When did Nokia start producing CDMA phones again?
I think that this one is the first I've heard of for quite some time.

@temporaryerror: Nokia's been doing CDMA phones again for at least a year now but I think I read somewhere that they were outsourcing the CDMA phones to another company. Or maybe the company is leasing the Nokia brand, something like that.

@temporaryerror: From a 2006 report: Nokia is finished making CDMA phones. They say they will continue to offer Nokia-branded CDMA phones, but these will be phones made by their partners. All future phone development from Nokia will be GSM-only.

AT&T gave me the same grief over a Motorola Razr a few years back. I finally got them to admit there was a software issue. They still made me go through 3 replacements before offering a new model. Finally got a new model and it was, of course, a refurb. It has issues as well. Needless to say I dropped AT&T like a hot rock. I won't go to Verizon because their service is even worse. I'm not happy w/ my mobile carrier.....so far

Many tech support places (I worked in one) are outsourced, and the companies that do the tech support are so very afraid the reps will waste time that they cut the techs' computers off from the Internet.

I worked on an OEM account, and they didn't do that to us, but on another OEM account at the same company, people weren't allowed to access any websites whatsoever. The only resources they had to troubleshoot were in-house stuff, which you know can't cover everything.

I have to take issue with this line: "This is a great example of one of the biggest failings in technical support today, which is that many tech support centers wall themselves off from the hivemind of the Internet where people are constantly discovering and sharing solutions."

I work in the corporate wing of a large wireless customer service organization, and while this sounds awesome in theory, it's really, really bad practice.

Here's why: most customer support is outsourced (don't complain to me, I wasn't the one who decided customer service is almost worthless - all Americans did). Though support is outsourced, the original provider is still legally responsible for the actions of their representatives - representatives that they cannot manage hands-on from a day to day basis. Unleashing technical support representatives to scour the interwebz for solutions ends up in the following:
-Agents locate an article that tells them to complete a System Restore (when all that was needed was a driver update)
-Agents read an article that instructs them how to manually edit the registry (software didn't install properly; uninstall/reinstall would have sufficed)
-Agents read an article about how to reformat hard drive to get wireless modems to work

Each of these solutions is unnecessary and can be extremely damaging to the customers' machine. Now, you can have a designated tester try these solutions out and add them to a knowledge base or solution list, but simply letting your technical service folks loose on the web to try any solution they come across results in awful, inconsistent experiences and very possibly, serious damage to your equipment.

Sorry for the long-windedness.

Ok, this is dumb. After working in three different technical support centers, I can tell you this: no technical support worth anything is going to accept random forum postings as documentation of a problem. You always have to reproduce it in house first before making any decisions. You simply cannot take for granted something you read on the internet, because even if it turns out to be true, there's still a chance that it's not true, and you'll waste the customer's time and might even end up damaging their product.

If you can recreate the problem in house, then you can test and find solutions without worrying about wasting customer time or the risk of breaking a product.

It only seems silly if you haven't thought about it for more than 10 seconds or worked in the industry.

@Go Like Hell Machine: "Now, you can have a designated tester try these solutions out and add them to a knowledge base or solution list"

I was going to suggest this. The problem is that they don't even do this.

@Go Like Hell Machine: I will agree with that observation. Incomplete or incorrect knowledge is more dangerous than no knowledge. I've had to do damage control for friends after they totally blew something while following "advice" on the internet and either doing it badly or doing something that was unnecessary.

Or you can work for a company that the wireless companies outsource their call centers to (such as a place I work), which doesn't seem like an issue. We can handles things… but no, our own helpdesk is offshore.

Now what sense does it make to have a company outsource its call center to a company that outsources and offshores its call centers?

This is a great example of one of the biggest failings in technical support today, which is that many tech support centers wall themselves off from the hivemind of the Internet where people are constantly discovering and sharing solutions.

The assumption here is that the Internet "hivemind" is always correct. Unfortunately, it's not. As a career IT worker I've looked up many, many problems on the Internet ... and have found that many of those I find, fall short of the mark. Letting folks look up solutions on the 'Net and then feeding those solutions — which may be wrong, inefficient, or otherwise not applicable — to customers as "official" advice, is simply NOT a good idea.

The problem is NOT that the tech-support phone-answerers are walled off from the Internet. The REAL culprit is that the engineering departments — which are supposed to feed the tech-support phone-answerers with workable, optimal solutions — are just not up to the task before them. In the case of wireless phones, this is because 1) they're overwhelmed with a huge number of potential devices their customers have, about which they have to know a great deal and of which they need to have many in their testing facilities in order to reproduce problems as well as solutions; and 2) the need for TWO companies (the manufacturer and the network provider) to collaborate on those solutions and — for lack of a better term — present a united front.

