I called back on the phone one more time. The experience was suddenly far better! In under a minute I had a first rep on the phone, and just a few minutes after that I was speaking with an engineer ("Tori"). She quickly verified the warranty status of my product and scheduled an overnight replacement.
That's how the support experience should be! It was like talking to Cisco again, after the awful subterranean mess of the long phone holds, chat delays, and chat support rep who didn't or couldn't actually read anything I told him.
Kudos to Tori to whom I finally spoke on the phone. Bummer the rest of the support experience was so unacceptable. After almost 3 decades of impeccable support experiences, both personally, at my employers, and on behalf of clients, Cisco nearly burned a major bridge with me on this one.
There just isn't anything Cisco makes any more, whether at the highest high end or the lowest low end, that can't be bought elsewhere. Negative support experiences like the one I had today -- even on the low-end products -- damage brand image and lead customers to shop elsewhere. Cisco should keep this in mind and strive to do better.
