REDMOND, Wash., Dec. 21, 1999 — While Santa Claus may be generous with gift giving, he doesn’t stick around to handle the nitty-gritty technical support questions that may arise on Christmas Day. Luckily, Microsoft has a number of resources designed to help customers resolve their support issues throughout the holiday season. The expanded support resources are all part of Microsoft’s commitment to complete customer satisfaction, according to Denise Rundle, director of Online Support at Microsoft.
“No one wants to struggle with technical support issues over the holidays,”
said Rundle.
“Our resources are designed to help customers get the answers they need quickly and easily.”
In addition to expanded holiday content within Microsoft’s award-winning online support, Microsoft Product Support Services is also offering no-charge assisted Personal Support to provide customers with the immediate help they need. Specific hours and times are listed below.
Microsoft Product Support Services: What’s Available for Customers This Season
Online Resources
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A special holiday Web site located at http://support.microsoft.com/support/holiday/ provides home users with an easy and convenient starting point for resolving their product-specific technical questions. The site features troubleshooters, answers to frequently asked questions, links to the latest downloadable updates, as well as live and on-demand webcasts hosted by Microsoft support professionals.
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Customers seeking assisted support from Microsoft can submit incidents via the Web at http://support.microsoft.com/support/webresponse.asp .
Phone Support
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No-charge assisted Personal Support for the most popular retail titles this holiday season will be available to customers during the following hours:
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Friday, Dec. 24, and Monday, Dec. 27 through Friday, Dec. 31, from 5 a.m.to 9 p.m. (PST)
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Saturday, Dec. 25, and Saturday, Jan. 1, from 9 a.m.to 3 p.m. (PST)
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Sunday, Dec. 26 from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. (PST) for customers with questions related to games and multimedia products, Money, Works and Greetings Workshop, in addition to the following hardware products: gaming input devices and digital phones.
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To take advantage of no-charge assisted Personal Support during the above hours, please refer to the following product-specific phone numbers .
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Customers who need assistance with preinstalled software or who need help when no-charge support is unavailable can access charge-per-incident Personal Support at (800) 936-5700 or http://support.microsoft.com/support/webresponse.asp .
Ask Maxwell: The Latest Addition to Microsoft Personal Online Support
Also available in time for the holidays is Ask Maxwell, a new online question-and-answer service located at http://support.microsoft.com/askmaxwell/ .
Ask Maxwell allows consumers to ask technical questions as if they were speaking to a real person — no technology lingo or strategic keywords needed — just a simple question typed in plain English. Once customers have submitted their question (for example,
“How do I install programs on Windows 98?”
), Ask Maxwell compares consumers’ questions to an existing knowledge base of questions and answers. It then returns with a list of questions that most closely resemble the original inquiry. Consumers simply click on the best match and Ask Maxwell guides them to their answer. This convenient service helps customers navigate more quickly and easily through the Microsoft Knowledge Base of more than 200,000 articles.
Ask Maxwell is currently able to answer questions about Windows 98, games, multimedia and hardware products. Additional products will be added to Ask Maxwell’s expertise over the coming months.
