No biggie Codsworth… bonne continuation, as they say in another country with phone support 
Or,
[…]
I have what i think is a descent answer. 
Since i’ve had some experience in helpdesking in the past…
The question “why is support so bad” can very often be answered with the following: “was your question clear enough to understand”. Except situations where support is not answering at all, which i hope is not the case with SB, many times it is just that a discription of a problem is not accurate enough.
But as with everything, there is an inbetween too. You need good people with knowledge on those spots. If you are doing helpdesking based on scripts, that are manned with unskilled profiles, you are likely to have many many babylonic discussions.
If that is the case, then there is room for improvement at the helpdesk.
But hey… that is why we are here for, no?
kind regards,
R.
Funny how you select-quoted.
Here’s another story, from the very same post you quoted:
“I thought that had all stopped & the only way to contact was on here or support email, and I hadnt had much luck with either, hence the frustration.”
Meaning that email support was not good and he didn’t receive any response. Which is exactly what I thought had happened and, incidentally, personally experienced several times.
See what I said about fanboys being unable to see any other perspective? You just proved my point. Oh yeah right, now ban me, delete this post and you’ll prove it even further…
Okay papi.
Steve is one of the users that switched from user to moderator only due to the fact that he has spend hours and hours in teamviewer and other sessions with other users just to help them out and find solutions imho. But i guess it is also no problem if someone gets frustrated and rants this in public. We are musicians after all, and thus very expressive.
Many people, including myself, have had good responses from support too. (i didnt use it many times though)
So their opinion is based on the facts as they see them.
This does not mean that he or they are fanboys who are unable to see any other perspective.
I guess looking for help should always start with the one who puts the question, and i always advise to use tactics to fullfill your goal to get an answer.
You, for example, can be categorized under advanced users. When you have a question, it will be a difficult one.
First line helpdesk, you can imho be sure of that, will not be able to answer difficult questions.
Next thing is that the first line will escalate the question to a second line where specialists look in to the issue.
Very important here is that the first line escalates it to the right specialist (or second line).
If that is not done properly, your question gets hopefully bounced back in to the workflow system, and then it must be reassigned. Again, if the question is not clear, that can be a big issue, and i just guess the “uncategorized” get piled up in the workflow system. This bouncing back and forward also takes time.
So it might be a better idea for difficult questions to use tactics, and to put them on the forum, and get the proper attention, or a direction to pm someone, who then fasttracks the question to the right person who can pick it up in the workflow system.
This is a way more efficient procedure to get the response you need, then just sit and wait untill your question has been bounced enough and can be answered.
It’s like getting entrance to a concert. You can just cue up and wait, or take advantage of your social skills and get entrance faster. Or you can be a musician or coworker for that concert, and not having to wait at all.
In my opinion, getting support is thus directly related to the social skills of the person who puts the question.
But i’m not stating that there wouldn’t be room for improvement imho (scroll up)
Since people on a frequent basis indeed complain about getting support.
Another good tactic is to repeat your mail/support request.
Since the case number is unique, your second request gets attached to the first one.
But you can benifit from being bumped back to the top of the listing. (but this is a pure guess)
Since there are many many people in that system, SB-employees in fact does not know who you are but you get identified by numbers, and attached based on those same numbers.
So have no problem with a little promoting of your request to get it on to the table.
Even better is to add further information about it, so that the ones who are doing the escalation can have insight in the problem and thus escalate it correctly.
FWIW - helpdesk handling insight
kind regards,
R.
Always keep a clean front porch, and toss the dirty laundry where the sun don’t shine! 
I miss USA phone support. The main difference between what we have now and phone support is usually several days. I would say even over a week if there is interpretation/misunderstanding issues. With live phone support the issue can often be resolved immediately. THAT is professional support. Ever wonder why people love UAD support? You call a number, and a nice human voice answers the phone. You don’t have to go through a phone maze. Within minutes you are speaking to a human who understands and hopefully resolves your issue.
As I have mentioned before PG at the Wavelab forum provides excellent support. It’s his presence that has made Wavelab a valuable tool for myself. Too bad Steinberg can’t offer something similar for Cubase. Yes…I know Cubase is a much more popular application than Wavelab.
I’m sure it’s a delicate balance. You can’t allocate too many resources on issues that are clearly explained in the manual. But on the other hand, live phone support or even good forum support can’t be beat. When it’s time to upgrade Wavelab I always remember my issues will be addressed in a timely manner. That is added value to a great application.
And who’s papi? Maybe someone who was banned from this forum for daring to criticize Steinberg and Apple?
My point is actually getting stronger, despite your efforts to kill it.
I smell something. Funny.
love is in the air! 
Here we are three years later…
And have things changed? NO.
I can’t get a response from them AT ALL. The worst ‘support’ I have ever encountered; well not the worst. It’s simply doesn’t exist. They’ve got a bloody cheek taking our money and then treating its customers like dirt. I will never buy another product from such a contemptible outfit.
Actually Marmaduke_8, had you read this 3-year-old thread you would have discovered that the OP excused himself once someone posted the info he needed.
Another way to look at this is that, one one hand, SB doesn’t devote enough resources to answer every single support ticket, so some get dropped- but they maintain this forum and its server, and there are many, many experts here just waiting for a chance to help out, and many of these members are more advanced than your average tech support person. The turnaround time can be fast too.
One common use of the forum is to complain, and another is to tell other users the problem and get an answer that allows you to fix it.
You’re certainly welcome to complain all you want, and to add any bitter recriminations necessary to satisfy the angry consumer in you. But the goal of fixing your technical problem is kind of separate from that, and I see you have posted the actual issue you had, and someone has responded with an answer.
I think SB does a fair job of staying viable in the business world. One thing that we do know is that you will not buy a Sonar update in the future.
Sorry guys, I’m going to lock this. It’s from 2014, the original poster discovered that he had missed a bit of info, and was mistaken about not being able to contact SB, and posted saying so, yet the thread lives on by virtue of its title.
Please continue posting your complaints, both rational and ir-, just please start a new thread.