Tech support going downhill...

[A RC Dude]

Hey guys, I'm wondering if anyone has experienced anything similar or if I've just had bad luck. I used to love castle's tech support, great guys to talk to, very helpful, ect. But the past two time I've called them i've gotten two different people who barely ever let me talk and explain what is going on and what I've tried to fix it before they start talking about everything to try when I've already tried it. I understand that it's probably not that pleasant of a job, but still.

I am a huge fan of Castle and I've had several of their products and great experiences with Castle in the past, just wondering if anyone else has had something similar happen.

[brainanator]

I would guess that tech support (in ALL areas) get so many calls of people making a stupid mistake that they just want to run through the basics as quick as possible.
I remember calling TV support when my picture went out. The first thing they had me do was make sure it was plugged in....and you know what, I bet that solves about 1/2 the problem calls they get.

[A RC Dude]

haha yea, I understand it's probably a terrible job, I just feel like their attitude has gotten much worse...

I bet IT people always say "Have you turning it off and on again?" all the time and it actually fixes most problems probably lol

[Thomas Porfert]

Sorry to hear about your bad experience. You'd be amazed at some of the calls we get and what some people try to do. We come into a call not knowing the knowledge or experience level of the person. We have to go through the standard troubleshooting and make sure that it has been done.

It also takes a bit of time on the call to feel out the individual we're dealing with and their level of experience. I will personally change my style depending on the person I'm talking to on each call. If I pick up that you're a novice I use basic terms and start with the simpler troubleshooting steps. If I feel you have experience and know what you're talking about I'll start getting into the heavy stuff sooner and skip the basic/simple stuff. I feel it's a natural ability that can't easily be taught and some of us are good at it while others just treat every call the same.

I can't tell you how many calls I've taken where I tell someone to try something and they've said they've already done that; and 15 minutes into the call after a lot of other troubleshooting it turns out they didn't do that and it fixes their problem.

And it can be a very stressful job. We get calls all the time from people that didn't run the right setup because they failed to do any research and purchased the wrong product. (Or worse when the hobby shop sold them the wrong setup). Then they call in after they've destroyed the system and we have to tell them they abused the system because of improper setup and the warranty won't cover it. Or they got it wet. Or hooked the battery up backwards. Or smashed it into a wall at 80 MPH. Or overheated the motor. Or used a Tamiya plug. Or they get made because they want to know how to make their rustler do 100MPH and want to know what setup to use and I have to tell them I can't make recommendations because it would be an out of warranty setup and we can't make suggestions for out of warranty setups. The list goes on.

We try our best to not get upset or let it effect our behavior. But in the end we're only human and sometimes we have a bad day or just got off a bad call and sometimes if effects the next call. It is certainly not the norm and please don't take it personally or how we normally operate. We pride ourselves on our support and love talking to our customers about a hobby we all enjoy. Just sometimes you wish the phone had a feature where you could reach through the phone and give them a good "be quiet and pay attention" slap.

Sorry for being so cander and ranting, we take pride in our service levels and hate to see someone have a less than positive experience.

Thomas Porfert
Tech Support
Castle Creations

[bruce750i]

I wonder who took the call from this guy. It has to be a difficult job sometimes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab3lIDIKRI0

[Arct1k]

Doh. He even mentions the crappy soldering but can't quite realize that might have some impact on the esc and contribute to the failure.

[ksb51rl]

A basic rule of technical support: assume the customer knows nothing.
As Mr. Porfert stated, with evidence that the customer is experienced, thorough, careful, etc., the time required to reach a good rapport can be lessened.
Then again - speaking as a customer - sometimes the customer is not as sharp as he could be or would be at other times.
But let me get this straight: "going downhill" = spending a little more time on basic troubleshooting? Because when I read the title I was thinking you were told off, cursed at, given horrendously wrong information, or got advice that caused an ESC & motor fireball.
Did the technicians help you with your problems in the end?

[A RC Dude]

Thomas: thank you for what you do, I understand it's a stressful job at times and thank you for trying your best to fit the situation. For all I know, the past two times I called could have been the same person. I just got a little annoyed when having to sit and listen to him rant without being able to speak up for a few minutes. I've only called twice in the past couple years (both were since the waterproof ESC's started coming out) but every time before that I had a great experience.

Bruce: Goh, why the heck would you even do that? That thing has way more than enough power for what he was doing to begin with... (he has more money than he does since apparently)

Arct1k: I am taking a shot in the dark, but my guess is that the bad solder joint causes more resistance on the battery end on the ESC resulting in a bad ripple current? I am also assuming that since the ESC couldn't produce it's famous sound because the FET's were ruined and unable to click on and off. And from my personal experience in trying to build my own brushed ESC for my electric bike, i'd say either the capacitance in the gate built up to blow them (I killed my IGBT for my bike this way) or maybe the ripple current killed the gate driver/microprocessor/IC chip or whatever chip is used to control them. Or at least this would be my understanding of what happened at this point.

Ksb51rl: Downhill is what I meant by unpleasant/less pleasant. And I actually did not receive the information I called for. After a couple minutes he started on ripple current destroying ESC's and after that I just said "good point, have a good day, bye". I did some extra research on components and calculations afterwards to figure out what I needed. I was just trying to save some time by calling and asking.

Castle's support group is very knowledgeable, they could definitely pass for engineers (assuming they aren't anyway) as far as their understanding on how the whole system works. The reason I posted this was to see if anyone else has had a similar experience to mine