I am concerned and do not have unlimited browsing time for someone to answer my post.

I need help. What can I do to get help when I need it?

I too have noticed a lack of participation by moderators and posted this thread on the issue:

http://windowslivehelp.com/community/t/152538.aspx

 

... it appears that service in these forums has significantly degraded lately.

doitcorrectly, you can browse on this site when you really need help for your concern. There are lots of answers and resolutions posted here. Also, we answer customers' posts depending on their criticality.

@Andrei L:

Windows Live Andrei L.:

we answer customers' posts depending on their criticality.

Does the above quote imply that some customer posts (deemed to be non-critical) will never receive a response from a moderator??? I hope not. I hope that each and every customer who makes an effort to post in these forums (because to them, their issue IS critical) would receive a response from a moderator in a timely manner.

Does your company have a service level objective that defines the maximum expected delay that a customer should have to wait before receiving a response from a moderator?

The list of FAQs about the Windows Live Hotmail Solution Center can be found here:

https://windowslivehelp.com/help.aspx

... that FAQ says:

Customers now have access to all the latest support content and the Windows Live Hotmail community, which includes moderators, at all times.  Prior to WLHSC, a customer could wait up to 24 hours before getting an answer via email.  Now that same customer using Windows Live Hotmail Online Solutions Center can get answers faster than ever before ...

 

The above quote implies that prior to WLHSC, customers could wait up to 24 hours before getting an answer. Since the WLHSC is supposed to provide a "better" service level than the previous method of support, is it fair to assume that no customer's post in the WLHSC should have to wait more than 24 hours for a moderator's reply????

Well, as you know, that goal is not being met. I personally had to wait over 60 hours this week for a reply!!!

I saw this headline today:

"Microsoft confirmed on Nov. 4 that it will cut an additional 800 employees from its payroll, from multiple locations around the world. These newest eliminations are part of a larger 5,000-employee cut announced at the beginning of 2009."

Perhaps that explains the recent degradation is service along with the longer times that customers must wait before receiving a moderator's reply.

Again, I ask: What is the official service level objective of these forums for the maximum amount of time one is expected to wait for a moderator's reply??

@ Langware,

langware:

Does the above quote imply that some customer posts (deemed to be non-critical) will never receive a response from a moderator??? I hope not. I hope that each and every customer who makes an effort to post in these forums (because to them, their issue IS critical) would receive a response from a moderator in a timely manner.

Yes, I agree with you. We try to respond to each and every customer who posts in the forum. There are issues in the forum that only moderators can answer and there are some that other Hotmail users can as well.

These forums will work a lot better when you address the entire community and let us be part of that community rather than try to turn every thread into a one-on-one conversation with the moderators.

Also, I"ve seen that you posted the same issue on another thread. Please refer to this link:

http://windowslivehelp.com/community/t/152538.aspx

@Joseph D:

Windows Live Joseph D:

These forums will work a lot better when you address the entire community and let us be part of that community rather than try to turn every thread into a one-on-one conversation with the moderators.

There are some posts in these forums that ONLY the moderators (or their contacts in Microsoft) can answer. So, in those cases, a one-on-one conversation with a moderator is necessary.

Here is an example: On October 27, 2009 the email notifications (sent by the software used to run these forums) to customers who have subscribed to a thread stopped working. I posted a question about this problem on October 29, 2009. While the thread was open to the community (and others from the community joined in and stated that they too were having the same problem) ONLY the moderators and their contacts in Microsoft could address the problem. 

My posts went unanswered by any mods for over 60 hours .... that's two and a half days with no moderator responding to an issue that ONLY moderators could address. Eventually, I did receive an answer .... a moderator said that it was a site-wide issue and it is being worked on. It has now been TEN DAYS since this site-wide problem started and currently it is still not resolved.

So, yes, I would like to have a one-on-one conversation with someone (a moderator or a Microsoft employee) who has the knowledge and the authority to tell us the truth about what is going on with the email notifications and when it will be fixed. Microsoft has best in class software engineers, so there is no reason why a site wide problem that affects many customers (i.e., the email notifications are broken) should last TEN DAYS (or more). No one in the community has the knowledge to address this problem .... it requires a response from a moderator or a Microsoft emoloyee.

