Why is Adobe's Customer Service so bad?

[Guest]

I just spend several hours on the phone with Customer Service which is obviously not located in the US. The problem never did get resolved mostly because of the language barrier. Then the online options make it very difficult to lodge a complaint or try to get help. I had to go back to the 800 sales number and repurchase my software upgrade and cancel the previous order to create a workaround for the problem. Adobe doesn't have a great customer service reputation anyway--guess they don't care because they figure they have a captive audience--but it seems it gets worse every time I have to deal with it.

[Guest]

Do you even read the entire post? I said I am disputing it with my Credit Card Company. That still takes up my time and I am still required to follow up with Adobe to win the dispute. They may, and probably in the end, will dispute paying Adobe but I still have to make the calls and document everything. Adobe is sending the case is open, etc. They just are requiring me to send all the documentation to prove they did something wrong. They just keep proving my original post, Adobe Customer Service is horrible.

[Beverley Gray]

I'm really sorry to hear that you've had a poor experience with customer service.  If you could send me an email with your Adobe ID, order numbers and/or case numbers I'll look into this and get it resolved.

Kind regards

Beverley Gray

begray@adobe.com

[Aviousaudio]

Thank you for your reply. I have bought Adobe Photoshop from a retailer and although I've tried to open a case, Adobe has not allowed me to do so- referring me to the chat. I'd be happy to use the chat provided that it works which it doesn't. After I've filled out all the information on my part, a new window that looks like a chat window opens. It tells me I should call instead, and no one picks up the chat thread...

[Beverley Gray]

@Aviousaudio - please send me an email with your Adobe ID, serial number & details of issue so we can have someone assist you.

Thanks

Bev

begray@adobe.com

[Phillip_M_Jones]

Have you posted a complaint on Facebook. Usually Adobe only really responds with help is if you air the dirty laundry on Facebook. At one time a disgruntled customer set up soming on Facebook that any one that had a problem could post to. Most all the phone support are out of India and read scripted material. 

[Guest]

I want to put on record my superlative experience - which concluded literally last evening - of Adobe customer service. Be assured that I have nothing remotely to do with Adobe, and have bought just one product from them, almost 3 years ago.

Late in 2012 that product, Adobe Elements, started to display the message 'Licensing for this product has stopped working', along with the standard recommendation to visit the support site. I did so, and worked through the procedures specified there, none of which worked. (I run a 5-year-old Mac and had never upgraded the OS beyond 10.5.8 (Leopard).

I then contacted support through the Chat facility on the support portal. I got rapid responses there, but when the fixes they recommended also didn't work, the support response escalated into communication by email and, finally, direct phone calls to me, during the last couple of which both of the two Delhi-based support staff people who got involved with my case took control of my machine with my consent and patiently worked through a series of procedures until finally, last night, I once again had a working copy of Adobe Elements, running on my obsolete OS. This motivated me to Google 'Comments on Adobe customer service', where I stumbled on the post I'm now replying to.

I have never experienced from any other software vendor or indeed IT provider of any kind, this level of customer service. If enjoying its benefits constitutes 'drinking the Kool-aid', then all I can say is that it's good stuff! I am now a convinced fan of Adobe and of its Indian support people.

Tom Weymes, Dublin, Ireland.

[station_two]

Weymest,

There's no product called "Adobe Elements".  There's Adobe Photoshop Elements and Adobe Premiere Elements.  My guess is you have or had the former.

My point is that you seem to be satisfied with your experience only because your knowledge of the software is not that sophisticated.  The first person you contacted at Adobe should have been able to solve your issue in minutes if not seconds. 

That you had to go through so many avenues and steps to escalate your trivial issue squares easily with the general impression of the abysmal level of quality of the outsourced Adobe support.

[Hannibal3700]

Adobe Chat Support.. This is definitly the WORST experience ever. They ask you like 20 questions, make you wait an entire hour, then tell you: "sorry, we're not trained on this... You need to talk to technical support tomorrow."

This happened to me EVERY SINGLE TIME I try chatting with them. ANNOYING.

I am not sure what these folks are getting paid for...

[Phillip_M_Jones]

Support has been farmed out to India. and the people doing the support are given scripts with what is supposed the be the guaranteed fix for your problem. Problem is it almost never does work and when it doesn't work they don't have a Clue.

[Beverley Gray]

Hi Hannibal3700

Sorry to hear you had a frustrating experience with our Chat team.  I'll look into this and address it with the team.

If you are still having issues the following forum post may help: http://forums.adobe.com/message/5474386#5474386

Thanks

Bev

[Cody_Powell]

"Out of the Office".. Great

[Cody_Powell]

Bev,

There's a Chat Team??... I would like to know about that since I had a terrible time understanding what the Adobe representative had told me. His english was pretty bad and I couldn't understand. I had to get him to type out what he was trying to tell me.

If your going to have "Successful" or "Good" Customer Support, then.. make sure your Representatives can communicate properly in a language that everybody here can easily understand.. Stop trying to save money by outsourcing to a 3rd world country. Ugh!

[alsEricM]

Sorry to Necropost but the subject was bang on how I feel and felt like a rant.

I think the simple answer is - what are you going to do, stop using Adobe, it's like saying why does Microsoft suck so bad, going to buy an Apple?

Just spent an hour with a Chat rep because Adobe auto-renewed a subscription that was set to expire (and sent me emails telling me I would need to take action to prevent it from expiring - appearently not.)

Well, they are gracious enough to cancel it for me (again, email said it was going to cancel itself,) but they are completely unable offer any refunds.

After an hour, I was really getting sick of get canned messages like "Please stay online for 2 to 3 minutes while I check this information for you." that would just pop-up in the middle of a conversation.  It was funny, I didn't respond to one of these and the rep came back with "Are you still there?"

Are we expected to reply to every "Please hold?"  Was the rep going to drop the connection if I had moved on to real work for a couple of minutes?

Eventually, the rep conceeded that a refund actually was possible - then changed their mind again.

In the end, I just quit trying - if Adobe really needs $30 that badly they can have it!

[Beverley Gray]

Sorry for the frustrating experience alsEricM - I've created a refund for the July charge as requested.

Thanks

Bev

[lavadog321]

I'm about to blow a vien in my forehead. All. I. Want. To. Do. Is place a tax-exempt order. I swear, as soon as someone has competitive software available, I'm ditching every Adobe install on every computer in my organization.

[Beverley Gray]

Hi lavadog321

I'm sorry to hear that you've had issues placing an tax exempt order.  I see that you've placed an order where tax has been charged so will arrange for someone to look into this and assist further.

Thanks

Bev

[stamina57]

I spent 35 minutes on the chat just to have my monthly subscription canceled. Why I was on the chat? The online system didn´t work, no codes sent. 35 minutes - transfered from one guy to another. Why, I asked? He only did billing. I had to go through 4 service people. I had to answer 2-3 times whether I wanted a good offer. I had to answer as many times why I wanted my subscription canceled. Finally - after more than half an hour I was heard. This is so, so bad. And it´s not the first time. Every time I need some help - waiting, stupid questions, not reading the answer, redirecting som a "spesialist". That´s the only fun thing.

[Swaagner]

I had some issues with it to just trying to answer a simple question. It
took me like three phone calls to get “yes” answer out of one of them!