I ran into an interesting problem recently that left me with a rather poor impression of a company. I won't name them...simply because you have to be on my "burn that ridge with napalm" list...but perhaps there are others that have run into similar situations.
This particular software is one we use every few weeks for a rather important company function. Upon launch, it checks for an update; this tale begins with one such update. The most important machine in the chain ran the update. The application launched.
Then it crashed.
Relaunch. Crash.
Restart. Log in. Launched, crashed.
Uninstalled the application. Re-ran the install. Launched, crashed.
Well, dammit.
Dual-booting saved us at this particular point, but afterwards I tasked myself with getting it working again as it should. After running through logs and searching for leftover cruft from previous install attempts, I was stymied.
Next step; Google. I was mildly surprised when searching for the product by name I had barely any appropriate hits. I should have realized this was a sign.
Next I went to the vendor's site and searched for their knowledge base. Instead of a repository of repair information, it was documentation for how-to's and tutorials. In fact I don't think I ever found a "solve your problems" list.
Maybe it was a corrupt installer. I looked for their downloads page, which only had a couple miscellaneous plugins available and were of absolutely zero use to me. At this point I'm thinking, "What the hell?"
Okay, next step, contact support. I despise phone use; email gives me a reference to go back to, and I can easily share what's transpired if I need someone else to take over. I located an email address and sent details of my issue. For some reason this was met with a reply from what looked like an out of office auto-reply from a company trainer. Are their tech people also the trainers?
Fortunately someone else replied from their company fairly soon after. We traded some messages before he said that there was an issue they were now tracking with that version, and asked if we could install the previous version.
"Sure! Where can I download it?"
He sent a link. I clicked it. "You must log in." Dammit.
Ummm..."register"...click.
Name...email...why do they require my mail address and phone number? I just want to download this bloody installer and be done with it!
Submitted the request, but instead of the usual "Check your email, hosebag" reply I got a page telling me they had to review my request. Wha?!
I emailed the tech what I ran into, and he replied that he asked that team to expedite the request but they couldn't find that we were eligible for support.
...wha? Keep in mind the software was put in to control a system in our new office that had literally just celebrated...that day...it's six month anniversary. We were actively using this system. I doubt we'd be out of any reasonable support window.
"Are you a reseller or did you get our software through a reseller? If so you'll need to contact them."
I was surprised. YOUR company name is on this. You have a potential fix for a release of software that looks like YOU broke. What exactly is the harm in giving me this solution?
I sent messages to the person that did the original installation and found that yes, we had acquired the software through a reseller. I contacted their support, summarizing my previous exchange. I got a message back with the older client attached along with a note that they were changing something on their side to revert to an older version of the software when updates were polled.
I installed the older client...and it worked.
So the original company apparently resells their software without rebranding, and the reseller acts as a gatekeeper for their clients' updates. I wonder how many requests they get when someone is trying to troubleshoot a problem and wasn't aware the install came from a reseller?
More to the point, why is their support information and client software behind a registration wall? As far as I know the software is useless without extra server sauce. It's certainly not important enough to lock it away. I just need a problem solved, and your name is attached. If you're doing it for marketing purposes, congratulations, you ticked me off enough to not want to talk to your salespeople because I just wanted to solve a pressing problem. Did I mention I hate arbitrary roadblocks to getting an otherwise simple task accomplished?
Here's the thing. When I have a problem, I just want it solved with minimum hassle. At the time of the original failure, I was pushing a critical deadline. Asking for more information for your spam list was not winning points with me (good luck sending mail to that office that may or may not exist at that address, by the way. It's a jerk thing to do, but it kept me from getting more irritated.) What a reasonable company would have done is worked to make the customer...who already associates your name with what was becoming a growing irritation...happy. Because, presumably, it was your code in the first place. Otherwise you're outsourcing your reputation.
Which is fine, I suppose, if the resellers are stellar in the first place. And the reseller here was minimal hassle, fortunately. It was just that I, coming into the situation, didn't realize I had to contact a third party to handle the issue.
"But what if the reseller had custom settings in their deployments, so the original company couldn't give you their Clint without breaking things?"
That's a reasonable reply. If I were in charge of that project, though, I'd still look for ways to protect my brand and make it easier on the end client. For example, skin the program with a theme for the reseller while relegating your software to a plugin or codec. If possible, register the software in a way that you know XYZ uses the software but it was purchased through reseller ABC - use a version code somewhere that you'll know that is from a particular reseller. I'd still be irritated, but it could save some time instead of tricking me into trying to register for another absurd paywall.
Last thought: I really hope while you're outsourcing your reputation, you at least have a lot of active communication between your tech support and the support departments of your resellers. I'd hate to imagine how irritating it would have been to be forced to have a drawn out back and forth with a third party reseller only to eventually discover your code was broken at the originating vendor.
I'd probably have named you in this post if that happened.
Posted with Blogsy
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