One obvious solution to this problem, is thorough pre-market testing. Put new phones in the hands of engineers, let them actually use them for a few months, then devise solutions to all the problems that come up — in teams made up of folks from both companies. Testing of this sort IS done, however, in many cases it's not as complete as it ought to be, or is aborted by executives trying to rush things to market.

Another solution is for these companies to stop creating new iterations of the same old devices, so that the engineering folks don't have so many hardware combinations to deal with. But since getting new gadgets onto the market as often as possible is also something the executives love, this also is NOT going to happen.

In other words ... this sort of thing is a natural result of how the wireless-phone industry works. Expect more, not less, of it, in the future.

I don't want random forum postings from a tech support staff. I want them to:

1) Be aware of currect issues and acknowledge the problem exists
2) Be aware of and test possible solutions to the problem. Then, they are no longer "random'

In the OP's situation, they denied the problem even existed in spite of much web discussion to the contrary and recommended expensive and/or useless solutions. Ergo, they made the situation even worse -- not the desired result from your tech support call.

@MostlyHarmless: On the other hand, I know people have also had to do that after following advice from a CSR.

Hi, I'm Ryan and I wanted to say thanks for posting the story.
I made a mistake and forgot to mention that of the techniques to try and fix the problem taken at the verizon store, one of them was the IMEI-Registration fix as described on the Nokia Forum. Unfortunately, it did not work for my phone, or it was done improperly.

Thank you for looking into this.

@Demonbird:
Oh, the replacement intrigue arrives tomorrow, and should be rebooting indefinitely thirty seconds after that. I'll let you know what verizon says after that.

@floraposte: The difference is, at least in theory, you have some sort of recourse if a CSR directs you to perform methods that are somewhat authorized in a way that wrecks your hardware. If they're off the beaten path, both the company and the outsourcer can claim ignorance and just fire the CSR.

@pattiesmart: Yeah, I'll agree. My company is trying - unfortunately, as pretty much everyone knows, training is typically the last place a company likes to spend money (guess where I am!)

This is why I stopped buying Brokias. They used to be realiable and rarely had a problem! Basically the sales dude had to try and troubleshoot the issue...he's the front line of the company after all. If it was me I would have been upset if he told me "Oh that is unfortunate sir! Please call this number to a country where people talk with an accent and named Bob."

Google search?

[xkcd.com]

I don't see mention of where Ryan PRINT OUT and brought the issues he saw online to Verizon to make his point. Telling a tech guy what you found online is pretty useless.

I bought a factory unlocked Nokia 6300 at the 5th Avenue Nokia Store (the corporate store just off 5th Ave. in NYC). I'm Canadian. That phone suffered constant reboots. I called Nokia.

They forced me to send the phone back to the US and would only re-deliver it to a US address, even though, by that time, the phone was selling in Canada too.

All they did was re-flash the firmware. So within a month, constant reboots. If I wanted it fixed I had to go through the same rigamaroll. No options for anything else.

You can't reset the firmware without sending it back to Nokia.

I will never give Nokia a cent ever again.

BTW I have a constantly rebooting Nokia 6300 (factory unlocked) for sale. Any takers?

I've learned to call tech support as a last resort and to search for solutions on forums first. 90% of the time the answers I find will solve the problem.

@Go Like Hell Machine: "all Americans" didn't decide customer or technical support was worthless. Corporate America did because they thought it didn't add to their profits.

Older technical support models allowed techs to discuss ideas and move them up the chain for approval as new resolutions to problems. Now tech support is a set of scripts and fairly useless. As them something not in the scripts and they are helpless.

Yea Corporate America!

Three things:
1: The phone doesn't have an IMEI - CDMA uses the MEID and ESN standards.

2: It's Verizon's fault for their frickin' "RED" interface they use to cut costs on support training.

3: Nokia products suck. They just do.

@TCama:

that was the first thing I thought of reading this article!

chris, great article, but i would argue that the biggest customer service problem is a complete refusal to support a product when someone else can be blamed. i don't care who makes the phone, i bought it from a verizon store. it says "verizon" right on the f-ing phone. i don't care if it says "nokia" - i have no relationship with them - my entire relationship is with verizon. that makes verizon responsible. period. fix the f-ing problem or give me my damn money back.

& as for the folks dismissing the "random forum postings": if your "fixes" involve blowing up a computer, perhaps you need to refine your search a bit, b/c you aren't doing it right! reformat HDD to get a modem working?!? srsly? sounds more like what verizon would tell you to do than random internet postings. try this.

if someone in your tech support division doesn't know that restore, regedit & reformat are LAST RESORT, then it's time to free up some cubicles for people that have actually used a computer before.

@TCama: lol. saw it this morning & subsequently sent an internal memo to my co-workers.

