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Author Topic: My Adobe subscription experience  (Read 5871 times)

FMueller

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My Adobe subscription experience
« on: June 30, 2013, 01:18:35 am »

I am a current license holder of CS6 Design Standard and LR4. A couple days ago finally decided to take Adobe up on its $19.99/month introductory offer for the whole CC set of applications. I fire up the web browser, find the Adobe website and log in to my Adobe account and start the process and start clicking yes where appropriate. I get to the point where its "checking" and it comes back with the message "You're not eligible" (or something to that effect) and directs me to the $29.99/month package for CS5 license holders. Huh? WTF? I say to myself and check my registered products and sure enough the latest registered product is CS5 Design Standard. Hmm, OK. I must not have registered CS6. So I get the serial number for CS6 and try to register it and it comes back with something to the effect of "This is a serial number for a volume license" and it won't let me register it. Huh? I research my emails to track down my purchase since I did the CS5-->CS6 upgrade online and took a downloadable delivery. This reminds me that I upgraded at the point when Adobe was offering the CS5--->CS5.5 upgrade with an included "free upgrade" to CS6. I click the link in my email and it takes me to the volume licensing site and, yes, I remember this website and it has clickable links for both my CS5.5 and CS6 upgrade. At the time I thought nothing of the fact that I had been directed to a volume licensing site since this was the first time I had done an electronic delivery of Adobe Software, I just figured this was how it was done.

At this point, I'm thinking, well this is BS, I'm a CS6 license holder and I bought it by clicking on their link on their website and understood it to be the full "retail version" so I click on the link to initiate a chat with sales. I explain the situation and the guy in the other ende gives me a link to click which just takes me back to where I began and "You're not eligible", so I explain it again.... He asks for my serial number and after examining it announces that I'm a "Volume Licensing Customer and my introductory offer is $39.99/month (per seat) with a 2 year commitment. I say that won't do and he transfers my chat to someone else, somebody named Praneeth (think I'm chatting to India...?) and we repeat the whole process except this guy tells me he's really sorry about my predicament, but I am a volume license holder and thats the deal. Never mind that I explain my volume is exactly one and please explain to me why I was sold a "volume license" when I was upgrading my retail version.... Again he's really sorry. He says he would patch me into a higher power, except they aren't available right now but they will send me an email in 2-3 days.... I just wasted an hour chatting with script readers in India..

Next day I'm thinking more about this and I'm thinking those jerks are going to force me to do the intro offer from CS5 and its going to cost $29.99/month, an extra $10/month which isn't a deal breaker but it just pisses me off.

I decide to pick up the phone and call the sales number. I speak to "Tabitha" and explain my situation and she quickly replies, I can fix that and get you the $19.99/month intro offer. I'm skeptical after my chat experience... She takes my credit card # and confirms that its for $19.99/month and we're done. Email shows up and it confirms $19.99. All done in under 10 minutes..

Kudos to Adobe for empowering the person that answered the phone. Raspberries for the chat experience.

Fred
« Last Edit: June 30, 2013, 08:47:32 am by FMueller »
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kaelaria

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Re: My Adobe subscription experience
« Reply #1 on: June 30, 2013, 03:59:50 am »

Thanks for the post, good info!
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Tim Lookingbill

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Re: My Adobe subscription experience
« Reply #2 on: June 30, 2013, 03:04:59 pm »

uuuhhh...You mind repeating that? ;D

Wonder how much it costs Adobe to hire that many employees to handle just that one exchange for one person, for one CC subscription. Imagine what it would cost if they had to do that with more than one person.

Hope the CC server has been informed of this adjustment by a real Adobe employee and every one is on the same page down the road when you attempt to download further updates, upgrades and features. I couldn't even keep track of what you outlined.

Watch that credit card statement if they have auto price adjustments that don't take into account what just transpired above.
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texshooter

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Re: My Adobe subscription experience
« Reply #3 on: June 30, 2013, 08:55:33 pm »



Wonder how much it costs Adobe to hire that many employees to handle just that one exchange for one person, for one CC subscription.


About 120 Rupees ($2) per hour. And that's the premium rate.
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FMueller

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Re: My Adobe subscription experience
« Reply #4 on: July 01, 2013, 12:37:05 am »

I'm not sure what value they place on my satisfaction. I'm willing to pay, and its clear to me that I would have forked over the additional $10/month but I would have bothered me and soured me on the idea that I was being treated fairly.

I'd like to think in the long run my satisfaction is more profitable for them than squeezing me for $10/month right now. But what do I know...?

About 120 Rupees ($2) per hour. And that's the premium rate.
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texshooter

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Re: My Adobe subscription experience
« Reply #5 on: July 01, 2013, 01:30:11 am »


I'd like to think in the long run my satisfaction is more profitable for them than squeezing me for $10/month right now. But what do I know...?


A business that monopolizes its industry will set the price and output that maximizes profit. It is a price setter, not a price taker. Where were you when Aldus Photostyler was SOL.
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nemophoto

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Re: My Adobe subscription experience
« Reply #6 on: July 15, 2013, 11:58:27 am »

Adobe's product support is probably the worst of any major tech company. It's taken me three phone calls and two online chat sessions to try to straighten up what they screwed up with my "experiment" with CC. I now have three separate charges: $14.99, $19.99 and $49.99 showing up on my account for what should a single 29.99 fee for the full CC lineup for a CS6 user. It STILL is not fixed, and the people in India are clueless. Whoever came up with the brilliant idea of outsourcing tech support to places like India should be shot. The one exception may actually be Microsoft. THEIR Indians are a bit more savvy and capable.

Way to go Adobe! Keep up the crappy work!

Nemo
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: My Adobe subscription experience
« Reply #7 on: July 16, 2013, 12:08:30 pm »

Whoever came up with the brilliant idea of outsourcing tech support to places like India should be shot. The one exception may actually be Microsoft. THEIR Indians are a bit more savvy and capable.

I don't know about Abode, but I know for a fact that there any many extremely capable Indian IT engineers among support organizations.

Your comment is way too generic.

Cheers,
Bernard

Steve House

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Re: My Adobe subscription experience
« Reply #8 on: July 16, 2013, 12:42:18 pm »

I don't know about Abode, but I know for a fact that there any many extremely capable Indian IT engineers among support organizations.

Your comment is way too generic.

Cheers,
Bernard

They may be capable but they have no authority to deviate from the script.  If the problem requires a creative solution they are powerless to do anything.  Further, outsourcing effectively isolates the decision makers from the back-channel feedback from the field necessary for them to make business decisions on complete data.  Do you think anyone actually in the Adobe organization and participating in the decision to put all their eggs into CC had every spoken directly with or received a personal email from a customer who is negatively impacted by the decision.  When customer service is in-house, complaints and problems can ultimately be escalated to the point they get the attention of someone with the authority to actually revise policy.  This doesn't happen when all customer contact is outsourced.
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