I know this doesn’t belong here but I’m very frustrated and don’t know what else to do so I’m hoping some moderator can direct me. Two months ago I purchased a Photoshop CS4 Extended Upgrade. I have Photoshop CS3 Standard and did not realize I needed the Upsell version as opposed to the Upgrade. When the install would not work I called customer support and they said I needed to download a LOD form and send it back with a copy of my sales receipt so they could send me a check because they could not issue me the correct serial to upgrade from CS3 standard to CS4 Extended So a month went by and I did not receive a check or hear anything. So I called customer support again. They told me they did not know if I paid taxed or not on the purchase. (If they looked at the invoice I sent they could see I didn’t) So I said why didn’t anyone contact me about this because I could have waited another month or two till I called. All he could do was apologize. So I asked to speak to the supervisor and he Also apologized and said he would escalate this and I would have a check by the following Tuesday. That was 2 weeks ago that I should have received it. Last week I called customer support again. He said he checked and it was just approved and it would take up to four weeks to get the check. I told him that was unacceptable and I wanted to talk to someone that could help me. After waiting on the phone for a half hour he disconnected me. I then decided to call Adobes corporate office to tell them the problem I was having with customer support and he told me to explain it and he could escalate it for me. I tell him the problem and he transfers me back to India to customer support. This person says he is on the escalation team. He tells me that they will send me a check and it will take up to four weeks. I said that it is not acceptable, I have already waiting two months. I told him I don’t care about a check, all I want is a serial number to upgrade my software. To get me off the phone he tells me it takes 24 -48 hour and he would either get me a serial number or another upsell copy. I could not tell which it was because I couldn’t understand his english. So today was 48 hours so I call Adobe corporate office again because I wanted to talk to someone that could help me and not give me the run around and lie to me like customer support was doing. She tells me the only one to help me is customer support in India. I call customer support again and I get the same run around. It has been approved and you should get a check. Mind you after all this time a check still hasen’t even been sent. So I told him, all I’m asking for is a serial number to do the upgrade or some kind of voucher or coupon code to purchase it on the Adobe store so I can get the serial number because I still have the media from the wrong version I purchased. His answer was we can’t do that so I asked to speak to his supervisor and he wouldn’t let me. He gave me his name but I don’t know if he was lying to me or not. All I have to say is I have been a customer of Adobe since version 2.5 of Photoshop and I also have other Adobe software that I have purchased over the years. This is no way to treat a returning customer. I will never buy an Adobe product again! If anyone asks me I will never refer any of adobe’s products.
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After all the screw-ups caused by confusing upgrade paths and digital rights management it is sad that these problems persist. Adobe is not the only company persisting in these obnoxious practices. It is particularly aggravating with regard to products like Photoshop where "new" versions are usually only incremental evolutions from the previous. I believe that describes CS3 and CS4. Apple is one of the worst offenders. I am astounded that anyone will buy music from Itunes when the same recordings are available elsewhere at higher bit rates, no DRM and often a lower price, e.g. Amazon. Surprisingly Microsoft has become more consumer friendly–they are more likely than not to give users willing to call the Indian who has an American’s lost job an activation code for their OS because in the long run that decreases problems with malware as these activated OSes will be patched as needed. Of course since Microsoft, and Adobe, are shipping jobs like support overseas as fast as possible there will soon come a point when no Americans will be able to afford their software.
In case you don’t get Phos’ humor, he is lending you some paragraph breaks for your next message, since a long paragraph like that is hard for us to read.
I also feel for you. I hope that Adobe is saving a lot of money by outsourcing customer service to India, where people with marginal English skills try very hard to screw things up. I wonder how long before American companies start pulling back customer service to countries where English is a first language. There are a good half dozen of them to choose from, you know.
I’ve got no problem with anyone making a living no matter where they live or come from but as soon as I here a sentence I can’t understand, I say so, and ask for someone else.
Politely.
I only start getting angry when I go through 3 or 4, and they all speak with accents so thick I can’t understand them.
Those mountain folk from western Maryland are particularly difficult to decipher!
