Parallels tech support blows

H

hilevels

Bit poster
I wrote an email for free support, got the auto reply saying I would hear back from them within three days but never did. Now, it's been a couple weeks.

So I ponied-up the $30 bucks for phone support and have called multiple times over the last several days only to get voicemail. I've left messages as suggested, and tried calling back as suggested.

I have searched this forum looking for a similar problem hoping to do it myself, but haven't seen one, and honestly, I'm just not as tech savvy as many of you on here seems to be. That's why out of desperation I was willing to pay $30 to speak with an actual human.

I really wanted to make Parallels work for me. I've got a brand new MacBook Pro 15" 2.16 ghz running OSX 10.4.8. First I had problems loading XP Pro SP2, but finally after more aggrivation than it was worth, I got that done. It ran for all of 5 days without problems. Last time I was able to launch Parallels desktop, when Windows started, it was behaving crazily. The "launch music" sounded like someone starting and stopping a record, then the window itself was larger than the size of myscreen. I wasn't able to get to the windows controls down in the left hand corner. Also, I was getting 2 onscreen arrow icons, even though I was definitely only inside windows. I shut down the VM, shut down Parallels, and rebooted my Mac. Now when I try to launch Parallels Desktop I get an error message saying I need to reinstall Parallels desktop.

Honestly, I don't know if this was even worth all the time to write this post. I think I just want all my money back. Given the lousy service so far, I'll bet I'm screwed. :(
 
I guess join the club. I sent email last week, received the form reply on 10/20/06, that is exactly 4 business days ago. I am not impressed.
 
OK they got in touch

So I guess the only way to get service is bitch on here. In fairness, the tech support guy cleared up my problem pretty easily, and refunded me my $30. He had a pretty thick Russian accent which made understanding him a little difficult. But he was polite and patient enough.

So let's see what happens from here on out...
 
"So lets see" what the original problem was? And what was the answer. Maybe then "we" can tell which way the wind "blows"!
 
Hey Andrew from Parallels!

Hey Andrew from Parallels,

While you're at it...have the tech support team contact me. I sent an email to tech support TWO MONTHS ago, received the "canned" reply about hearing from them in two or three business days and never heard anything since. What kind of operation are you running? If I ran my business that way I would have NO business.

Carmen

Email: cmf100@comcast.net
 
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Carmen,

Not for any other reason than to help you understand why.

Parallels is a small company with a big spike in success. They have great confidence in their ability to overcome coding problems, and this ability has been demonstrated many times. Once the product has reached a level of development that sees the vast majority hardware virtualized, the support issues will be minimal. That should be around the middle of next year.

Now, because support staff are working for just one company, they have to be employed, not contracted. They also do not need the level of knowledge required for Parallels programmers. The problem arises that next year when the support issues greatly disipate, Parallels would still have a large support department. What do they do with the people?

Current support issues that have been dealt with on the forums, or are an already known issue, do not receive a reply beyond the standard. Parallels are keeping their programmers working on code to bring product completeness and stability, as soon as possible.
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constant said:
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Current support issues that have been dealt with on the forums, or are an already known issue, do not receive a reply beyond the standard. Parallels are keeping their programmers working on code to bring product completeness and stability, as soon as possible.
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Click to expand...

Then the reply should be more specific, informing people that this is a known issue and that a solution is currently being worked. A proactive support policy would then categorize the support ticket and prompt the small support staff to issue a "Hey, we haven't forgotten about you and your issue" every week or so. Easily done, not much time to implement, and goes miles towards assuring customers that they matter more than just a quick one-off revenue stream.
 
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That's a very good point. Perhaps this has just not been thought of before. They do have a lot on their minds I guess.

Parallels people do read these forums, and hopefully will take your idea on board.
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PPS Poor Parallels Service

Hello, my experience with Parallels tech support was to pay $30 for live tech support. I called the phone number and spoke with a rep who told me I needed to be online for him to help me. When I got online I called back, left a message and now weeks later no return call, $30 gone and parallels issues still unsolved. I am NOT technically efficient as most users are on this forum which was why I called in the first place. I have several issues that I need help with. chuck
 
Also struggling to get an answer to low disk space problem

I have also been having problems with PDM. which I guess could be solved pretty easily if I could ever speak to a real live tech support person. I first contacted tech support about 2 months ago, and after sending about five messages finally got a response about 2 weeks ago. The response was somewhat cryptic, referring to changing the partition. When I emailed back that there was no place in the index of the manual that showed how to do this fix, I got a response from a Scott Rogers saying that he would attach the proper tech documents. Of course, they were not attached, and when I emailed back I got no response.

So I then decided to spend the $30 to speak to a real tech support person, but when I call the mailbox is full so I can't even leave a message.

Now I thought I would try the new build - maybe the bug had been worked out. But sure enough I can't even install the proper tools, because there is no disk space. So now I have spent $160 on two copies of the program, and $30 for a tech support call, and in return I have a product that looks great on paper, but just won't work.

Any suggestions as to how to get to speak to a real live person to solve this problem would be appreciated.
 
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