Do you thank tech support / customer service via email when they fix your problem?

I have just gone through a lengthy week-long email-based discussion with customer service for a website. The entire conversation was pretty impersonal and handled by multiple people on their end. This morning, they determined that I was right and the issue was handled to my satisfaction.

Do you respond to there final email, thanking them for their help and their apologies? Or just let it go?

I work in technical support, so I’ll answer from the other end.

I would say that no more than 10% of people thank us for our work. While the general “thanks” emails I don’t really pay attention to, I do appreciate it when someone has a personal thank-you or praise. If your case has been handled by multiple people and not particularly well, I take it that’s not going to apply in your case.

Then again, it’s always lovely to get someone who genuinely appreciates what we do. I don’t work in a large department - 95% of email traffic is answered by me - so I’m pretty likely to see it myself.

Personalized thank you emails really do make my day and are truly appreciated. I used to work as a call center supervisor, and one of my great pleasures was getting a happy email or letter about one of our employees. We generally made a big fuss of them and, if times were good, they often would receive a gift card or some other tangible. So, if any of you folks have a great experience with someone in customer service or tech support, I’d strongly encourage you to let the company know! It really makes a difference. (Sending it to corporate HQ is best - they so often only deal with the negative.)

I usually reply to their last email with a “Thanks for your help” unless I’m the one that caused all of the confusion and created the problem in the first place. Then they get a more heartfelt thank you and an apology for being a clueless idiot. I made such a mess trying to transfer a vBulletin license once that I considered sending candy to the poor guy that had to deal with getting it all straightened out.

I deal with tech support very often and many different companies. Any time they help fix the problem or at least we mutually reach the point where we realized it could not be fixed I either thank them or email them back a thank you.

There are a handful of techs I have talked to for over 10 years and I have a good working relationship with them. Even to the point of talking baseball or football with them while we’re waiting for the PC or AS400 to do something. The IBM, Masterpiece, PRMS, Quadrant, Symantec Corporate and WebSmart techs are almost universally great and wonderful. Most PC and printer companies vary far more.

In a few cases the tech has not only not been helpful but unwilling to work with me and I have sent off scathing Emails to (Dell Support and Compaq support years ago) on the issue. In Dell’s case it was the terrible 1st level support in India that could not work with me to troubleshoot an issue between their workstations, their routers and their servers. I finally got a level 2 support guy in Texas that was very helpful and actually glad for a chance to troubleshoot the issue in a 100% Dell shop. The Compaq issue was over 10 years ago and multiple techs were just useless and a few needed extra training in customer service. I have avoided Compaq ever since so I don’t know how they are today as part of HP.

Jim

When I worked at (large outsourcing tech support company) if I ever got a formal thank you from a customer I never heard about it. When I did email support I would get informal “thanks” from about 1/2 the people. So your response won’t be unappreciated it.

When I worked at (large cable company) doing support- anybody who got any sort of formal thank you to a manager-- they made a big deal out of it- gave out prizes and all sorts of stuff. Obviously this was beyond just… “Ok, working now, thxbi” Usually a letter, or somebody who asked to be transferred to a manager and gave an honest appreciation about you.

Of course- in your case- I wouldn’t go so far. I’d just write back and say thanks. Person reading it will feel as though their job is worthwhile for 5 seconds- and then go back to answering emails. But, it will at least get them through the day.

Someone at my last job saved a voice mail from a MS tech support person that said 'Wow, what a bummer, dude". It became the official office meme every time that someone had a problem after that.

I often send emails or ask to be transferred to a supervisor when I get good help and advice from tech support.
I work as a service manager in a large car dealership. Every customer we talk to is having a bad day. Their car is broken, and they will have to spend money/time to get it fixed. I get ragged on a daily basis. :frowning:
Believe me it makes our day when a customer tells me we did something right. :smiley:

So as a result I always try to return the favor. I went to the manager of a Williams Sonoma store last night about the great service I got from one of his sales people. It was near the end of what I am sure was a long day, and you could see him smile, and I could tell it made his day.

Yes. Sometimes by email. Sometimes in person. But always.

People seldom thank me for things I do to make their lives easier.

I do this too. I do a lot of shopping on line, and when the product is shipped fast and packed right, I let them know it’s appreciated. Sometimes I get a thank-you for my thank-you.

