I ingraciate myself to the person over the phone, by kind inflections in
voice, a "smile", consideration of their difficult job, and a very
concise, yet detailed, description of my problem. By projection of
"personality", and appearing "professional", I delude myself that I get
better service than anyone else.
When I have a problem, I also talk to people witin my company, the net,
and the technical guy who does sales support. (The technical guy with
sales is only suppose to do sales-related stuff, but if you make friends
with him/her, they will help you out.)