Australia is still outsourcing to Mumbai full-tilt. These days I just annoy the store that I bought from when something goes wrong and needs customer service, and let them deal with the translations.
Either that or it’s made in China and is cheaper to throw away than get on the customer service line.
The upcoming depression will help sort this sort of thing out, perhaps. Governments will be desperately trying to provide jobs for their own citizens to keep the unemployment figures down, as the first round of subsidies and bail-outs is already showing.
Sorry for the formatting. I was never good at writing. Besides what I stated above the best part I didn’t mention was two of the Customer Support Supervisors told me to just go to Adobe’s site and purchase the correct version because you will eventually be getting the check. Can you believe that.
Understanding the Indian accent is hard enough. Add hard-of-hearing to that and you’ve got a totally abysmal interchange. One solution is to abandon the phone and communicate via the Internet. You’re still vulnerable to getting the run-around but less so, since your contacts are more likely to tidy-up their responses when those responses are a matter of record.
Just did some research hoping I could get an email address of the CEO of Adobe thinking maybe he could help me. Well besides not finding an email for anyone high up the hierarchy it seems the present CEO of Adobe in an article is big on using India. His name is Shantanu Narayen, maybe that’s why.
What’s wrong with outsourcing customer support to India? If you find an accent different than yours hard to understand, then you’re living a sheltered life. In general, Indians have higher standards of general education, superior work ethic and better manners than North Americans, and certainly better than Brits. People who complain about outsourcing are going to be left behind in the dust.
The problem the OP describes is a defect in Adobe management and in their business strategy. I certainly feel much more alienated by the fact that Adobe pushes alpha software to market to meet some sales deadline for a suite and follows it up with needlessly complex pricing structures, than I do by speaking to someone in Bangalore to help me fix a problem caused by stupid Adobe business strategy.
-An American abroad (who sometimes outsources to Americans, but only the non-xenophobic kind who can understand the accents of my brilliant Chinese, Indian and Filipino colleagues)
" What’s wrong with outsourcing customer support to India?"
Nothing, per se, except for the those things that are endemic to customer support structure almost everywhere these days, i.e.: Staffed by non-users who can barely go beyond script-reading, if they’re able or allowed to at all.
Geee…somebody ought to start a Wiki that includes all the support info available to ‘official’ support staff and augmented by users who generally know more than support staff on most issues anyway.
Phos… said: " What’s wrong with outsourcing customer support to India?"
Nothing, per se, except for the those things that are endemic to customer support structure almost everywhere these days, i.e.: Staffed by non-users who can barely go beyond script-reading, if they’re able or allowed to at all. ———————
The above has nothing to do with India. It has to do with corporate policy. They could hire know-nothings in America too, except they would cost more and most likely be less literate than the Indian staff.
Ever tried calling a US government agency for help? The phone is answered in-house by employees of the agency, and they know nothing…NOTHING…except how to say "no". And, since lower grade staff are mostly Affirmative Action hires, they can barely speak comprehensible English. I’d rather talk to someone in Manila or Bangalore.
With Adobe I’ve always found phone tech support (handled through the Philippines from where I am) to be completely satisfactory, while Adobe sales support (with very genuine American-sounding accents) has usually had me plotting homicide.
Having spent 30 years in international projects dealing with many varieties of spoken English I can assure Mr Nicol that, although some outsourced phone help is exemplary, a lot is totally unintelligible.
If a company wants to outsource, it should check the quality of Engrish regularly.
I wonder how long before American companies start pulling back customer service to countries where English is a first language.
I just heard that Dell is going to let it’s customers request support from American-based offices… at a cost of 13 bucks. Sounds like a great scam, one that Adobe should pick up on if they want to experiment with another source of revenue.
Release buggy software (but right on schedule with the rest of the suite! woohoo!) with half-baked features, charge money for the customer support that said buggy software is sure to generate. It’s a foolproof plan! 😐
From his perspective as an American abroad, it’s easy for David to advocate that we all accomodate to foreign dialects. Doing so, however, requires exposure over a time much longer than provided by occasional help calls. Dialect is a very pressing problem for states-bound users and cannot be scoffed away.
