how not to do Level 1 support

This post is longer than normal but you may find it entertaining as an example of

1. how not to do Level 1 support. All the politeness in the world is no substitute for actually listening, and having some understanding of the environment
2. where email-based support (as compared to actually talking to people) can go wrong
3. a modern phenomenon that i see most often in those most-modern of people, Americans: the inability to read and actually comprehend, as compared to skim and only grab one concept or question. Even a decade ago, I learnt not to ask more than one question in emails or support tickets to that part of the world

Look at the following conversation with createspace support. I (now) find it pretty funny...

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Aug 20 2008
Please check out my E-store http://www.createspace.com/3345501. the description text is colliding with the Author text ('practicesvillage"). it is as if there were a CSS file missing or something - there is no padding between the text areas. Did I miss something?
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Aug 20 2008
Hello Rob,

Thank you for contacting us about your E-Store. We have gone in and put in some hard returns, so that your columns have significant spacing between them. Please note that you can also due this through your member account, just by putting in a hard return before the word you would like moved. Click on Save Changes and check to see what the results are. You can repeat this process until your E-Store appears how you would like for it to.

Thank you.
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Aug 21 2008
I'm a bit shocked. Having to insert hard returns is crude beyond belief. A little simple CSS by you guys to add a little padding would be all it needs. Who does your web design, someone's kid?
This is my public web commercial presence for this book and I think some class is in order (pun intended)
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Aug 21 2008
Hello Rob,
Thank you for contacting us regarding your CreateSpace eStore.

We leave the formatting of the eStore very open and variable so
that our members can format their descriptions and author biographies
how they see fit simply by editing their format in their title set up.
We hope you are happy with the modifying we did for your CreateSpace
eStore.

Please feel free to contact us with any further inquiries.
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Aug 22 2008
Please address my question.
Formatting of the e-Store is BAD.
Inserting hard returns in the text is NOT the answer.
Please explain
a) how you will escalate my concerns and
b) what plans there are to improve the appearance of e-Stores
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Aug 22 2008
Hello Rob,

Thank you for contacting us regarding your CreateSpace E-Store concerns. We apologize for any inconvenience that you may be experiencing with your CreateSpace E-Store page design. As a courtesy, we have updated the page so that the book description and the author biography portion do not flow together.

We do hope that this update is suitable to your liking. However, if it is not, please login to your member account make adjustments to the book description portion and the author biography portion. We recommend opening the text up in a Word document and making changes there to ensure that the correct hard returns can be input after the correct words. Once the sections are formatted, please insert them back into the appropriate section within the "Title Setup" portion of your member account and select "Save Changes", located at the bottom of the screen, and then log on to you CreateSpace E-Store page to see how the changes look. Please continue this process until the desired look is achieved.

*Please Note*

We provide a general page layout format so that each individual CreateSpace E-Store page can be uniquely designed according to each member's taste. We have included instructions below for customizing your own personal page.

Customizing your E-Store is easy – simply follow these steps:

1. Login to your CreateSpace Member Account at http://www.CreateSpace.com/Login.jsp using your email address and account password.

2. Select the title you will be modifying and click the "Edit" link.

3. There are several sections on the Edit Title page, including one called E-Store. Click the "Edit E-Store" link on the right side of that section.

4. On the Printed Materials section, you can modify your E-Store trailer, banner, color selection, etc.

5. To complete the process, click on the Save button at the bottom right side of the page.

Once again, we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience that you may have experienced. We greatly appreciate your inquiries and we hope the above information is helpful.
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Aug 23 2008
OK let's go round the loop for a FOURTH time.

Perhaps this time you will actually address my question.

The e-Store looks crappy. The text for the description andf the author should not collide. this is a bug in YOUR css for the page that it has no padding.

Please do NOT tell ne for a THIRD time that i have to put freaking hard returns in my text because this shows ZERO understanding of how html works.

The site looks crappy. it is my commercial web presense fopr this book and I want it to work properly and look good.

My questions are:
a) how are you going to escalate my concerns over the poor CSS of this page?
b) what plans are there if any for improvement to the look of this page?

