ZoneLabs' ZoneAlarm - unable to resolve a problem with the product - company support Web pages giving error message, which of course doens't help - terrible customer service experience

# 22 for September 17, 2003

Complaints.com received the following on September 16, 2003:

From:

RE: ZoneLabs' ZoneAlarm - unable to resolve a problem with the product - company support Web pages giving error message, which of course doens't help - terrible customer service experience

I have been trying to find resolve a problem I've been having with ZoneLabs' ZoneAlarm product. Many web pages, including their own support web pages give errors when loading, "cannot load properly" and generate a dialog box showing the specific error. After combing through all the available Help documentation that comes with the product and that available on-line (this is how I know ZA's own web pages don't load properly), I have been unable to find any help on my issue.

I used ZA's on-line CS form on Friday 9/5 and didn't get any response until Thursday 9/11. That response suggested that the problem lay with IE and I should reset to the IE default settings. Even though I had

I am nominating ZoneLabs as the worst customer service company in America. Their complete disregard for customers, evidenced by their policy of automatically closing all trouble tickets with the first email to the customer, regardless of whether the email had any bearing on the customer's complaint, would be proof enough of their miserable CS record.

However, they go even further, claiming a 24 hour turn-around time on their website, when it took 6 days, 4 business days to get back to me with nothing more than a form-letter response. And of course, having sent me a generic response, not relevent to my issue, they closed my trouble ticket.

But the form-letter response is misleading. It says "When replying, type your text above this line," giving the customer the false hope that he will be able to pursue the issue further. No such luck. When I replied to the form letter, I got back the auto-refusal letter:

> The incoming email file you sent to Zone Labs Customer Care

> attempted to append to entry 211300

> The append failed. Perhaps this entry does not

> exist, or you are not allowed to append to it. Zonelabs has figured out how to have a 100% success rate on all trouble tickets -- close them without resolving the issue and refuse to receive any followups from people persistent enough to try get their issue resolved.

ZA, you can do better.

Norman