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Previous: Long-distance error message | Main | Next: Samsungelectronics.com subscription box
October 27, 2005 12:03 AM
Broken: Norton customer service response
Susan Dombrow writes:
I sent an email to Norton Anti-Virus asking if they could answer a question and answer it simply. I'm not a computer expert and expressly asked them to write back in English, not 'computerese.' Their answer describing POP3, HTTP, Heuristic and Script-Blocking Technologies is below.
That, to me, is 'computerese.' This is broken.
Susan Dombrow's email to Norton:
Would Norton Anti-Virus 2005 fully protect me if I use AOL, Gmail and Yahoo mail to send and receive email?
Please answer this question in English and not computerese.
Norton's response:
Hello Susan,
Thank you for contacting Symantec Online Customer Service.
Susan, I understand your concerns regarding this issue.
Please note that the Email Protection feature of Norton AntiVirus works by monitoring traffic on the ports used by the POP3 email protocol. All data that enters or leaves your computer through these ports is stopped and scanned before being passed onto its destination. HTTP email services, such as those offered by America OnLine, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail, do not use the POP3 ports, and cannot be scanned by Email Protection.
If you use an HTTP email service, you will still be protected. Norton AntiVirus provides multiple layers of protection; Email Protection is just one of those layers....
Well, I'm kinda geeky but despite the fact that I have no idea what HTTP and POP3 are, I was able to figure it out pretty easily from context. You don't need to understand the meanings of the nerdonyms to understand the message, though they do clutter it a bit. They could have simplified it much more:
"No."
Basically they're saying that hotmail, yahoo, AOL, etc does not use the port that norton monitors, thus it can't protect them.
Translation:
Norton has features which will automatically detect and block e-mails which contain viruses. However, these features will not work with e-mail services that operate via your web browser, such as GMail or Yahoo. They also probably won't work with AOL since AOL does everything their own way.
Norton also has features which scan your system for viruses. Typically these only find viruses after they get on to your system, after they have possibly already done some damage, so detecting viruses this way is less desirable. However, these features will work regardless of how the virus got to your system.
Note that GMail, Yahoo, and AOL probably all have their own virus-detection built-in, though no anti-virus software can detect everything.
(side note) thanks for changing this site and taking away the half naked chicks. husband kept thinking i was looking at porn!
The thing that is broken here is the fact that he asked them to not use computer terms and such, yet they still did. That's bad customer service right there. Kind of like if you went to a reastaurant, ordered a sandwich w/ no cheese, and they still gave you cheese.
At some point, you have to accept that if you ask a computer question, you'll get a computer-oriented answer. I think the response did a pretty good job of including "computerese" along with explanations of what they mean (e.g. they don't just say "HTTP email services" but elaborate with "such as..."). This should serve to educate you. Even if you don't know what POP and HTTP mean when you started, you should have a pretty good idea if you bother to actually think about what they wrote.
A simple "No" spoon-feeds an answer for you, but doesn't give you the tools to understand that answer. If you make a tiny effort to understand what they tried to tell you, you'll be better equipped to answer these questions for yourself next time.
So I'd say their response is broken if you're lazy and willfully ignorant. If you have even the slightest curiousity about the why and how behind the answer, their response is right on.
It makes sense to me, but I totally understand your plight. There's no way my mom or dad could understand that stuff. Instead of "HTTP email" they should say "web-based email" or something. And instead of "POP3 email", say something like "email accounts you check through Microsoft Outlook".
Or as Robert so eloquently put it, they could just respond "no". But if they did that, you would know that their product is useless for what you want. At least with their overly-wordy response, there's a chance you'll be so confused that you'll buy the product anyway.
B to the R to the O-KEN.
Not broken. There are no terms used in the response that are not in every day use.
"HTTP email services, such as those offered by America OnLine, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail, do not use the POP3 ports, and cannot be scanned by Email Protection."
How is that hard to understand even if you for some reason don't know what POP3 or HTTP means. They flat out state that the email services you asked about "cannot be scanned by Email Protection"...
I can’t remember how many emails I have sent to various companies with absolutely no response.. Now THAT is bad customer service.
At least they responded AND they actually answered your question... But you STILL find something to complain about. Tells you something about the person who submitted this.
M: I don't think it's lazy to want someone else to deal with the problems that I'm paying them to deal with. I'm not paying for an education, I want the service. Also, if I ask a yes or no question, I expect that to be the response, not a two-paragraph explanation.
Her question was straightforward. She explained what services she uses, and even said to keep the computer-speak to a minimum. There was no need for their explanation.
