said by lorennerol:Not to mention that the only support option is to post in forums "moderated" by what appears to be a bunch of idiots who can do little more than copy/paste entirely irrelevant or useless links.
This is just pure baloney. I have had to call Microsoft twice in the last 4 months with Exchange Online issues. In both cases I got someone on the phone within 5 minutes (probably 3 or less actually) who immediately started working on the problem. In both cases I got numerous follow-up phone calls to the point of being obnoxious, as I had already tried to close the trouble ticket with an email. To say they were persistently trying to resolve my problem would be an understatement. The quality of the support wasn't top shelf in one case, but if I wasn't happy with any one support person they constantly emailed me possible other contacts. I can't believe I started ripping MS a new one earlier in this thread and now find myself defending them. I agree with you regarding the forums although I have found some very useful information posted by users. You don't get any help from MS in there though. When they do post it almost as if a machine did it. You need to start a trouble ticket or call them and start one.
Despite the confusing array of plans and prices and add-ons that make dealing with Microsoft a PIA, they have a pretty good product here that hopefully will be cleaned up from a marketing angle once Ballmer leaves.
Edit- from the support link on the portal:
For the United States, telephone support is provided in English 24 hours a day, every day.
Toll-free: 1-800-865-9408