BBB for Software?
Long-time Gnomie Gail Fleming popped into my inbox this evening with an outstanding question:
I was just wondering – do you have any areas in Lockergnome where people can report bad customer support for software products that they have purchased? I have been burned a couple of times, once quite recently and I really think the only way some of these people will listen is if their customers come forward and report their experiences.
It seems unethical of certain software companies (MOVAVI) to produce a product that is laced with bugs that they are aware of and they tell you they are working on a fix in their new version. Then they place the fixes in a new version which if 60 days have passed from your original purchase, you have to buy it all over again as an upgrade. Is this typical in your experiences?
I’d imagine there must be a place for it. Then again, the Internet is like one giant (admittedly, unpatrolled) Better Business Bureau.
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3 Comments
Scott Kingery
February 22nd, 2007
at 1:31am
They should blog and use the freedback tag you suggested after Gnomedex last year.
Kevin Howard
February 22nd, 2007
at 4:46am
ACT! (the CRM product) is always buggy on the release of each version and I’m faily sure they are guilty of putting bug fixes in a new version which you have to pay for, again. We’ve bought versions 5 thtough 8 (for 5 users) and every one has required umpteen patches within weeks of it’s release. We’ve decided to ditch the ACT! and try something else, once we’ve caught up with the hundreds of hours it has cost us in lost productivity.
Another candidate is Omnipage 15. I bought this recently from the Nuance (formerly Scansoft ) US site, (because it’s considerably cheaper than buying from the AUstralian site). I bought it via download because I wanted to use it, straight away.
Once installed it takes you straight to “validation” in which you have to input a code you get when buying the product. I duly did this and but their validation system insisted I had installed the software before. Their on-line support system made me jump through numerous hoops and additional registration before I could even lodge a ticket.
Eventually, after reinstalling the software, I discovered that there was an update. Their knowledgebase made no mention of it fixing this problem but I downloaded and installed the mere 11Mb service pack and the product validated without a hitch. Two days later I got some useless response to my support ticket telling me to turn off my firewall and anti virus software and suggesting I may have enetered the validation code incorrectly. Still no mention of the service pack …
How easy would it be for them to inform users that there is a service pack when they download the product, or better still make the original download the pacthed version!
I have only noticed one bug in the software itself related to exporting OCR output to Excel. Thankfuly the OCR component is probably almost as good as it gets, which is great because it means I will never have to buy another one of their products again!
ken
March 3rd, 2007
at 1:25pm
http://www.ventbox.com
New but a decent idea.