I have been a fan of Adobe's products, and particularly their Flash related products. But I have had a recent experience that suggests serious trouble is brewing.
A close friend of mine who is a professor, purchased Adobe Photoshop from an academic retailer. With an academic license product you have to provide Adobe with proof that you are eligible. But either the product was missing the instructions, or she misplaced them. She tried to reach Adobe, and this is where things get interesting.
She couldn't.
It seems that Adobe customer support is essentially offline, and has been for at least several weeks. I didn't believe it and I offered to help, and then became fascinated. They have responded to no emails, and after three calls to their customer support lines, two of which were for an hour, and the last for **3** hours, they never picked up the phone. Imagine a customer support line that leaves you on hold with nothing but music for 3 hours.
Incredible.
Apparently this is a serious problem that they have at least written about here.
According to the date of this blog post, they have been having problems since August 28, and presumably before then.
I can sympathize with their having problems. But not that much.
I mean if you spend potentially thousands of dollars on a product, and can't reach the company in any way at all after the sale, that is pretty amazing. And the level of incompetence that could have yielded such a result with such a huge company would, I would think, have people's heads rolling. I'm not trying to get anyone fired... but I'm just sayin'...
The more interesting question, is what impact this is having on the presumably thousands or tens of thousands of customers who can't get through. Are people so locked in that Adobe can do whatever it wants to its customers? Or is this the canary in the coal mine for Adobe? Does it reflect deeper management problems than are apparent?
Of course I dunno. But in the meantime, I'd love to help resolve my friends problem. Does anyone have any insider clues as to how to get through?
http://www.gimp.org
ReplyDeleteHow much will she pay for a cracked version of the same software?
ReplyDeleteYou haven't seen this blog?
ReplyDeletehttp://adobegripes.tumblr.com/
Hank,
ReplyDeleteAs the open letter by Lambert Walsh, VP for Technical Services, explained, Adobe is switching service providers and we are experiencing unprecedented, and unexpected problems, which we are focused on resolving asap. The email address in the open letter adbecare@adobe.com is monitored and responded to. Your friend should write to the alias, include which product, platform, language she purchased and attach a copy of her student/educator ID.
Regards,
Kirsten Harris
Manager, Technical Response Team, Creative Solutions and Acrobat, Adobe Systems Inc.
Reply to Anonymous/Lambert_Walsh: pitch in, have engineers answer the phone. Running a business may not be easy- but it is what you signed up for.
ReplyDeleteKristen,
ReplyDeleteWe have already written to the adbecare address once and got no response. We will try again with the info that you requested, but it makes no sense to me that if you write to that email address that no response is forthcoming, or that multiple efforts are required.
Hank
Spot on, Hank.
ReplyDeleteI tried to contact them months ago, and no response (even when it was a sale!!).
I also downloaded Flash Catalyst to test it, and I was unanble to watch AdobeTv (Maybe because I'm loccated outside the US, I dunno...) and therefore wrote an email asking them where could I get resources.
Never got an answer.
Nice to see you posting again, congrats!!
In the past, when this kind of thing happens to me, I follow the link on the corporate web site to "information for investors" to get the company's annual report. From that I get the mailing address for their CTO and write to him directly by U.S. post, explaining that:
ReplyDelete1) His customer service system is broken.
2) His system for reporting customer service system outages is broken. and
3) His system for monitoring his customer service system is broken.
My snail mail letter usually gets a panicked email reply from an underlying, saying, "My boss told me to fix this, but your email attachment didn't get through. Could you please send me a copy of your original email?"
This usually results in improvement, about a month after my original problem.
Wow! That is scary. Welcome back.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to PaintDotNet http://getpaint.net
ReplyDeleteI tried to contact them months ago, and no response (even when it was a sale!!).
ReplyDeleteI also downloaded Flash Catalyst to test it, and I was unanble to watch AdobeTv (Maybe because I'm loccated outside the US, I dunno...) and therefore wrote an email asking them where could I get resources