What about when I buy a car: I only want to drive off the lot with one that gets decent gas mileage. Am I lazy and ignorant because I don't want to know HOW it gets that gas mileage? I can't possibly learn how everything works in this world, so I have to stick with the things that interest me.
Hm, this isn't that bad as far as explainations of technical things go. I've gotten a lot worse from, say, my mechanic than this computer support guy typed, and the mechanic was pretty much unable to explain the terms he used without reducing it to kindergarten-speak.
It's also likely that this is just a copy-and-paste canned response. That's usually what I get the first time I send a support mail... now I just plan to have to send my question at least twice before a human actually reads and comprehends it.
(I think the record was World of Warcraft, where I had to send the same question three times before it sunk in, *then* they transfered me to another department that I had to send the question to another two times. Eventually, I got a direct email line to one of the Macintosh developers who was very friendly and polite, even while saying, basically, "we're not going to fix that bug because not enough people have complained." If you care, the bug is that World of Warcraft when running on MacOS X in windowed mode won't save window position or size. So every time you start up the game, you have to resize and re-position the window-- very annoying!)
Everyone seems to be ignoring the obvious answer:
No one at Symantec "typed" anything. Someone read the question, and clicked the button for the canned response to "does E-mail Protection protect web-based e-mail?" Someone typed that particular message LONG before Susan ever e-mailed tech support.
Tier 1 might not even be ABLE to actually type a custom response. It would take way too much time, when they can be required to choose from a menu, click a button, and move to the next request.
Everyone seems to be ignoring the obvious answer:
No one at Symantec "typed" anything. Someone read the question, and clicked the button for the canned response to "does E-mail Protection protect web-based e-mail?" Someone typed that particular message LONG before Susan ever e-mailed tech support.
Tier 1 might not even be ABLE to actually type a custom response. It would take way too much time, when they can be required to choose from a menu, click a button, and move to the next request.
This reminds me of a question I asked Citibank:
"I am trying to set up payment of my Verizon bill. On my bill, the address to send payment is: PO Box... Albany, NY...
"The citibank.com merchant listing shows:
Verizon
Verizon
Verizon (1)
Verizon - (2)
Verizon - (3).
None of the addresses for these are in Albany NY, so I cannot see which is the correct payee.
Can you please do the following:
1. Have the merchant directory changed to be helpful.
2. Tell me which is the correct payee for me."
I deliberately made it as plain-speak as possible. This is the reply I got:
"Thank you for your message regarding adding the payee "Verizon bill" to your bill payment payee list.
Please note that certain payees have specific account formats that are updated on "MyCiti", where payments are sent to an address specified by the payee either electronically or by check. Even if the merchant "Verizon bill" is on the merchant directory, but the account number does not match the account format listed, you need to add the payee manually to your bill payment payee list.
To add the payee manually, select "Payments" then select "Add a New Payee". You will be prompted to enter the payee's name as it appears on your payment statement/coupon. You will then be asked for the payee information. If the payee is on the merchant directory, you will only be asked for the account number. You will be given a confirmation screen with the payee information displayed and a reminder to schedule payments 5-7 business days in advance for check payments and two business days in advance for electronic payments.
Once you select "Add this Payee", the payee becomes part of your payee list and you can schedule your payments.
In addition, when there is a change in the account number with the payee or the address of the payee changes, you need to add the standard payee as a non-standard payee to initiate the bill payment. This is when your payment will be sent out as a check irrespective of the agreement the payee has with Citibank.
If you have further questions, please send a message or call Citibank Online Customer Service at 1-800-374-9700. Representatives are available to assist you 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
Thank you for banking with Citibank. We appreciate the opportunity to serve you.
Sincerely,
Citibank Online Customer Service"
When this epic is translated it just means, "Just enter it manually" and presumably "We don't care that the website makes no sense".
It appears the whole freakin' world has forgotten how to reply yes or no, to a yes or no question. When we want anything more, we will ask.
I think this is as non-computerese you can get as a response to the question without resorting to "no".
In defense of Norton, I think all internet user should take the time to at least understand the basic POP3 and SMTP nomenclature, as it relates to any email account.
Even thought it was previously stated that Norton does not scan yahoo emails, Yahoo uses Norton software to scan the account holders emails.
I have both Yahoo and Outlook and in both environment Nortons is doing a great job.
People that don't want or "don't care" about email viruses and how to protect themselves or what is protected, are more prone to the email virues themselves. Yes everyone is susseptable, but the ones that simply don't want to put the time in to understand it are going to get nailed with a virus before anyone else and I think Norton recognizes that.
