Why does Adobe have awful customer service?

[Joy Rubin Creative]

I just got off the phone with Adobe's completely ineffectual customer service.

I called with a SIMPLE issue. I wanted to update to the cloud from my CS5.5 for the special offer of $29.99 per month. I already have a month-to-month membership with just Muse to test out the cloud, and now I am willing to commit to the whole thing.

Their online system would not let me upgrade, so a call was in order. Over an hour and 5 transferred calls later, I have the the full creative cloud, but they are not able to cancel my Muse month-to-month without taking down the web site I have hosted on their business catalyst. So now I am being billed twice by Adobe!!

Really?

You, a multi-million dollar company can't align your systems to move my account info with the touch of a few buttons?

You can't have clear phone lines to India so I can at least hear the person on the other end of the line?

And you can't even have decent hold music that is not tinny and out of tune?

For shame!

So, if anyone knows how I can complain to someone at Adobe directly without having to call India or get looped into thier web-site hell, please let me know.

Thanks Adobe for sucking away costly phone minutes and making my morning so special.

[John T Smith]

This forum is only to discuss the forums themselves, not products or sales... nobody here can help

Adobe contact information - http://helpx.adobe.com/contact.html

[MyCoalescence]

Contact the BBB (better business bureau). They then contact you and adobe and try to resolve it.

Adobe is A- . Most or their issues are customer service related as your problem.

Factors that lowered Adobe Systems Inc's rating include:374 complaints filed against business

Factors that raised Adobe Systems Inc's rating include:

Length of time business has been operating.

Response to 374 complaint(s) filed against business.

Resolution of complaint(s) filed against business.

BBB has sufficient background information on this business.

Our complaint history for this company shows the company gave proper consideration to complaints presented by the Bureau

Corel is  A+.

Microsfot is A+. Which surprises me. Ive become disgusted enough by adobe and the whole cc thing that on my personal list i rank microsoft higher than adobe. Which makes me want to puke.

Apple is A+.

Quark is F. Failure to respond to one complaint filed against business. One complaint filed against business that was not resolved. BBB does not have sufficient background information on this business.

Some software companies are not even registered with the BBB.

[Guest]

It appears that some Adobe Chat personnel recognize their limitations.  In just this week alone I have see 3 posts that start off "Adobe could not solve my problem so they recommended I post problem in the user fourm".  Photoshop and Bridge forums.

[CONGODOG8]

This is so Apple-like, I smell a trend.  They make their own support so arcane and impenetrable that customers are forced to the forums, which may or may not help, and costs the company nothing.  Free support system supplied by rabid, obsessive forum trolls that have no life beyond their online presence.

[CONGODOG8]

My experience with Adobe's Customer Service is similarly horrific.  They are utterly insullated from their customer base.  A call gets some nice woman in India who essentially reads from scripts after she guesses at the problem.  After I explained my issue clearly, she went off on a tangent that completely missed the point.  Useless, time consuming and criminal.

I challenge anyone out there to attempt to crack their 'customer firewall' (aka, their website) and raise an US-based employee for help, or to complain or to just talk to someone inside this callous behemoth.  For what they charge for these arcane, anti-intuitive applications, we should have reasonable, timely contact.  This applies particularly to new or occasional users.

Complaints are utter folly as they bounce off this tough exterior.  This type of corporate arrogance will hopefully come back to bite them.  I am currently spending a lot of time looking for alternate applications, suggestion appreciated.

[MyCoalescence]

I suggest this thread:

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1207260?start=0&tstart=0

It is Corel and Quark make a come back but also mentions other companies.

Or this one which is about alternatives to adobe in genneral.

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1206666?start=0&tstart=0

Adobe is currently getting suited! Here is the thread on it.

http://forums.adobe.com/message/5854919#5854919

[MyCoalescence]

My Thoughts on adobe alternatives:

There is no company as deep or as wide in the products adobe offers. As such there is no easy alternative to all things adobe. It is not like phone carriers with many providers with very similar products and prices. For me in graphic design im looking at a few companies. For graphic design you need:

1. Great vector drawing

2. Decent photo editing

3. Great Desk Top Publishing (typography heavy tools like full open type support ect)

4. Convertability with AI/PSD

5. Several products that work well together

6. Maybe non coding or light coding web site creators

What you consider "good" depends on your needs. Im looking for professional software for commercial use in graphic design. Im graduating college in july and deciding til then to make my final decition of who to go with cs 6 included on that list. I did just order corels Paint Shop Ultimate though and Painter Lite because of stupidly cheap sales. Waiting of the big purchases to see what companies and adobe do in the next few months. I want to see how adobe reacts to things like the lawsuite ect.

For me here are the options and all are compatable with AI/PSD.

Serif- Good DTP, decent on photo/vectors. Reasonable prices. Many who use it are hobbyist/prosumer. No bundles so you can buy just what you want but no price break for multiple purchases.

Xara- Good photo/vectors programs but bad on DTP. Reasonable prices. Many who use it are hobbyist/prosmer. Only really 3 main products which you can bundle into Designer x9 together but no price break.

Corel- Good vector/digital illustration, 2nd best to photo shop and decent DTP. Will cost more than serif or xara. Used mostly by prosumer/professionals. Their vector program only offered in bundles.

