyway, allowing it to work, but once you get the bloody things to work, theyre quite a decent product
techsupnightmare on Jul 24th, 2005 at 7:51 AM:
Major issue of poor techsupport due that techies that providing support are supposed to provide answer to problems in a flash and they have quotas to fill for the number of problems they resolve per day.
Company aren't willing to train techies to ensure that they are well informed about issue pertain to the products. New products release in such speed that thorough testing for cross-compatibility no longer that crucial resulting in lot of hardware/software compatibility issue.
Jeff on Sep 6th, 2005 at 4:23 PM:
Ian,
I've got the same Audigy 2 ZS soundcard on my Compaq which is now not being recognized by my installed upgrade to XP Pro.
HP/Compaq wants $60 to transfer me to HP Solutions who then tells me how to extract the hidden XP driver from the installed "XP Home" partition files and the "result is guaranteed". What a friggin' racket.
Of course Creative won't help because the soundcard came with the Compaq. Sounds like you've "been there, done that" can you point me to the driver on the Compaq support site?
Much thanks, Jeff
Ian Bell on Oct 17th, 2005 at 8:02 PM:
Hi Jeff,
Sorry for the late reply, I didn't catch it until now. This is the driver that the Creative moderator pointed me too and it seems to be working: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/S...
Hope that helps!
Best,
Ian
kristen on Nov 7th, 2005 at 3:37 PM:
Hello
I am wondering if anyone here can help me.
i bought a creative jukebox (zen xtra, 30 gb) about 5 months ago. the warranty under creative is only 3 months, so they wont help me.
The player seems to be functioning normal except i cant hear anything. it plays, it turns on and off, but there is no sound. someone else mentioned the headphone jacks on these players dont last very long, and that you can resolder the jack
does this work? Is it hard to do? does anyone recomend this, any other ideas?
thanks!!!
Kristen
Bill Kistner on Nov 13th, 2005 at 4:21 PM:
Funny story about Creative. I was just there with an issue and found it worse. I tryed to Email them from the support site but it doesn't even work !!!
I bought TWO Audigy LS cards (The first would not work) and finally got the second one working. Problem is it causes a blue screen crash with certain games. P17.sys error which I verified on CREATIVES forum board from other users. I did an auto update/install from their site and now i don't have any sound except static !
Lord give me an alternative to Creative and I will NEVER ever again purchase another soundblaster product !!!!
JohnM on Jul 31st, 2007 at 2:13 PM:
Ian Bell, you have to get one thing very straight here, these are NOT support forums! these are only for user interaction, if you have a problem with a COMPAQ PC, you contact COMPAQ SUPPORT, if they forward you to Creative Support, then this means the CREATIVE email support, not just posting your questions in a USER forum and demanding an answer from the moderators, who's job is only to moderate the forum not handle customer support.
You should be happy THEY helped you find the link COMPAQ should have provided.
btw, threating to write a bad piece on your website is not the way to get any simpathy or support
http://news.designtechnica.com/talkback64.html
"I am going to share with everyone a huge fiasco I found myself in with the folks at Creative Labs. If you remember, I reviewed a Compaq GX5000Z gaming system last November."
you should contact HP/Compaq, not the 3rd party hardware providers who made their products to HP's specifications. Buying Compaq/HP/Dell/.. != building your own PC. Messing with the internals is against the company policies. Read up on it before you start shouting out that Creative did nothing to help you.
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Brandon on Jul 20th, 2005 at 6:52 PM:
If I had a dollar for every support nightmare... I seriously only go to manufacturers as a last resort. I'd rather download a torrent of pirated Audigy drivers than deal with either Creative or Compaq.