My two-cents.
Not broken. Like Interlard, I think we've all received responses from corporations that were much, much more technical and/or didn't address the question asked. A lot of people would consider this response "kindergartenese", while most of the rest should be able to comprehend its meaning even without knowing what specific terms mean. For the remainder, let's face it. This stuff isn't going away, so it might be worthwhile to take a few moments and educate yourself about it. How is the Symantec tech support supposed to know what this person or that person considers computerese? There is a certain level of assumed computer competency assigned by the tech support people to someone who emails a question to them (as opposed to calling them). And if this response had been a simple yea or nay, or if it had been insultingly simple, it would have been posted here as another example of bad customer service. Then we'd all be arguing about whether THAT was broken.
As an addendum, I should also point out that the response did include the complaintant's name, so it was (at least partially) typed by a human being, and not a canned response at all.
"As an addendum, I should also point out that the response did include the complaintant's name, so it was (at least partially) typed by a human being, and not a canned response at all."
Not really.. they can have variables in the autoresponse that adds the person's first name..but still is a canned message
i cannot see how this is not broken. she very specifically requested no computerese, they gave a form letter discussing pop3, ports, and scripts, without taking time to define terms. Regardless of what you think she should know about the internet, or even whether she can sort of make out what it means, her request was totally ignored. if they dont have someone to explain it in plain english they need to just admit that, not pretend theres not an issue. it is quite possible to answer her question in a detailed way without using unfamiliar terms.
Well, regardless of whether or not this is broken, Norton has adware in it that causes pops up ads telling you to subscribe to their LiveUpdate "service" whenever your subscription runs out. So it's inherently broken anyways.
This is certainly broken. I've written SMTP clients and HTTP servers and I still think this e-mail was ridiculously complex.
"In defense of Norton, I think all internet user should take the time to at least understand the basic POP3 and SMTP nomenclature, as it relates to any email account."
Most certainly not! The typical user could not care less about what SMTP and POP3 are. They just want their damned e-mail. The fact that you can't actually set up a standard e-mail client without learning about SMTP and POP3 is one of the most broken things in computers today.
It's not that users are dumb. It's that users do not want to waste time on pointless details. The whole point of computers is that they're supposed to do things automatically. So, why can't my e-mail client automatically figure out what the proper SMTP and POP3 servers are for my e-mail address?
We programmers -- and other tech people -- have a really bad habit of thinking that it's ok to make the user do work that could be done automatically as long as it's only a small amount of work. This philosophy has to change.
And to tie this into the above e-mail... Giving a user a response involving lots of technical jargon like "HTTP", "POP3", and "port" is basically assigning the user to do work: the work of looking up what these things mean. If you can use phrases like "web-based" and "standard e-mail service" to convey the same meaning, why not? For those users that actually want technical details, you should make these details available, but always start out assuming that users do not care about the details.
I'm guessing that the person asking the question wasn't aware of POP3 email at all, so saying "Standard Email" would have confused them.
OK, so maybe it should have gone something like this....
Norton works like Mom your house. Mom watches several utilities that come into your house(water, electricity, gas, phone, etc.) which we can equate to different types of mail services. Some Mom interacts and touches all the time such as water and phone and some are just there and most of the time and she ignores them like gas and electricity.
Norton monitors EMail programs you may have installed directly on your computer such as Outlook, Eudora or Thunderbird, just like Mom listens for the phone and feels the water running. Norton will the will attempt to scan and deal with the nasty stuff(send it down the drain, quarantine it in the freezer…)
Norton may or may not scan or remove the nastiness from online web based Email services like Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, GMail or other email services you connect to with a web browser such as Internet Explorer, Firefox or Opera. Mom really does not want to touch the electricity or gas service, either!
Most reputable web based mail services do their best to scan mail for problems as they move though their systems. However, this does not mean an attachment or two you download from Yahoo mail or Gmail and place on your local computer may not be infected when saved locally on your computer. Norton will attempt to scan that downloaded attachment, just as Mom would call the gas or electric company if there was a problem.
We hope this answers your question. By all means feel free to contact us for further help.
The Help Desk
hey devil, you say you are a geek, but you don't even know what POP and HTTP are? You are an AMATEUR!!! Turn in your pocket protector, mister!
"In defense of Norton, I think all internet user should take the time to at least understand the basic POP3 and SMTP nomenclature, as it relates to any email account."
Barbara - is that yew Mom? What are yew talkin about?
Ef I kin run the country and still say "nucular" why shud all innernet user unnerstand POPtart and SMarTPants or whatever it is you said?
