Hot Stuff
Weekly Contest
FREE AKVIS Sketch!
CreativePro.com Podcast
Don't miss it! Updated every Monday.
FREE Mags for Creative Pros!
Creativity, Website Magazine, and more!
Adobe Apologizes to World for Poor Customer Service
Written by Terri Stone on August 28, 2009
Related Articles
Related Reading
In a letter posted as a PDF file on Adobe's main
support Web page, vice president of technical services Lambert Walsh acknowledges that its recent customer support has not been up to snuff.
The text of the letter is below. Share your response by clicking the Comments button.
Open Letter to Adobe Customers
Adobe is committed to providing the most advanced, innovative products and services in the world. Recently, however, our customers have experienced a level of service that is inconsistent with what they expect and deserve. This is unacceptable and we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused. We are working diligently — in fact, teams are working around the clock — to resolve these issues. I'd like to thank all our customers who are sharing feedback and giving us the opportunity to respond. We appreciate your loyalty, support, and willingness to make your concerns heard.
Adobe is in the process of transitioning to a new global service provider that will help grow and improve the quality of our customer service worldwide. While our new partner is a recognized leader in service and support solutions, this is a major global transition that includes bringing more than 800 new agents onboard. Clearly this process has not gone as smoothly as we had planned, and we are working to immediately remedy the situation. We are confident that once this transition is completed, we will provide customers with new and better ways to engage with Adobe using their preferred methods, helping to ensure prompt, effective customer service.
The Adobe Customer Care leadership team is monitoring our customers' experiences closely to understand and respond to the challenges you are encountering. If you experience difficulties of any kind, contacting Customer Service in your local region remains the best initial course of action; however, during this transition period, unresolved issues can also be directed to adbecare@adobe.com.
Thank you for your patience and understanding as we make this transition and work to improve our service and support operations for customers around the world.
Regards,
Lambert Walsh
Vice President, Technical Services
Share:
Does this mean they'll scrap
Does this mean they'll scrap the awful Jive-based forum? Please!
Adobe Returns
I have been furious with Adobe customer service for the last 3 months. Each time I call, they give me a new case number stating "Pending Adobe Response" I have yet to have any of my cases resolved. I eventually contacted VISA and filed a dispute. They are now trying to get my money back.
Global Customer Service
I sincerely hope this doesn't mean that Adobe has partnered with a service based overseas. There is nothing that turns my blood cold faster than trying to pry help out of someone who barely speaks the English language and is answering questions from a que card. If that is indeed the case Adobe will have sunk to an astounding low.
Translation?...
Please pardon us while we jettison our US-based customer service employees and send hundreds more jobs overseas. The service might be crappy, but we're saving tons of money. You understand, don't you? Please bear with us. Big smiley face.
Typical - contact doesn't work
Contacting customer service (above) at www.adobe.com? Chose your country and it takes you back to the same page to choose your country again...forever!
is nice most
Dearadobe, THANKYOU to all best helpeers.. Please to here you work MOST HARD to globalise expectation of service. YOU VERY GOOD now must restart computer!
Apology
They should have announce the switch over and put out a note to expect problems, until Switch over was complete and running smooth.
Sounds like standard version
Sounds like standard version of excuses every company is using to placate angry customers... Time will show how serious Adobe really is about improving their customer support.
My Frustion Knows No Bounds
Getting a rep who does not speak English as their primary language can be frustrating, however, I did encounter one very excellent service tech in India who really knew his stuff and could communicate it clearly. Unfortunately they are very rare, and in this case, he promised support follow up which never came.
Much worse than the tech who does not speak English is the total, clueless idiot. Adobe has swelled their ranks with these and even given made some of them supervisors.
I wish I had recordings of some of the conversations that I have participated in. They would surely be a hit on some of the humor sites. After spending three hours with an excellent level 2 tech, I was patched over to someone who was supposed to point me to a driver download. She could not understand my request nor the written notes sent her by the previous tech. In strained English, she directed me to Photoshop.org for a possible solution.
Next to the lack of common intelligence, Adobe's biggest problem is no one taking ownership of a problem. I repeatedly get told that the tech is writing up my case and a senior tech will contact me. Then a week later I get a notice saying that my case has been resolved and the ticket closed.
When I write a ticket and say that the Knowledge Base article that they sent me does not apply and give detailed reasons why, I get a new response with nothing but a link to the same article followed by an email saying my issue is resolved and my ticket closed.
I wouldn't even have to waste their time if their Knowledge Base had a decent search engine. I have better luck finding an answer on Wikipedia.
I have to close now. I feel my blood pressure getting in dangerous levels again.
Service based overseas...
Sorry, US ppl... good customer service is not a question of having a support center in country. Big companies have support centers around the world, which service their own area. Commonly Americas-EMEA-AsiaPac. We in Europe are in years past used to calling from Sweden or Italy and talking to a support person in UK or Netherlands. It's simply a question of having people working long enough to acquire real knowledge and understading as opposed to certifications.
The problem is, as usual, money. We had a darned good, professional support team in EMEA. Outsourced to a "recognized leader in service and support solutions". Launching the team was announced to be a "major global transition that includes bringing more than 800 new agents onboard." A year later majority of the good, professional team had left, mainly because of the fact that money didn't by far correspond to what was expected performance-wise. And that's not even when it really started going downhill.
The team was dismantled last summer and moved to a cheaper company. Now you guys are reaping the fruit. You should realize that "bringing 800 new agents" doesn't mean 800 NEW agents - it means 800 ppl taken from the street to replace ppl who have been working to help you guys sometimes for years. It'll take about another three to six months before the newbies are professionally on the level that you expect.
In telephone support business people come and go. You may see 200 ppl passing through the floor within a year. That's about two new hires every 3 days. Can you really expect to have knowledgeable people helping you in this situation?
This is an ongoing trend all over IT business. They pay the support guys peanuts, correspondingly they get monkeys. This trend will continue as long as you, the paying customers, are willing to accept it.
So the actual question is: are you, and how long?
You get those customer surveys, and usually dump them without a second look. Except when you are not satisfied with the service you received. Now the problem is that these surveys actually do get read, so how about giving a positive feedback when it's due? That might encourage the company actually to keep the good, knowledgeable people aboard and even pay them accordingly instead of all getting the same absolute minimum allowed salary - which in turn would lessen the turnover of the people on the floor, and eventually give you guys the service level which a professional user could expect.
What is that email address?
Is adbecare@adobe .com supposed to be adobecare@adobe.com? Unfortunate place for a typo.
adobe service is awful!
I paid a month ago for a cross-platform upgrade. Opened a case and cannot get anyone there to help. Their online help is non-existent and their phone help is at least one hour of waiting before they inform you they can't help.
Wish there was another version of Illustrator with another company. Tired of bad service and spending big bucks with them!
Upgrades that don't work
I have had a $700 upgrade disk for 4 months and can't get it installed as it won't accept any of my perfectly valid and qualifying serial numbers! On top of that, it doesn't even recognise the earlier version is installed on my machine! Nothing helpful in the forums and I can't deal with it during work hours! By the time I figure out how to contact them, it will be time to buy a new upgrade. We need more products to compete with Adobe's. They aren't really even trying anymore.
DOes not seem to amaze me
DOes not seem to amaze me the negligence Adobe applies to their customer service. It may stem from the same applied to their product development. Hope your issue is resolved asap.
Relate very well to poor customer service
Does not seem to amaze me the negligence Adobe applies to their customer service. It may stem from the same applied to their product development. Hope your issue is resolved asap.