Registered: Jan 2003
Location:
Posts: 25

Phone Support

Has anyone had to call Tivo Service lately? I just called and spent about 5 minutes trying to get that computer to understand what my problem was (the tivo central website had told me to call the number because my remote scheduling wouldn't work). Anyway, I finally said I wanted to cancel my service - and got a technician to check to see what the problem was. There is NO WAY to get a live body without saying "cancel service". That's crazy. - sheureka

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Registered: Jun 2004
Location: Nod
Posts: 57

I found it infuriating at first too. The trick is to keep saying "live agent".

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Someday this war's gonna end.

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Registered: Feb 2004
Location: MA
Posts: 2729

All you need to do when you get that error from tivo central is either

shut down and restart tivo

or

force a call to tivo

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D-Pacman

1) TIVO Series 2 225 Hour (Upgraded) w/monthly service
2) PIONEER #810H-S (Un-modified)
3) TIVO Series 2 80 Hour (Un-modified)
(#2/3) with Lifetime + networked

HD Comcast /Digital Comcast

Network through Verizon DSL
w/Belkin Router and (2) LinkSys USB200M ethernet adapter

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Registered: Jan 2003
Location:
Posts: 25

quote:

---

All you need to do when you get that error from tivo central is either shut down and restart tivo or force a call to tivo

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Registered: Jun 2002
Location: Alviso, CA
Posts: 888

sheureka,

Sorry to hear about your experience. We are constantly refining the voice phone menu to make it simpler to use. We have had several major releases of the phone software this year in response to customer feedback. I will pass your experience on to the program manager in charge of the system.

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Bill Dailey
Project Manager
TiVo Customer Support

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Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Littleton, CO, US
Posts: 438

Bill, why don't you come up with a system that allows traditional "press one", "press two" along with the voice prompt? Don't you realize that you have customers such as myself who don't speak perfect English? If system doesn't recognize voice response for most callers who were born here, what is my chance to get anywhere? I don't have a problem with my TiVo, but just out of curiosity I tried to call your support line - no chance to get live agent or anything else with my accent. Fortunately I'm a long time TiVo user and have been member here for almost 5 years, so chances of me calling TiVo support for help are close to nothing. But if I was new user and needed support, I wouldn't put up with this garbage - I would just stop payment on my credit card.

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Registered: Jun 2004
Location: NC
Posts: 11

The time you call is really important also. I called a few times and had to what between 20 and 30 minutes to speak to a live person, then just yesterday I called and someone picked up a minutes time. It almost scared me she answered so fast and she waas actually helpful. Sometimes I feel that some of the "live agents" don't know anymore than I do and are just reading their info directly from the Tivo site. Thats really upsetting after waiting for 30 minutes.

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Freedom Fighter

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Registered: Nov 2003
Location: Burlington, MA
Posts: 437

That's definitely the case. I called and tried to get the computer to understand what I needed, but gave up and started repeating Live Agent over-and-over again. The voice response system is a failure. It is a major source of dissatisfaction, and it hurts all of us that Tivo uses it, since it makes it much less likely that folks with stick with Tivo, and therefore much less likely that Tivo will survive. Beyond that, when I finally got to a live person, after waiting for about fifteen minutes, he put me on hold for five minutes and then came back to say that he didn't know how to help me, and had to transfer me to another tech. So he did so. Next thing I hear is a "your wait will be at least 20 minutes." That kind of treatment is going to chase people away from the service long-term. It is a shame that Tivo cannot carve out a viable, profitable niche. I'm not looking forward to going back to "the old way" of watching television, but it seems inevitable.

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