The problem is that the question can *not* adequately be answered without giving some reason why the answer is. First of all, the person asked if she will be "fully protected," which is impossible because no computer program can protect the user from the user's own mistakes (1D-10-T errors are more common and harmful than viruses). However, if by "fully protected," she means that she just doesn't want to lose her data because she downloaded a Word document with a virus, then the answer is "probably." On the other hand, if by "fully protected," she means that she should never be able to even see an email with a virus, then the answer is no.
What's really broken isn't the answer but the fact that so many people ask the same exact question meaning different things, so in defense the company has to have a very lengthy reply scripted out that cannot be mistranslated in case of legal action.
Susan, if you are going to use the internet and especially email, learn about it. You know, so you can use it. Also those directions were perfectly clear. I'm guessing that you are over 40, judging by your lack of computer knowledge. I am not attacking you, just the people in general that expect customer service to reduce their emails to stuff a 4th grader would understand. Customer service has no way of telling your computer knowledge... so it would be a good idea if you specify your utter lack of computer skills.
Thisisbroken staff, this site has been below par the last couple of months. I remember when I saw things that were broken, not people that are ignorant.
I am going to get many, many scathing replies, but this has been on my mind for some time. Let them come forth!!!
Susan, if you are going to use the internet and especially email, learn about it. You know, so you can use it. Also those directions were perfectly clear. I'm guessing that you are over 40, judging by your lack of computer knowledge. I am not attacking you, just the people in general that expect customer service to reduce their emails to stuff a 4th grader would understand. Customer service has no way of telling your computer knowledge... so it would be a good idea if you specify your utter lack of computer skills.
Thisisbroken staff, this site has been below par the last couple of months. I remember when I saw things that were broken, not people that are ignorant.
I am going to get many, many scathing replies, but this has been on my mind for some time. Let them come forth!!!
"Susan, if you are going to use the internet and especially email, learn about it. You know, so you can use it. Also those directions were perfectly clear. I'm guessing that you are over 40, judging by your lack of computer knowledge. I am not attacking you, just the people in general that expect customer service to reduce their emails to stuff a 4th grader would understand. Customer service has no way of telling your computer knowledge... so it would be a good idea if you specify your utter lack of computer skills."
You actually hit submit twice, so you made your post twice. Don't you know that you don't have to double-click on a submit button?
You sit there and tell someone she should be more computer saavy, and then you pull a newbie trip-up like that. Ah, I love the irony.
Further, I would be you don't know what bernouli's (sp?) principle is, yet you still fly in airplanes and you don't know the basic term for what keeps airplanes aloft.
Using technology and understanding what makes it work are two totally different things.
Technically "no" might be the right answer - but I don't think it would have been very useful either. It's true that NAV won't "fully" protect you, but then no anti-virus software is 100% secure and having NAV autoprotect running means you'd stil have pretty decent protection.
A useful answer would - in my view - say no, but point out that nothing fully protects you and what you're missing out on is one of several layers of defence.
I would hardly consider a basic understanding of POP3 and/or SMTP to be a "pointless detail." In the same way that people who drive cars should be aware of the distinctions between two-lane country roads and four-lane interstate highways, people who receive email should at least be aware of the differences between webmail, POP3, and IMAP. They don't have to know how each service works, but a basic comprehension -- something like "IMAP mail is always stored on a server, never on the client; POP3 can be downloaded to any client from a receiving server; and webmail is always stored on a server and is accessed through a browser over HTTP or HTTPS" -- would be helpful.
I would have worded the reply a little differently, but I think all the technical terms involved are made obvious in context. At worst, the email is "scary" to people who are aggressively, selfishly non-technical.
I once had a user complain that I had sent her an excessively technical workaround to a problem she was having, when all she wanted was the "fix." My workaround? "Click on the following link in this email." She thought clicking was, y'know, something that only people who were good with computers could do.
i can do more with a computer than 80% of people who have them and i have no idea what IMAP is. people should be able to distinguish between webmail and 'outlook email', but a term like POP3 is not self explanatory and will not be easy to remember for someone who rarely has to worry about it. words like 'protocol' and 'ports' are probably associated with their original meanings rather than their computer meanings for most people, and only make things more complicated than they are.
>"Customer service has no way of telling your computer knowledge... so it would be a good idea if you specify your utter lack of computer skills."
um, except that she SPECIFICALLY SAID NO COMPUTERESE!
>"I remember when I saw things that were broken, not people that are ignorant."
people will always be ignorant of things. not expecting that is broken.