Please DO NOT fob me off with standard crap about hard returns again - I hope you can see that would get annoying
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Aug 23 2008
Hello Rob, Thank you for contacting CreateSpace. After reviewing your Support Request, we have determined that the issue requires further investigation. To assist you better, we have forwarded your request to a Support Specialist. You should receive a response to your inquiry soon. We appreciate your patience in this matter.
[Hooray! Somebody's listening!]
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Aug 26 2008
Hello Rob, Thank you for contacting CreateSpace. After reviewing your Support Request, we have determined that the issue requires further investigation. To assist you better, we have forwarded your request to a Support Specialist. You should receive a response to your inquiry soon. We appreciate your patience in this matter.
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Sep 2 2008
Hello Rob, I just wanted to check in and let you know that we are continuing to investigate this issue and you have not been forgotten. You should receive a response to your original inquiry soon. We appreciate your continued patience in this matter.
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[or not....]
Sep 2 2008
Hello Mr. England, My name is Maggie, I am the Createspace Member Services Lead. The Member Services team has escalated your concern regarding the appearance of your E-Store page to me, and I am happy to help in any way that I can. I have reviewed the E-Store page in question, and I do not see where the book description flows into the author bio. I have attached a screen shot for your convenience. Please confirm that you are seeing the same screen. If this is not what you have intended for your E-Store, please send a support request with my name in the subject line, and I will be happy to do what I can to format you page accordingly. Please know that the layout is static, so we are limited in that regard. The team has added hard returns where necessary to separate the description from the author bio. Thank you for your patience in this matter. We are continually searching for ways to improve our services. Please feel free to include my name in any support requests, so that I can personally respond.

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Sep 2 2008
OK this is the last time I try to explain this.

HTML has an attribute called "padding". IF your eStore webpage layout contained padding (which would apply to everyone not just me) then you would not need to put hard returns in text to make it format properly.

Putting hard returns in HTML to make it format correctly is silly. it is doubly silly because it would be so easy for you to fix this, so that your support people would not have to spend their lives inserting hard returns for us.

there is a bug in the layout of the eStore (not mine, all of them) so that the description and the author areas are touching. they should not be touching. there should be a gap. it is called "padding", or "margin", depending how your web person implements it.

I do not want to have to put hard returns in my text in order to make it work. Nobody should need to do this. i want you to fix the underlying format of the webpage for everybody. have I made this clear?

And then my second question is when are you going to improve the webpage to allow things like links and html formatting in the descriptions, like for example Lulu does - in fact pretty much every site of this sort. i would desperately like to link to the associated webpage for my book but you support only plain text. this also is silly.
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Sep 4 2008
Hello Rob,

We thank you for contacting us regarding the layout of our CreateSpace E-Store pages. We greatly value your input and have taken note of your suggestions. However, we use a pre-formed template for all of our E-Store pages. We do not use web designers to create individual E-Store web pages. Therefore, we will not be able to accommodate your request for adding padding to your E-Store page. We do apologize for any inconvenience this may present, and once again, we really do appreciate your suggestions.

Please Note:
There are other options for customizing your E-Store page. We have listed the steps below for how to create your E-Store page.

1. Login to your CreateSpace Member Account at http://www.CreateSpace.com/Login.jsp using your email address and account password.
2. Select the title you will be modifying by clicking on the title's name.
3. There are several sections on the Edit Title page, including one called E-Store. Click the "Edit E-Store" link on the right side of that section.
4. In this section you can modify your E-Store trailer, banner, color selection, etc. This is where you can make unique adjustments that can make your page stand out.
5. To complete the process, click on the "Save Changes" button at the bottom of the page.

Currently, we do not support links or HTML formatting within the description of your title. We do apologize for not offering this service at this time. However, we do offer URL linking to particular websites. We see that you have linked your title's website to your CreateSpace E-Store for the title.

We greatly appreciate your suggestions and we have passed them on to the appropriate party. We do apologize for any inconveniences that our CreateSpace E-Store formatting may present to you. Please know that we are always striving to improve our options for our members and that your valued input is always appreciated.

Thank you.
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Sep 4 2008
This is getting surreal. i can't believe I'm persisting with this. WILL YOU READ WHAT I AM SAYING????

Don't tell me "we use a pre-formed template for all of our E-Store pages".. I KNOW THAT! AND I'M TELLING YOU IT IS BROKEN!!!!!

Your "pre-formed template" SHOULD HAVE PADDING IN IT. FOR EVERYONE. NOT FOR ME, FOR EVERYONE!!!!

How many times do we have to go round this loop?
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Sep 6 2008
Hello Rob,

Thank you for your follow up e-mail regarding the e-store display and padding. We have brought this issue to the attention of the appropriate parties and we are working on correcting this issue. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you. Please know that we are working on adding padding to the e-store pages so that the text from the description does not run into the author biography.

[wow only two-and-half weeks to get the message]

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