Antivirus with non-India support?? \rant

[Raf99]

I'm an IT Administrator for several companies/small businesses. I'm starting to find that the support staff for these antivirus companies are so bad you'll get grey hair in 5 days if you ever have to speak to them. This one company had Bit Defender. It was their choice and over the 4-5 years of having it each year was a headache just to renew it, get support, or other. This year they had a laptop stolen and the Bit Defender anti-theft tracking feature seemed to not be working properly. Upon testing this feature with laptops I had with me I quickly started to realize that the feature didn't work at all. There were also other small bugs. They also had to renew their 20 licenses. So I called the Bit Defender support to address these issues.

OMFG!!! Never in my life have I dealt with such horrible support!! I won't get into details but I get a very big impression that the support staff in India doesn't own a PC, nevermind used their own product. Cookie cutter answers, blind transfers, copy and paste email replies, on & on. After the last product renewal with them I found out they do not use product keys anymore (although they told me I would get keys when ordering) I got a refund and will no longer deal with them.

So let's find other solutions........

- Symantec Small Business - Does have North America support but also has India support. If you get NA support you are set!! Helpful, kind, doesn't cut you off, KNOWS THE PRODUCT INSIDE AND OUT!!! If you get India support...., well..... they know how to say please and thank you. That's about it. This was not an option for this company as the small business package was around $2500.

- Kaspersky - Horrible, horrible, horrible phone support. Based out of India and the Philippians I was transferred 5 times as I tried to speak with the sales department. Upon reaching the sales department he was looking online for prices and couldn't find the small business option I found already but had additional questions about. Upon asking for home price options he transferred me. I was routed back to the guy who told me to call the wrong number on another transfer. He apologized and said he would warm transfer me to the proper queue, he hooked me / hung up on me.

Panda Security - Not bad. Home support is in India who can't speak proper english and are easily confused. "Give me a moment and I will go back with the price" I was informed upon asking for a quote. But upon looking for a quote for their business product line I was transferred to Ryan Taylor and left a VM. I thought it was weird that Ryan is in charge of all business support and makes this sound like their business support is in NA.

F-Prot /Cyren - A very happy girl named Amy took my info and said I would get a call back. Sounds promising.



So....... if anyone has any positive feedback on a AV with great support please share! I'd be happy to hear what others think or know on the topic.

[deevergote]

I've never had to deal with customer support for antivirus software, so I have no help to offer. I'm curious to see what's out there, though! I've been using AVG on my personal computer, and I'm over it.

[Ralphie]

What about Microsoft security essentials?

They are India based too, im sure, but it's free. Probably not free for corporate use.

Actually, I have no good recommendations. I always acquired software illegally and have since moved over to Unix/Mac.

HAHA

[Tishock]

I hear/feel your frustrations. I only have 3 clients (law firms) and moved them all to Sophos from Bitdefender a couple years back. Then I come to find out they too moved their support to India, just after I finished moving them. I avoid support like the plague and focus on researching forums whenever possible. I found Bitdefenders renewal procedure silly and their support/product was just ok. But it looks like it got worse since then. Unfortunately I have no suggestions to offer you.

[Raf99]

thanks for the input folks. And ya, this is a legit business, willing to pay a fair amount of money for antivirus. All they ask for is a legit product with good support. It seems this is hard to find these days and more people should stand up to this BS I'm seeing.

It's funny when you visit their website and you see it saying " 5 out of 5 stars" or " best product we have ever used! "

I'm kind of starting to wonder if all AV companies get their same virus definition from one source...

[Dhsmokymcpot]

I haven't had to call customer support but have used AVG and Avast in the past, currently using Avast. I'm not entirely sure of the features your clients desire but maybe using two or three different programs that actually work to accomplish the customer goals. Just to lower the frustration level of customer support that you have faced.