George has an excellent point. It takes time to adapt ones ear to an accent which is unfamiliar. When you are having a problem and then call for help you do not have that time. Plus you are already stressed. It is patently ridiculous to expect people to immediately adapt to a thick accent. You are on a phone and don’t even have the benefit of facial expression to help. I’ve lived on a variety of islands in the Caribbean and I didn’t immediately tune in to the various accents. It takes some time. And I speak 3 languages so I should be somewhat better than average at becoming accustomed to a new speech pattern.
Phone help ought to be ideally in a neutral accent. The same accent (or lack of one) we hear from birth generally on TV and radio and why companies hire people who are difficult to understand for jobs which require precise verbal communication is a puzzle. Well, no it’s not, it’s cheaper.
Well, I’am an IT consultant for over 12 years now. So dealing with support from companies like Microsoft, HP, Dell is an every day thing. I find that once I get past the level one techs (which are from India and I have nothing against them.) who can not help you with a complex problem you tend to get a American who can solve your problem and make it less stressful for you because you can understand him and what he wants you to do. Also I fell rude if I keep asking the tech to repeat himself because I don’t understand him. That is important, because if I can not solve the problem for my customer then it becomes mission critical for my customer and his business.
Jim Jordan there are two version to upgrade CS3 to CS4 Extended. The upgrade is for CS3 Extended to CS4 Extended and then there is the upsell for upgrading CS3 Standard to CS4 Extended. My whole problem that caused all this is because I purchased the upgrade instead of the upsell version by mistake.
Did you read the link I posted? There now appears to be no difference in price to upgrade either standard or extended CS3 to CS4 extended. There is no ‘upsell’. You pay the same $349 price to upgrade.
So why are you telling us about an upsell? Set yourself straight and then set Adobe customer service straight. The reason why Adobe is such a pain to you is that you are apparently not armed with the info you needed for yourself.
Where was it previously mentioned that you bought from NewEgg? We were all assuming you bought from Adobe, which sells at the same price and offers easier returns/exchanges. Why one would buy elsewhere for the same price is beyond reason.
It is frustrating to fellow posters when you fail to explain yourself. The communication problem may not be with odd dialects.
Just saw your post, after being redirected from elsewhere.
I also got the run around from Adobe customer service when I returned the utterly worthless Photoshop Elements I had bought in good faith earlier this year for a Toshiba laptop.
What finally produced tangible results for me were a couple of extremely angry, nasty emails, in which I wrote "you are an impenetrable den of thieves" and, finally, "OK, keep your damned $80, apparently you need them more than I do, perhaps to pay the monthly salary of one of those poor individuals you exploit in Pune, Mumbai, Calcutta or wherever."
After that, I received a phone call from an Adobe Customer Relations Consultant in Canada (I’m in California, 110 miles from Adobe HQ), who arranged to send me my check. I received it eventually and it didn’t bounce. 🙂
From my experience with another firm, I gather that the exploitation of those folks in India is a very sensitive, sore point with them.
Not everyone buys direct from Adobe. It would only seem logical that if I purchased it from Adobes site there would not be an issue of having the correct serial number. You seem to be the only one frustrated.
I received a voice mail on my Cel phone. It was a Jason (no last name given) from Adobe’s escalation team. He says he was able to get it approved to get me a serial number to upgrade the software instead of a check (that’s all I wanted). So I call customer support once again. After 10 minutes of going back and forth with her about what I called for the support person says Jason noted in the case file he called but nothing else. So I asked her to put me through to the escalation team to talk to Jason. After 10 minutes on hold she comes back and says they are all busy and that they could call me back. I now ask her to let me speak to her supervisor and she puts me on hold for at least 20 minutes. She says sorry but she can’t find one and they will call me back when one is available. This just is amazing! You would expect this from some small company not Adobe.