 

Want another example????  Last July, the Photo Upload Feature was removed from Hotmail. Many many customers were impacted and upset. For the first month, Microsoft refused to tell us the truth about the reason for removing the Photo Upload feature (i.e., we were being told it was removed due to a "compatibility problem" when in reality it was removed due to a security exposure in the Active Template Library). For the second month, Microsoft refused to provide an estimate on when the Photo Upload Feature would be restored. No one from the community could address this issue. It required a response from either a moderator or a Microsoft employee.

 

Another example: When Wave4 M1 was released, it included an Auto Save feature. Unfortunately, there were no options to enable/disable the feature or to set the save interval. No one from the community could address the issue (as to why the Auto Save feature was released without the necessary options). Only a moderator or a Microsoft employee could provide an answer .... but to date no one has sufficiently explained why these critical options were not provided when the Auto Save feature was released.

 

There are many other examples that I could provide, but I am sure you get the point. Yes, there are many "how to" problems that can be resolved by other members of this community. But many many posts here involve a bug or a failure or a missing feature/option, and ONLY a moderator or a Microsoft employee can answer questions on these type of issues. In those cases, we do need a one-on-one conversation with a moderator or a Microsoft employee ... and in these cases it would be helpful if we could get a response from a moderator within 24 hours.

We do have a service level but it’s something we don’t disclose publicly and we answer posts as soon as we can. The layoffs that you mentioned doesn’t have anything to do with Hotmail support.

About your question about one-on-one conversation, we are answering questions through posting so that everybody can see it and at the same time get the information they need quickly in case they have the same inquiry.

As for the examples that you included, please update those threads so that we don’t go off-topic.

@Ricardo D:

Thank you for your reply.

To get back to the topic of this thread which is .... how long does it take to get support ....

You mentioned that there is a service level objective for how quickly morerators are supposed to respond to posts .... but you cannot disclose that objective.

Let's not get off track again by the fact that others in this community can also answer posts. As I described in my previous post .... quite often the customer's problem can ONLY be resolved by a moderator, so the topic of this thread is "hot long does it take to get support (from a moderator)".

The point of this thread is that your customers perceive that it is taking too long for a moderator to respond.You are not able to disclose your service level objective for response time. However, I think we can all agree that 60 hours is too long to wait for a moderator's reply (especially when the moderator asks the customer for some information, the customer immediately responds, and then the customer is waiting for a reply from the moderator).

So the question (as shown in the topic of this thread) is .... how long does it take to get support???

Windows Live Ricardo D.:

we answer posts as soon as we can

This is not an answer; it is too vague. We are looking for a more specific answer .... what is a reasonable length of time that a customer can expect to wait before receiving a response to a post? 24 hours????

 

 

@ Langware,

Ideally, posters can expect a response within 24 hours of the post. But as you have pointed out, some posts have not been addressed within that time period and I'd like to apologize for this. We appreciate your patience as we work to address each and every post in this forum.

@Joseph D:

Thank you ... it is nice to know that we customers can expect a response (from a moderator) within 24 hours.

I realize that there will be times when this 24 hour goal cannot be met, but hopefully those times will be rare.

It is especially frustrating when a moderator asks a customer for some information, the customer immediately responds, and then the customer must wait more than 24 hours for a subsequent response. Lets hope that in cases where a moderator asks for information, and the customer provides that information, that the moderator will be quick to follow up with the customer.

Thanks again for your quick response.

@Joseph D:

For another example of a customer having to wait too long to get a response (from a mod), please have a look at this thread ...

http://windowslivehelp.com/community/t/148394.aspx

The customer had to wait 12 days, and when a response was finally posted, the response given to the customer was: we in the WLSC cannot help you, go elsewhere.

Can you imagine how frustrated that customer was.

Can you see (from this latest example) why a firm service level objective for the maximum time a customer must wait for a moderator's response needs to be set at less than 24 hours (and then that objective needs to be enforced).

@langware

We appreciate your vigilance and for telling us about this issue. We will try our best to look for ways on how we can better improve our response time.