My daughter is a classroom monitor at the local community college branch, where the classes are “distance learning”. The equipment often acts up and there’s no janitor so she does all the cleaning. Thankless job, doesn’t pay all that well, and students can be real pains. But she takes good care of the students and is helpful with the instructors, and every semester, at least one student or instructor sends an e-mail or letter to administration praising her. She glows, and the positive feedback is a big reason why she hasn’t looked for a better job.

Yes. I think it’s important to be as courteous on the phone or Internet as I’d be if I were face-to-face.

I do. In fact occasionally this leads into further conversation that does have at least some personal warmth. It seems like everybody feels good about having helped, and it is so easy to let them know.

Once upon a time I found a text editor I really liked, and used it a few years. When I upgraded one of my PCs to Windows NT the editor started crashing, and I wrote for tech support. They tried a couple things and then offered my money back, but I asked if they’d continue working on it, because I liked the product (and had spent considerable time programming some nice customizations into it, like the ability to move lines upward or downward by hitting function keys). Soon the primary author of the software was sending me special versions, sometimes two or three a day, that would create logfiles of their operations so there was something he could work with. Eventually he figured out that the GetBitmap() function in NT’s API had a bug that crashed the system, and he came up with a workaround. I was quite happy with this, and so was he, because his product was robust on more OS’s now. We continued our email conversations for some time after, and in gratitude he gave me his permission to use his editor on as many computers as I wanted, for life. Which left me feeling mighty privileged, too. It was one of my more rewarding small work experiences, and it was all tech support.

Someone I helped sent me toll house cookies.

This is a good point. In tech support, we often give free licenses to people. (Often, we’ll offer a choice of a new product or an additional license of the existing product.) This only happens if someone has been really helpful to us, such as going above and beyond to help us find a bug in our software. I can say definitively that the nice, cooperative, and grateful people get this privilege, where as the abusive, aggravating, preachy, and/or nasty people never do.

I can’t say that we give a ton of great service to nice people in the future, because we do try to give good service to anyone, but I do remember the nice people and it is always good to know you’re working with someone who isn’t going to turn around and bite your head off. There have been a few cases where we’ve helped such people with pointing out other problems with their computer (e.g. a failing hard drive, or a malware infection) that were unrelated to the reason that they contacted us. We only bring this up with the nice people, because in our experience, mean people will then demand we help them fix it and get mad when we don’t rather than saying “Oh, okay, thanks for the head up!”

I’m so thankful for good customer service that I make it a point to praise the person who helped me via e-mail or on the phone since these calls are sometimes recorded. I like to think that some of my e-mails have resulted in pay raises for them.

My concern was with replying with a “thank you” email to the last person who happened to respond. They may have been the one that ultimately resolved it, they may have been merely the one to communicate the resolution. In my particular case, any expression of “thanks” will likely not go to any of the other responders, including the final responder; it will likely only be read by whoever happens to get to that email in the inbox first.

Nonetheless, I responded with a simple polite email to their support team in general. It may just clog up their inbox a little bit more, but I prefer to be more courteous, I suppose.

If you have names or ID numbers of any of the people involved (especially any who were especially helpful) include that info, and details of what they did. At my company, emails that consist of a generic “Thanks for your help” and nothing else don’t get much (if any) notice, but emails with specific info get routed to the supervisors of the employee(s) mentioned (one of the ones that I forwarded to a co-worker’s supervisor got her Employee of the Month, which I believe includes a giftcard somewhere).

G’morning!

I try to thank people personally when they’ve helped me, or even if they’ve been gracious enough to be personable, which is rare enough these days.

I frequently send a ‘she/he did a wonderful job’ note to someone’s supervisor when it’s warranted, and if the help has been exceptional I’ve sent flowers (a yellow rose with baby’s breath and greenery in a bud vase). The latter leaves a lasting impression - especially if you’re a lady and the help was from a gentleman. Y’get treated like gold for the rest of your life when you go that route. That’s not why I do it but it’s nice all the way round. :slight_smile: - Jesse.

I do thank the ones who help me. And if there’s a follow up survey, I take it too and give positive answers. I make sure I get the tech’s name and mention them by name in any comment field the survey has.

I do this to offset people like a former manager of mine who was a complete ass to all tech support, mostly because she was too stupid to live and too inconsiderate to die. How inconsiderate was she? She called our tech person directly (which was counter to company policy to use the online tool to submit tickets) and when the tech politely mentioned she was at a funeral still did not hang up, did not apologize, but instead kept trying to get the tech to help. There are not enough eye rolls in the world for that kind of behavior.

I got flowers once.