The customer support person didn’t call back in an hour like she said. So after 2 1/2 hrs. I called them again. This time the person spoke perfect English. I asked her if this was India and she said no because I was reaching the global satellite and she was in the Philippines. She read the case and she told me she would talk to her supervisor (I didn’t have to ask her to)and asked if it was ok to put me on hold. I was on hold for a very short time when she came back on. She said she can give me a serial number for a full version of Photoshop CS4 Extended not an upgrade. Only problem is she has to cancel the serial numbers of my 3 prior versions. I also asked her if she could email me this and she told me no she couldn’t. That’s great but I feel kind of shot changed here.
It’s situations just like that, Carmen, that have me on a quest to build a little audio splitter, so I can use the headset on my cordless phone here at home, with the other lead going out to either my computer or a portable cassette recorder.
There are often occasions where I want a recorded record of conversations with different support systems.
I’d tell them that I am recording, just like the announcement you often hear when you call them: "This call may be monitored or recorded for quality control purposes."
Almost all call centers have the capability for agents to record the call if you ask them to, and it will be reviewed by their supervisor. — Charlie… http://www.chocphoto.com
"Almost all call centers have the capability for agents to record the call if you ask them to, and it will be reviewed by their supervisor."
That’s like putting the fox in charge of the hen house. I want to be the one to keep possession of the the recording.
Good case in point where it would have helped, had the company not been honest:
About a month ago I had to get a new wheel for my Mom’s car. She ran up over a curb, and bent the rim to the point where the tire wouldn’t hold air.
I searched all over the web, and called all the salvage yards in the area. I couldn’t find a price under $170. My last resort was to call the dealership where she bought it. Got their sales department, yakked with a nice guy and he quoted me $113 + tax. I was impressed it was so cheap, especially from the dealership. So impressed that I made the Parts Department employeeJasonto make absolutely sure. I told him about the far more expensive prices I was finding on my own. Yep, he said, $113 + tax.
Cool. Made the appointment for 2 days later to have it replaced, along with getting 2 new tires. Had a couple other minor checks performed while I was at it (all fluids, possible water pump hose leak).
I’m called to the Service counter and the woman there has the bill ready. She starts going over it line-by-line with me, and the first thing she points out is the price for the wheel$143 + tax.
I stopped her right there and told her I was quoted $113 over the phone. I asl her to call the Parts Dept. and ask for Jason. She picks up the phone and calls Parts, which is in another building on the property, maybe 100 feet away. I hear her ask for Jason. I hear her side of the conversation, and she hangs up and apologized to me about the difference. (It makes me wonder if it’s routine for two departments of the same company to each make a profit on the same item as it passes from one department to another).
Had they not been honest, my Momon a fixed incomewould have been out an extra $31.80.
THAT’s the sort of situation where it could have been to my advantage to have the recording. And as much business as is conducted online and over the phone these days, it’s not a bad idea to create a "veracity" trail.
I want to be the one to keep possession of the the recording.
Make sure you check the laws about recording without consent where you live, they vary from place to place. Call center agents agree for their company to record their calls as part of their employment, and you implicitly ‘agree’ when you hear the ‘this call may be recorded’ message, but that does not necessarily mean it is legal for you to record the call without the agent’s consent.
In a lot of places only one of the parties on the call has to consent, so you would probably be OK, but it doesn’t hurt to check. — Charlie… http://www.chocphoto.com
As I said in reply #43, I’d always be willing to tell another party that I’m recording the conversation.
OldBob…
That looks like an OK item (much as I hate Radio Shack) but it would present some specific problems with my set-up. I wonder if those suction-cup things are still available…the ones you stick on the back of the handset? My Pops had one back in the ’70s and it worked perfectly. Even if not, I just need to make up a splitter…easy enough.
As I said in reply #43, I’d always be willing to tell another party that I’m recording the conversation.
In some places you would have to stop recording if they didn’t consent. That was my point. When you hear the ‘this call may be recorded’ message you can tell the agent you don’t want your call recorded and, in most cases, they have to stop the recording or give you another, non recorded, number to call. Most places now record all sales related calls for liability reasons. They trust the customer maybe less than you trust them. 😉 — Charlie… http://www.chocphoto.com
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