Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Adobe Customer Care Redux

O.K. There are probably only about 10 people out there who will care about this, but if this helps one lost soul out there trying to deal with Adobe Customer Care know that they aren't alone, it's worth it.

I wanted to follow-up on something that I had written about earlier, Adobe's inability to provide even basic customer service. Admittedly, I am only one individual who owns 7 or so (depending on how many products they've dropped or picked up again) Adobe/Macromedia licenses, but I guess Adobe will never know since they still haven't assimilated the Macromedia database (or apparently, their online store database) with their Adobe I.D./registration database. When I see the Adobe "evangelist" out there telling me how their ability to aggregate and search metadata is going to send me to media heaven, I can't help but snicker, thinking that they cannot even aggregate all their customer data into one coherent database.

Look deeply into my eyes and forget about the fact that we won't let you upgrade to a Master Collection license even though you own all the individual licenses.

So, what happened with my odyssey to obtain my post-announcement upgrade for Production Premium CS4? After a maze of online requests and phone calls, Adobe sent the upgrade to the wrong address TWICE. The final time shipping arrangements were made, I made the customer service rep. repeat the shipping address twice. I did get my upgrade, after I figured out that it was easier to deal with someone who I barely knew that lived in my old flat in San Francisco (where it was delivered, again) than to try to deal with Adobe. After some arrangements, the package was hand delivered to me in Los Angeles, via personal relationships, not metadata.

OK, mostly I just wanted an excuse to post the picture. Next post will deal with creative issues, promise.

4 comments:

Eric Escobar said...

I'm so sorry that your experience sucked with Adobe.

From 98-00, I worked as an Adobe Level III Technical Support dude (AE & Premiere) in Seattle.

It was when Adobe actually did all tech and customer support in-house. Turns out, I was there to turn out the lights and lock the door. I watched my co-workers and friends lose their jobs as Adobe decided to outsource all customer service and everything but the highest levels of tech support.

This was also at the same time Adobe was posting record profits.

This from the company that was famous for having the best customer support in the industry.

I'm sure that doesn't help. Just a chance to commiserate.

Thanks for your awesome blog.

Craig Mieritz said...

I hear you Eric. My wife and I knew several people who worked down in San Jose back in the day.

And the dog is intended in no way to be a likeness, representation or impression of any current or past Adobe evangelists. Especially with English accents.

Anonymous said...

They're Customer Support has to be about the worst I've ever seen. I don't think it's even possible to get to someone in the US anymore. They seem to have totally put their CS site on an Indian island.

And I actually feel a bit sorry for the folks in India who seem to want to help but have no recourse to escalate.

I can't even get a serial number for a product I purchased. It's a problem that many people are having but all they can do is walk you through a process (which doesn't work) and then log a case (which you never hear about again).

They still have some good software but it's sad to hear Adobe has gone downhill so much when it comes to support.

http://forums.adobe.com/message/2014486;jsessionid=4782B80766F07DA0EDA456F5C8C6523B.node0

David CC Erickson said...

Just got off the line with them. No video conferencing (Connect Pro used to be Breeze) account close options on their site. Can't even change the cc I'm paying with. Useless support forums. Unbelievably bad website (impossible to navigate/find what you're looking for). And yes, talked to a couple nice people in India sitting on their asses making dirt money reading support scripts. Why do companies f_k their customers with this nonsense. Not to mention their software is bizarrely configured (to the liking of software engineers, not customers) Never buying Adobe again.