Corel is the next best to adobe where many dont even come close. They also offer a fairly wide range of products and keep expanding it. In some products they are better than adobe, in some equal and some behind. For graphic design the CorelDraw x6 Suite is all most would need. You get Draw their vector program (equal to illustrator), Photo-Paint (equal to photoshop elements), WebSite Creator (similar to muse) and a few other plug ins.  Painter x3 is considered the best in digital illustration. Paint Shop Pro/Ultimate is a step between photoshop elements and photoshop but few others can even claim to be that good. Aftershop is their version of LightRoom and comparable to it. Not sure how Corel compares in their video/adudio department but that is the market they are expanding as they bought pinnacle studio and just released a new product from that.

If you dont need professional products many are happy with Serif and Xara or freeware.

[CONGODOG8]

Thanks for incisive, comprehensive answer. A major negative for me with the very large (Apple certainly comes to mind) corporations that have evolved their support elements into huge, arcane and unsearchable quagmires and then pushed the questions toward customer forums. The forums are populated with folks with an extreme amount of information, costing the Company little. But some questions are out of the purview of the forums, such as billing, application download/install inquiries, complaints.

Adobe is the worst IMHO.

[MyCoalescence]

No poblem. Glad to be helpful. Was trying to be honest but fair in my views of alternatives. Im no expert though. The real answers come after listening to people, reading reviews and visiting the websites but from trial versions.

One of serifs best points is 100% free and permanent version of their product basically 2 editions old aka a lite version of their previous edition. Its called a starter edition. When I tried it I found it to be similar to cs 2 with a face lift. Full version maybe equal to cs 3-4 but not 100% sure.

Good alternatives depend on needs. If you making money from the product and what your creative needs are. Such as xara is bad at DTP but good at bit maps and vectors. And serif is sort of the opposite. Depends on needs and what you will use it for. And corel tends to be better than most but tends to cost more. Many people swear by certain freewares but depends on needs.

Im waiting for my copy of Corels Paint Shop Ultimate x6 in the mail. Ive used corels customer service 2 times now to answer some questions. The first time was ok but maybe I was asking to opionated questions they could not answer well. The 2nd time i asked very specific questions about their products and what not. Very helpful and quick. Both times i didnt have to wait more than 1 minute for the online text chat to be responded to. The people do make a differance. 1st time was ok but 2nd time was great. People are people, so who you get on to repsond to you does matter. Corel is the only company I know of that has its emploeyees read and post in their forums. Im not talking customer service people im talking people from their design and marketing teams. People who know what their talking about and understand they need to be careful what they say. Ive had several questions on the corel forum answered by 2 such people and later saw them quoted in corels official news letters. One had a blog about corel they keep up. One asked me to fill out a short survay about corel and at the time had not used corel yet. He replied back in email and was surprized I knew so much about corel and was not a customer. Also several times corel through a 3rd party has asked for a survey about their web site and adobe has onlye done that 1 time. Corel is very easy to contact and plasters its contact info all over so you can contact customer service and what not. Adobe and many companies seem to hide it and as you said make walls of buracacy to make it hard to complain to them. Im very impressed so far by corels customer service. They really seem interested in customers wants and needs. They express this in their news letters. They say things as we survayed 3 million paint shop pro users to find out what they wanted from the x6 edition. Here is what we found and here is what we included in the x6 edition. Such things as perpetual lisenceing, 64 bits and more. Corel also does beta testing with customers. They just posted 1 last week about their Word Perfect x7 in the works. Ive not used it so I didnt apply for it. Beta testing where they include at least some customers. What an idea.

Corel even has daily security tests by several 3rd party companies to make sure they are up to standards. They also rate A+ on BBB and adobe is A-.

Corel is doing what is called user testing in many aspects. You make a proto type and test it with people who have not used it before and know little or nothing about it. You let them use it, ask question, let them make suggestion and regroup with your team to discuss your findings. Then you see what changes need to be made and you make some of them and test some more. Getting input is very important to know what people actually want and value. Corel may be a corperation and maybe deep down they dont care but they are at least listening and reacting to their customers wants and needs. They have to be the most customer satisfaction centered company ive ever know of. I know this sounds like common sence but you would not belive how often user testing is skipped or ignored with people saying we are the experts and know what people want and need and how to make it so they can use it.

[CONGODOG8]

I am an Apple guy, these will run on OSX?

[Phillip_M_Jones]

Various Painter Applications

AfterShot

CorelCAD

WinZip

If they would come out with WordPerfect version I'd abandon MS in a Heartbeat.

[MyCoalescence]

Some of corels products are native for Apple. They are in the process of converting all to apple. There is apples very own boot camp or parallels and both allow you to run windows programs on your apple. Ive read some reviews and talked with some users and they say its 99% pefect convertion.

They just started consumer beta testing last week for WordPerfect x7. They seem to have it on a 2 year cycle and was last released spring 2012 so probably only a few months now. I bought MS office when I started college so I could write research papers. It is from 2007. Still works ok but same as you Phill when the next word perfect arrives and I get a new computer in a fwe months I will get it.

Corel just releases Corel Cad 2014 today! I just looked at the price tag on Auto Cad. It is a disgusting amount that makes adobe look like they are giving products away for only 4,195$. Yes that number is correct. Compared to corel offering theirs for 700$. Hm 15% price hard decition.

[gegjr]

Because they can. Because the overwhelming majority of Adobe subscribers thinks Adobe walks on water. Thus the response you got from John T Smith. It's my personal opinion and I won't apologize for it. If people in power can be frank so can I.