Adobe Customer Service Ranks Last (with me)

It may be hard to believe, but I may have found a company that rivals Sprint for the top spot of companies with the worst customer service via phone.

Who might that be you ask?

ADOBE

I have been experiencing the frustration of trying to deal with them on a licensing issue for the past 3 and a half months. Not once in that time has ever called me or our named contact back, even after promising to do so.

I was not happy with them today when I called to follow up on an issue. Last week I talked with a rep on the Corporate Executive Team and he stated that our fulfillment request had been denied. He discussed with me a bit and said that he did not have a contact or two over the time frame documented and simply having to deal with the frustration of the whole ordeal with them might play into a response, so he was going to document that and re-submit.

It has been a week since that conversation.

I called back today and Eric wasn't available so they were going to pass me on to someone else on the team. I ended up transferred to a Customer Support Supervisor, which appeared to be one of the offshore locations. He looked it up and stated that our fulfillment request had been denied. I stated that I knew that it had previously been denied, but I was calling to check on the paperwork that Eric put back through. He then said he would look at Eric's notes and came back shortly thereafter stating that the request had been approved. He gave me a case number and said that he would transfer me to Licensing and they could give me all the information I needed. I got to Licensing and they took the case number and came back on and said that the request for that had been denied. I let her know I was just transferred to her after being told it was approved and she put me on hold for a couple of minutes and then came back on and said that someone would be calling me directly (they normally say they have to call the contact listed). She said someone would call me within 2-4 hours and explain it all to me. I told her that I would only be at work for 30 more minutes (until 5pm CST), so I would give her a personal number so that there would not be an issue with reaching me. I even had her repeat the number back to me to make sure she had it down correctly. Guess what, 11:30pm and still no call. Did I really believe I would get one? No, it is just par for the course.

I may take the time to post the whole series of events that have taken place at some point, but needless to say ADOBE, your customer service is lacking. One would also think that your company would have a more professional looking and better functioning PDF than the one you have for requesting the upgrade.

The drop downs only work for the first line of the product info and several of the boxes look as though someone has drawn boxes upon boxes. You would think it would be an opportunity to showcase your own product. Oh well.

Another One Bites the Dust

ImageStation is going away.

Flu shot

I got my flu shot. Did you get yours?

Social Media in Government

Social Media seems to be a topic raising itself at the State level. Some see the possibilities of social interaction with the public, while others only see the whole thing as one big security concern.

I think for a while things will stay a bit status quo. In some respects, don't ask, don't tell. Even if there would be a direct policy forbidding it, it will happen. With today's technology there really is no stopping it unless you have everyone leave their cell phone/mobile device at the door everyday and limit any connectivity outside of the work place. Although that would only keep it from happening during work hours. We are social animals and people will blog or participate in the Social Media environment after work if they have to. Some post anonymously, and some throw there thoughts out there for anyone to see.

So, what are your thoughts on social media in government?

I noticed a couple of blogs today that I had not seen before. They are the Missouri State Fair Youth in Agriculture and A Look at Missouri Farmers' Markets. I need to take a look at the agencies site to see if they are agency endorsed sites, or if they are Lane's personal sites, simply sharing knowledge about the agency. As her profile name is Missouri Department of Agriculture, one would hope they are sanctioned sites.

Going along with this topic I have added a poll on the site about social media in state government, which will end on 11/30/07. Feel free to participate.

Quick Update: I have not looked extensively, but with a quick glance I did find a link to the "A Look at Missouri Farmers' Markets" blog on the Farmers' Market Directory (where Lane is listed as a contact), which is linked to from the Missouri Department of Agriculture site, but falls under the Agricultural Electronic Bulletin Board (AgEBB), which is on a University of Missouri server.

B & P

The October issue of Blogger and Podcaster is out.

GTI

Orange is usually not a color I would pick for a car, but I think I could live with an orange GTI.

Mediafire Upload Speed

Click for larger pic.

I would say that the upload speed could slow their increase in membership. :-)

It jumped back to 7+ minutes shortly after this popped up, but I would imagine this service will experience some growing pains. To limit the growth and pains they may have to stick with the model of uploading only 10 files at a time. If they come up with a better solution for uploading they will probably see an even larger exponential growth in adoption of their service. This would likely have them rethinking how the unlimited uploads work. Possibly like on site which will let you upload unlimited, but as far as sharing on the web you are limited to the number of pics you can share at a time. Kind of does away with some of the need for unlimited uploading. I guess only time will tell.

The Buzz

No I am not talking about a radio station, I am talking about Buzzword, a creation of Virtual Ubiquity. Of course, Virtual Ubiquity has signed an agreement to be acquired by Adobe Systems. You can read a bit about The Buzz on that here or here.



I do like the fact that Buzzword seems pretty quick. On initial look I am surprised the only share feature is via sending an e-mail. I would think that it would have the option to simply share publicly like many others (which it may somewhere, I need to look around a bit more before saying that it can't for sure).

I probably need to share to one of my other e-mail addresses to see what that looks like. I must say the other thing one finds amiss is the fact that under "Save As" the formats listed are Buzzword Document, which saves within the Buzzword web environmet, or File, which gives the options of Microsoft Word (.doc), Microsoft Word 2003 XML (.xml), and Rich Text Format (.rtf). The one missing from the list; Adobe's own .PDF. I know Adobe use to allow individuals the ability to create PDFs online via subscriptions, if they still do, they might be taking a revenue stream away from themselves if they add the PDF option, but as many others offer that capability, what will draw one to Buzzword and set it apart from the others.

From the site:

Buzzword, the first real word processor for the web, is a breakthrough in collaborative authoring for documents that matter. Many online pundits agree with us. Check out The Buzz page.

You can also check out the Buzzword Blog.

Forget the Milk

I did signup for a Remember the Milk account and played around with a bit and I must say that my opinion was that it wasn't worth the effort. I even deleted my account. I am sure others might feel differently and for those I hope they enjoy it.