The debate over whether the customer should learn more about email protocols or not misses the point. It's about the customer exprience. And in this case, the experience was poor. Based on my own experience, this customer's level of knowlegde is typical of the general population, and her experience is likely representative of the experience of a lot of other customers.
Arguing that it's the customers fault isn't going to change that experience no matter how right you may feel you are.
Mr. Philosophical Pessimist says: There has never been nor ever will be anything anywhere that will "fully protect" anyone from anything. That said, this customer service response was broken. The technical support staff owe her a better explanation. Not necessarily simpler, though. The customer would probably benefit from a little "computerese" education, and it would be a disservice on the part of Norton not to provide it. It might help prevent such experiences in the future. The lady is certainly not ignorant. She could have a Ph.D in Physics, or be trained as a nurse, or practice law. She could have any amount of expertise in any number of areas, but we all can't know it all.
Quoting john russell from waaaaaaaaaaaaay back:
"Kind of like if you went to a reastaurant, ordered a sandwich w/ no cheese, and they still gave you cheese."
One time I went to McDonalds or Burger King, and I ordered a hamburger. It showed up on the screen as a "cheeseburger w/out cheese" and was priced as a cheeseburger.
She specifically asked for no computerese. She got computerese. Not everyone can or should know about how email works. Just because you know something about a subject does not mean somebody else is obligated to know what you are talking about.
[quote]IMAP mail is always stored on a server, never on the client; POP3 can be downloaded to any client from a receiving server; and webmail is always stored on a server and is accessed through a browser over HTTP or HTTPS[/quote]
Even though I know what the terms mean, several people will ask the question, "What is a server, client, browser, HTTP, and HTTPS?" So that would leasd to more technojargon. For a person who might use a computer once in a blue moon to check email with Outlook and still want their computer to be protected, why do they need to know what these terms mean? You can use a television without knowing how the television signal is sent through the coax. You can ride a roller coaster without knowing about chain dogs, upstops, LIMS, magnetic brakes, or laminated track. So why can't I use my email without knowing the technojargon associated with it?
Please note that the Email Protection feature of Norton AntiVirus works by monitoring little dancing electric fairies that travel through the magic doorways used by the Garden Gnome's email protocol. All data that enters or leaves your computer through these magic doorways is stopped and scanned before being passed onto its destination.
Forest Elves' email services, such as those offered by America OnLine, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail, do not use the Garden Gnome's magic doorways, and cannot be scanned by Email Protection.
I think if the answer had come back as "No" with no further details, this would've been posted complaining that a simple no didn't answer the question well enough or that it was poor customers service because they didn't put more in the email than just that one word.
I recently subscribed to Skype . when downloading
they showed my complete list of My e-mail addresses. Asking me to click those who I would like to contact me .Foolishly I clicked a few ... How did Skype get through Norten ?
Was that a virus ? Cor
Hey, check this out:
"Please note that the Email Protection feature of Norton AntiVirus works by monitoring traffic on the fnergles used by the BLARK email werp. All data that enters or leaves your computer through these fnergles is stopped and scanned before being passed onto its destination. SKRONCH email services, such as those offered by America OnLine, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail, do not use the BLARK fnergles, and cannot be scanned by Email Protection.
If you use a SKRONCH email service, you will still be protected. Norton AntiVirus provides multiple layers of protection; Email Protection is just one of those layers...."
I replaced all the jargon with nonsense words. And it's still understandable. The software I have only works for emails sent over some BLARK thing. The services I asked about work with something called SKRONCH, which is not the same as BLARK. But despite this, other parts of my software will still probably work to protect my computer.
I understand that so-called technical support services often swamp the customer in technobabble, but frankly I don't think that this is one of those times. There is a little jargon in there, but it's not necessary to understand the terms in order to understand the answer. Having been on both ends of this situation, I must say that just as often, customers clamp their hands over their ears, scrunch their eyes shut and shout, "LA LA LA," as soon as it looks like they might actually have to pay attention for a moment.
I hate Norton Symantics Crap I an trying to get my 04 Antivirus uninstalled and I need some stinkin password and its driving me nuts I can't get anyone to help me the web site doesn't so crap.
Norton requires me to sign in frequently on my own, personal machine. Norton performs its weekly scan on Friday evening just when I am looking forward to using my computer. I have found no support from Customer Service. I will not purchase Norton again.
Comments on this entry are closed
Previous: Long-distance error message | Main | Next: Samsungelectronics.com subscription box
Unfortunately, those of us in the computer world consider this English. I'm sure that they could have found a better (or worse) way of putting things.
(First!)
Posted by: mussorgsky112 at October 27, 2005 12:50 AM