Customer Service & Complaints
Hello,
This is a letter of complaint, and I am submitting it through the forums because it seems like the only way to be truly heard by Adobe, which is very frustrating in and of itself.
I got an email that my personal Creative Cloud subscription will be renewed soon, and I wanted to cancel that auto-renewal. I researched it beforehand to see if I could do it online, but my account did not have a "cancel subscription" link (already, this is an issue). It took me 32 minutes to cancel my subscription through an online chat with a customer service representative. It should have taken me (at the most) a few minutes through a link embedded in my account page (which should always be there). I was asked two times about why I wanted to cancel it -- one time makes sense, twice just makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong. The other questions seemed like a way to just waste time, and the customer service representative had to check with his "senior team" about cancelling the account without fully explaining why, which started to make me angry. And even though the chatbot had it's own window in the browser, it did not make the effort to notify me of a new message in any way, which ostensibly felt very purposeful in me accidentally closing the window or walking away and forgetting that I had the chat open, which would make me less likely to go back and re-start a whole chat.
I decided to submit a complaint after this frustrating experience. I work in experience design and I know how valuable and precious feedback is, and wanted to provide mine. It took me another 15 minutes to deduce that the best way to complain to Adobe is through their forums. I almost started another chat, but none of the contact options listed complaints or even "other options," so I immediately felt like this would be yet another frustrating experience with customer service in terms of reaching the right people. I understand customer service is exactly for these types of scenarios, but after one frustrating customer service experience why would I try to do it again and risk getting even more frustrated? I couldn't find an email address to contact Adobe, and when I did stumble on the forums (which do seem to be paid attention to by Adobe employees, thank goodness) I found a thread with the very same issue. There were some very (rightly) frustrated people in that thread, but there were also responses to those angry messages that started to feel belittling. Publishing complaints in a forum is very public, and complaining (especially emotional and angry complaining) is often something that people look down upon. No one wants to be called out for their complaints. I am far less likely to publish my angry complaint in a forum, whereas in an email I feel more private and safe. In an email, I know that my message will reach someone and I feel like my needs will be met without having to wait for a customer service representative to become available on the phone or through chat. I'm taking the time to voice my complaint and publicly publish it through this forum, but who really knows if I will be heard by an Adobe employee.
It should not have been this difficult to cancel the auto-renewal. I should not be this frustrated. But as a modern-day consumer who purchases a majority of products online and partakes in several subscriptions that are managed through online accounts, I am accustomed to certain levels of service and therefore expect my needs to be met, maybe even surpassed. These expectations are not uncalled for because they are constantly being set by other services that I interact with on a daily basis.
Adobe -- you have a monopoly on the services you provide. You create excellent products that I use everyday (I have a corporate account through work, hence me wanting to cancel my unnecessary personal subscription) and I love what I am able to do with those products. But your monopoly is being threatened by other excellent services (i.e. Sketch) so you need to step up your game. You need stellar customer service to match your stellar products. And as a leader in the design community, you have an ethical responsibility to do so. What I have experienced today is a perfect example of dark UX, so you need to re-think how you handle your services: provide email addresses for support, always have the proper links in accounts, re-design your chatbot with real messages in mind, and re-think your customer service as not to be a burden on your customers.
If you need UX help, I'm available for part-time freelance.
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