& now here i sit troubleshooting a laptop for one of them. i believe her exact words were "i got your memo, which reminds me..."

that's what i get for actually doing something today. >:-(

@jimv2000: Exactly, can you imagine if someone came into my store, and I googled the problem and it turned out to fry his phone? I would be liable for the device. I will usaully look for easy fixes that I know won't mess something up, but there is no way I would do something I was unsure about.

Most carriers have SET limits on returns set by the manufacturer. If you ask me, it sounds like he was over the 30 day limit for buyers remorse returns, therefore the manufacture is the one who blocks the return, and its the MFD who holds the warranty, NOT the carrier. So if your phone is messed up, don't blame the carrier and its tech support dept for restrictions set on by the MFD.

Theres also a reason rules like this exist, consumers who scam and abuse the system.

If Verizon dosn't have info on this problem already, some low level tech guy in a store can't really do much about it except offer to repair the same device, and hope Nokia gets off their ass and releases a firmware update.

You guys forget to remember. The CARRIERs job, and contractual obligation is to provide a SERVICE. If your phone doesnt work because of a lazy mfd, the carrier is still capable of providing the service, its your hardware that is broken. Carrier is still doing its job.

@Demonbird: My advice, after X number of repairs, your state should have a lemon law that might apply, and therefore the MFD must either replace the device with a working model, or a comparable one. Nokia should know of this problem by now and should know what to do in this situation if it still happens. Or talk to Verizon CS, escalate and see if you can get an exchange.

@Scazza:
The problem is, the error is not hardware and is dueto an incompatibility with the phones software and whatever is coming from verizon. They are sending me a replacment phone, but they did this with other people in the same situation, and every time the replacement immediately suffers the same issue.
I asked about switching models and they said I would have to pay full retail for the new phone, but if I go through two or three more intrigues, which would happen save some sudden breakthrough fix, they would CHOOSE a comparable phone (of which verizon claims to have none in the same category, I guess retail value means nothing) and that is what I would have to get.

@rickn99: The fact that it appeared on an online forum does not mean that Verizon knows about the issue. It's not their forum, and really, it's not their problem anyway. It sounds like a bug in the phone's firmware, and it's something that the OP should take up with the manufacturer (Nokia).

It'd be like calling Comcast because your TV keeps turning on and off...it's rather ridiculous, even if they gave you the TV.

Regarding the line of thought that "it's Nokia's problem, not Verizon's" -- I'd say the carriers have brought this on themselves. They are the ones that want so much control over both the hardware and the service. Except of course when there's any problem. All they really seem to want is a revenue stream. I went several rounds with Sprint, Samsung, and SanDisk when I was having trouble getting a microSD card to work in my last phone. There were more fingers being pointed than you'd see at a Shame on You convention.

@awolcfh5150: I'll offer a bit of sacrilege... try Sprint. Don't change your plan and phone every week and it should be fine. I honestly think that I've not had account problems in 9 years with Sprint because I haven't given them the opportunity to screw up my account record(s) in their system.

My service works, coverage is excellent where *I* need it, the data service is snappy and it's relatively cheap for the plan we have.

@jimv2000:
some of the old cable boxes had a power plug that can be turned on and off by the box.

@Demonbird: See, in this case, its hard to place "blame". Verizon has a network, they get a mfd to make a phone that has to abide by their specs. Verizon can't custom make their network everytime a phone comes out. So really, the blame lies more with Nokia (although why verizon is still SELLING this model, and not recalling it is beyond me).

However, if Verizon has custom software on the phone thats causing the problem, then sure enough, its verizons fault (forgive me, we dont have this model yet so no idea about it).

Anyway, I hope they sort out your problem. Even if verizon isn't fully to blame, its very sad that they will not remedy the problem (by replacing it, as its the only solution). I think you need to escalate your problem higher and stop talking to regular joes are CS.

Good Luck.

@Scazza:
Yeah, I agree that this is a team issue, and verizon is not at total fault for the issue, but they are at fault for doing essentially as little possible to help with it.
I'll look into what I can do to escalate the problem. If they do fix it by forcing me into a phone downgrade I'm going to drop them, and I'll be damned if I pay an ETF.

@MostlyHarmless: "Incomplete or incorrect knowledge is more dangerous than no knowledge."

Old Japanese proverb say "a little knowledge is the source of great injury."

生兵法は大怪我の元

@GearheadGeek:
I've been with Sprint for over 10 years, and have also not had a problem with them. It's strange because I read a lot of bad stuff about Sprint on this site. I guess I'm an aberration!

I would take the new phone and keep taking them until they begged me to use another model.

Go in every day and get a new Nokia every time it so much as drops a call...

@bohemian: I believe what he was saying is that "all Americans" decided because Americans continue to buy from companies that have poor customer support. Using your example, if I farm out customer service to Thailand to people that don't speak English to save some money, who is at fault, me for trying to save money, or the customers who still buy my product knowing this?