TiVoCommunity.com
(c)opyright 1995-2005 All rights reserved
indexcheckTC
This area is a static history of posts in the TiVo Community Forum Archive.
This archive history was made for the simple indexing of search sites like Google.



Pages:1


Why does TiVo even pretend to offer e-mail support?

(Click here to view the original thread with full colors/images)


Posted by: Smeg

For at least the third time now I've written to TiVo's e-mail support with a problem, and for the third time I've gotten the same lame response. "Unfortunately, I am unable to resolve your issue via e-mail. It would be more effective for you to call customer support. Please call: 800-352-1075 to speak with a customer support representative " I do not want to call. I do not wan't to sit on hold. I do not want to deal with someone over the phone! If I did I would not have e-mailed! There is no reason the things I have written about could not be done via e-mail. They just choose not to. E-mail is far more time efficient for me. And far less stressful. I can deal with people who are unable to understand and fix a simple problem better through e-mail.

Not to mention that it takes them 4 days after I write them just to respond with "Sorry, we don't do e-mail call us." And then I get the TiVo people who tell me that it costs them less money to handle things through a 1-800 call that they pay for with me on hold for ever than to have someone who answers e-mail. Sorry I don't buy it.

If you don't want to offer e-mail tech then just don't do it. But there is no reason my questions can't be answered by e-mail. And there is no reason an e-mail reply can't be given in hours.


Posted by: Want1394

'cause it's cute to "pretend." Childhood trait of "dressing-up", role-playing, etc.


Posted by: kantonburg

What I don't understand is why you even bother. Maybe I'm totally mistaken BUT you've been a member here for over a year. Made almost 200 posts and must have read everyone elses horror stories about e-mail, phone support, and the like. Why not just call right off hand or even PM one of the TiVo guys here. I understand your frustration but I just don't think it'll get you anywhere posting about it.


Posted by: murgatroyd

This certainly isn't true of the lineup department. I always get timely replies from my emails to them.

Jan


Posted by: Joey P

You didn't say what your question was, but I think some questions are better off dealt with "in person" so to speak. Questions that will involve them having to ask you several questions to get a better understanding. My guess is that if they can't answer the question with a single response (that is, there would have to be several emails going back and forth) they would just rather you called. Otherwise it would get really messy really quickly. OTOH, it might not be a bad idea to respond with a refernce number, and give you a way to jump ahead in the line.


Posted by: dgh

quote:
Originally posted by Smeg
And then I get the TiVo people who tell me that it costs them less money to handle things through a 1-800 call that they pay for with me on hold for ever than to have someone who answers e-mail. Sorry I don't buy it.


On the other hand, I can't imagine why a company would lie and tell you that they're doing something to decrease their cost when it's really increasing their cost. (I can certainly imagine the opposite.)


Posted by: JeffP

I didn't think it was possible, but I posted a problem and actually got a response other than "please call" - unfortunately, the result wasn't much more useful:

I wrote to explain/ask why a program that was clearly marked "Blackout" on one channel was recorded preferentially over the same program on a different channel without that designation.

The answer was "Tribune does not give use blackout information, fix it by manually recording..."

I responded with photographs of the TiVo screen where the word "Blackout" was next to the closed-captioning "CC" in parenthesis.

I received no further response.

Jeff


Posted by: MichaelK

Jeff-

I can tell you whay it picked the blackout. If it finds 2 of the same thing that match a wishlist- it will record the one on the lowest channel. Since you need to use a wishlist to grab all the games for your local sports team you are out of luck.

For example on Directv, espn2 is around channle 200 while all the regional sports networks are around 650 or 700. Frequently espn2 duplicates the regional sports networks coverage for a national audience. Problem is if you get the regional sports network that the espn2 game is on, espn2 is blacked out and you are supposed to watch your local version. But the tivo will always try to record ESPN2 as its channel number is much lower.

My personal work aorund is to delete espn2 from channels I receive. For the most part there isn't anything on ESPN2 that i would want on any kind of a regular basis so that works for me.

I wish they had a way to resolve this on there end. Sounds like your guid data actually said it was blacked out? For Directv Combo boxes I dont understand why they cant take the signal that tells the directv part of the box to blackout the channel and then notify the tivo side off the box to look elsewhere. Or they could just figure out a way to make a modified season pass/ wishlist that works for a specific team on a specific channel then you could mkae one for each channel your games might be on and prioritize them so blackouts dont occur.

good luck


Posted by: swsotd

Again, you didn't mention the nature of the questions you were asking, but I know they don't provide their e-mail support staff any access to any account information (sounds like a good idea to me). So you'll just have to call for anything account-related. Anything of a non-account, technical nature is probably better served here or http://forums.tivo.com/ anyway.


Posted by: TiVoBill

Smeg,

Sorry to hear about the issues that you had using TiVo E-mail Support. We receive thousands of e-mails each month and we are able to provide a customized response to most of those e-mails. There are certain types of issues that we have made the decision not to support via e-mail. Specifically, e-mail agents are not allowed to answer the following types of questions:

We have tried to indicate in the Knowledgebase and our e-mail submittal forms which cases require a phone call.

As for the response timeframes, we attempt to answer all e-mails with 3 days (it is currently taking between 2 and 2 ½ days to respond to most e-mails).

If you would like to send me a PM with your contact info and TiVo Service Number I can have somebody follow up with you.


Posted by: martinp13

Bill, it would be nice if that list was posted where the email support is offered, and maybe included in "we can't help you by email" responses.

Or better yet, where email help is offered, give a list of types of questions that they CAN answer.


Posted by: martinp13

quote:
Originally posted by JeffP
I didn't think it was possible, but I posted a problem and actually got a response other than "please call" - unfortunately, the result wasn't much more useful:

I wrote to explain/ask why a program that was clearly marked "Blackout" on one channel was recorded preferentially over the same program on a different channel without that designation.

The answer was "Tribune does not give use blackout information, fix it by manually recording..."

I responded with photographs of the TiVo screen where the word "Blackout" was next to the closed-captioning "CC" in parenthesis.

I received no further response.

Jeff

I think you're expecting more from the presence of the word "Blackout" than really exists. I believe the word "Blackout" means that the show is SUBJECT to blackout. I have seen games between CA and NY teams (I'm in Texas) with the word "Blackout" in the description, but of course they're shown here since the blackout doesn't apply here.

For a local game that is subject to blackout, you don't know until the deadline passes whether or not it will be shown locally. If blacked out, most cable channels just put up a black screen... they don't show something else. I don't know how TiVo could use this. :(




vBulletin Copyright ©2000 - 2009, Jelsoft Enterprises Limited.
vB Easy Archive Final ©2000 - 2009 - Created by Stefan "Xenon" Kaeser Modified by Adam J. de Jaray