I started the morning with what I thought would be a simple task – renew my Norton Anitvirus software that has been yelling at me for days that it will expire soon.  Symantec provided me notifications that the credit card needed to be updated to process the renewal, what they failed to tell me is that it needed to be updated “weeks” before the renewal date as “automatic” renewal does not mean “immediate” renewal.

Thinking this will be a quick fix, I jump on a chat session with support to tell them that I have updated the credit card but the “automatic” renewal has not been processed.  My assumption is that they will simply press a button and the renewal will be processed – ha!.

The customer service agent says, yes , we can renew that for you – great!  He then asks if he can take over my computer?  Huh?  Spending most of my days jumping in and out of web conferencing sessions this is nothing new to me.  However, I find it ironic that a company that is focused on protecting my computer is now requesting me to provide access to my computer?  My response was “No” – after all, I simply want the product that is listed in my account with the updated billing information to be processed – you need access to my computer to do this?

What’s the message?

The message is that here is a case where web conferencing or more accurately, remote desk top access has become main stream.  The desire to take control of my computer was the first option to correct my situation.   The second part of the message is that remote desk top access was the solution to an internal systems problem.  The Customer Service Rep could not renew my account from his end, so he wanted access to my computer to perform the action from my end.  Without this option the customer support scenario becomes much more difficult.

The ironic message or question.

The customer service agent did not have the authority or access to my account to renew it,  however, using remote desk top access, I could have given him the authority on my computer to perform the process/transaction.  Question is; if the company does not trust the customer service agent with confidential information on their end to renew my account – should I be trusting the same customer service agent with my computer?

In the end, all of this was resolved the “old fashion” way – via a phone call.