I would advise you to make sure to fill out the eval among other things. This is a situation where I'd put all 1's. Make sure to put in the comments too.
Those evals (known as BINGOs internally) are a big deal and may help you with getting some motion. Of course, follow up with your AM and see what they can do. On 9/20/09, Steve Fischer <[email protected]> wrote: > Last Thursday evening, at around midnight, in the course of my organizations > network maintenance, we had not one but two of our core 6500 switches go > into ROMMON (after being rebooted with new code, and being operational for > approximately 45 minutes)at the same time and for no apparent reason. > Attempts to reboot the devices were in vain, and attempts to roll-back also > appeared to be in vain, so I called the Cisco TAC and opened a P1 case. > Immediately, the call was routed over to India. I was in a loud data > center, and the engineers accent was very thick, to the point I could not > hear him over the background noise, much less understand him. Other than > asking for a webex session - made impossible by the fact that the network > core is down, he offers nothing in the way of assistance. > > > > I asked to have the case transferred to a native-English speaking engineer. > Call transferred to Indian engineer #2, and the communications issues > persist. I have two core switches down, and am becoming more than a little > concerned. Same result - engineer really offers nothing in the way of > assistance, and I again, request the call to be transferred to a > native-English speaking engineer. Enter Indian engineer #3. Now let me > state here for the record that I am in no way questioning the competence of > the three gentlemen I spoke to, nor do I have any xenophobic tendencies, but > I would like to make a few points here: > > > > 1. If I cannot understand the support engineer, it will be difficult > for him to assist me, regardless of his skill level. > > 2. Having a native-English speaking engineer available would have been > at this time very disarming, and calming in the midst of for what was for me > a crisis. In the medical field, they call it bed-side manner, which would > have been of immense value given the crisis I was facing. > > 3. My organization spends well over $100K annually in Cisco > maintenance. > > > > Case transferred to Indian engineer #4. Now, while this was occurring, I > called Cisco's TAC and asked the case be re-queued to an engineer in North > America. I was told that there were no support engineers on duty in North > America. Now, I'm getting upset, and more than just a little. Also, in the > meantime, it was suggested that I remove one of the CompactFlash cards from > one of the 6500's that was still working (we have 4 total), and try to boot > from the IOS image on it. Upon ejecting the Flash card, that 6500 too, went > immediately into ROMMON. So, now, we have 3 of 4 core switches down. The > entire data center is down, and are one step away from the phone system > going down as well - which indeed did happen. As we now have all four cores > down, the options of rebooting them with the old code. One by one, through > all four cores, they are rolled back, and finally the network comes up. Let > me say the fourth engineer suggested this, by prior to that, I had concluded > this was going to be the best course of action. > > > > Now, back up two weeks. I had a Cisco Works issue at around 3:00PM EST, and > open a case for it. The call is transferred to.wait for it.India. So, it > doesn't appear that the time of an issue completely influences to what Cisco > support center a call is routed. As a matter of fact, the support engineer > for that particular call informed me it was 2:00AM where he was. > > > > This leads me to several questions that perhaps someone from Cisco > monitoring this forum could answer. > > > > 1. Given the stature of the 6500 platform within Cisco's product line, > and given the severity of the issue I was experiencing, is there no Cisco > Support Center in North America staffed 24X7X365 to deal with such issues? > > 2. Was the only option available to me a webex session? It seemed > strange that the engineer would even ask for that, given that this was > reported as a network down emergency. > > 3. Upon asking the call be transferred to a native English speaking > engineer, why was the call routed to 3 more Indian engineers? Rather than > informing me that no native English-speaking engineers were available, why > did I have to request this three more times? I find it INCREDIBLE that an > organization of Cisco's size could not find a single native English-speaking > engineer to assist me in this crisis concerning their flagship product. > > 4. Does Cisco as a company understand the value of being disarming to > a stressed-out client in the midst of a crisis, and how much providing a > support engineer who can clearly and effectively communicate with the > customer? > > > > If I were to grade Cisco on this support call, and to my knowledge, this was > the first network down call I've opened since I've been with this > organization, I'd give Cisco an F.no, an F-. This was an epic-fail for > Cisco, to the point that my organization is considering dumping their > support all together, and going with a third party. There is just no way I > should have been bounced to four Indian engineers when after the first one, > and the second one, I calmly explained the rationale behind requesting a > native English-speaking engineer. > > > > What can Cisco do to make this right? > > > > 1. A written letter of apology. I don't blame the engineers for this > - they are likely highly competent support engineers. Cisco failed to > provide an engineer who could communicate with me clearly and concisely. > > 2. Provide an additional one year of maintenance coverage on all four > of our 6500's free of charge, as that pales by comparison to the amount of > money lost by my company for the two hours our network was down, and I was > unable to reach an engineer who could effectively communicate with me. > > 3. Staff a support center in North America 24X7X365 geared to deal > with exactly the issue I encountered. A P1 case should be treated > differently than a P3 case, and this case wasn't, at least not from my > perspective. > > 4. When it became clear that the communications issues that existed > between the support engineer and myself precluded progress being made to > resolve the issue, and I requested the case be escalated, escalate the case. > I DO blame the engineer for that - not escalating the case when requested to > do so. > > 5. Stop making the first course of action being requesting a webex. > There will be scenarios where that won't be possible, as was the case > Thursday evening. Engineer 1 seemed to give up when webex wasn't an option. > > > > I am interested in any and all feedback from the community on this. If > there is someone within Cisco (other than my salesperson, who's heard this > before from me.on more than one occasion) who I can send this to, and can > respond to it, it would also be appreciated. > > _______________________________________________ > cisco-nsp mailing list [email protected] > https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-nsp > archive at http://puck.nether.net/pipermail/cisco-nsp/ > -- Sent from my mobile device William McCall, CCIE #25044 _______________________________________________ cisco-nsp mailing list [email protected] https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-nsp archive at http://puck.nether.net/pipermail/cisco-nsp/
