Terrible Support?

General Discussion
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Is anyone else experiencing terrible technical support currently? I opened a case on March 21 regarding all my SmartPower Outlets ceasing to work (which I upgraded a few months ago from v1 thinking the old hardware was causing their flakiness). Other than the automated response to acknowledge the receipt of my support request, 7 days later, I’ve yet to hear from anybody.

This is in stark contrast to “the old days” when support would reach out proactively if they saw something in my configuration that could potentially be impacted by a recently discovered bug or upcoming update.

I’m curious if this is the new norm or if this is just an isolated case. I’ve been a big proponent for ST, and talked other people out of moving off the platform, but I’m starting to think the pile of reasons to move to something else may be getting too high to overcome.

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Seems the new norm. Search around, there are several threads about the same thing recently. Phone support seems to be decently quick though.

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@Brad_ST … Are emailed support inquiries sent to a radically different team/queue than telephone?

ActionTiles is only email support, so email Support@SmartThings.com is what I tend to recommend.

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You’ve got a while to wait. I’ve received an email yesterday for a ticket I opened on February 27th, saying that they are sorry for the delays and that they will research my issue and get back to me soon.

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A friend of mine sent in a question and it took them three weeks to get back to her with the wrong answer. A just obviously wrong answer about hardware features. :scream:

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Ugh. It really stinks to hear that this is a common support experience now.

Thanks for the insight and advice. I’ll try the phone (how archaic!) and see how it goes.

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Quick update. I called support and had somebody on the phone within a couple minutes. And while it was a rough start, and probably not the easiest way to resolve my issue, we did get it fixed in the end.

The support person told me to ALWAYS call. He said e-mail responses take a LONG time because they get a ton of them and have a “teeny tiny” team working on them.

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Why have fewer resources on email than telephone support? :confused:

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Just to close the loop on this. After the initial automated response to my e-mail support request, I had someone from technical support finally e-mail me yesterday to see if I still needed assistance. This is 28 days after requesting support!

I would seriously take this, and other examples, into consideration before (further) investing into the SmartThings platform.

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i have had an open ticket with samsung for 99 days now. The problem i had was all of my sensors would drop off line randomly and constantly. I called and emailed them a bunch of time and finally got a response. They did not agree with me that it is likely a hub issue, they thought it was a issue with all of the sensors and switches. So they asked me to RMA all of the sensors and switches that i was having problems with. It has been a few months since i sent them all of the sensors and they still have not replaced any of them. I call, they say that they are “working on it”. I think they just hate me now and have no intention on replacing the equipment that i RMAed. The worst part of it all is, i still have a defective hub that they are going to have to replace…i dont see an end in site.

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I doubt they hate you unless you’ve been (justifiably) rude on the phone.

I hate hearing of this horrible support treatment of customers. Whatever technical problems SmartThings has to iron out, Samsung has control over the quality of support they provide. Reasonable customers deserve better than this.

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I wouldn’t be rude to them. I have been in customer service before and I know what that is like. I just can’t get my head wrapped around why any issue would take this long to get resolved. Super frustrating

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If Support is doing the best they can then there are only 2 possible explanations (or both):

  1. Support team is insufficiently trained and/or resourced and/or enabled to escalate, expedite, etc.

  2. The product / platform is “unsupportable” (or of so much complexity or so poor quantity than it is impractical to provide effective customer technical support)

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I have been in your shoes and I know it sucks. But let me play the devil’s advocate for a moment. Your problem is hard for a rep to help you troubleshoot. The best they can tell you is to reset your hub and start over, which I am sure wouldn’t go well with you. Isolated incidents of some but not ALL devices dropping off, points to a local problem rather than a hub problem and unfortunately, they sold you a hub not the mesh you built. You are better off asking for help here in the community and getting much better results at solving your problem then you will ever get from support (with few exceptions). If you really have ALL devices dropping off, then for 69 bucks you can get a new hub and start over, or wait 99 more days untill they get to your ticket and send you a replacement hub so you can start from scratch.

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A quick update. I am still waiting for Samsung to replace my sensors and hub. This process started 188 days. I RMA’d them as they requested and they have not replaced anything. They keep telling me that they are going to send me a gift card so i can buy new / replacement devices. But then they tell me that they are out of stock of electronic gift cards. Not sure how that is possible but then they promise to send me a check. This has been going on for months, dozens of phone calls and still no resolution in sight. I do not recommend buying anything from Samsung other that TVs.

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