Adobe Drops the Ball on Customer Service

We live in an amazing age as far as online customer service goes. You can book your flight online and get your ticket in minutes. Zappos can get shoes to your doorstep seemingly as soon as you press the enter key.

Adobe is one of the oldest and most venerable software companies. I have a long list of programs, utilities and fonts I’ve bought from them – Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrobat, etc. You’d think a company with such revolutionary products would be in the vanguard of customer service.

Apparently not.

In late April I bought a 24″ iMac (love it) to replace the aging Dell in my home office. As part of the upgrade, I decided I would move all the photographs and video over to this new machine. So, what should I use for photo editing and management? Photoshop, of course. The default program of the world for image editing. I wouldn’t have paid for a full version, but I had a fully licensed copy for Windows so I figured I could do a cross-platform upgrade.

I went on the Adobe website and, golly, it looked like I could do the upgrade right online. I paid my $199 and in a few moments was up and running with Photoshop and Adobe Bridge, which I’m starting to like. Hmm, but the program wouldn’t take my Windows serial number as part of the upgrade, which meant it would stop working in 10 days.

A couple of days later I went on live chat with Adobe to figure out what to do about the serial number. I hit a dead end because I was at work and they needed to have me be in front of the machine. Since customer service closed at 8PM EST, it was a bit of an issue to get home and in front of the Mac in order to call. When I finally did, on the third chat session, I was informed that I couldn’t upgrade cross-platform online, and that I had to call customer service. Back to the drawing board!

I got a rep on the phone who knew what to do. Big rigamarole. I had to pay another $199 and call back to another number to get my other $199 refunded. I had to complete a Letter of Destruction stating I’d destroyed the Windows version and would never use it again. (I guess these people take their copy-protection seriously.) I was told I couldn’t get a download, but would get the disk in 5 business days. I was anxious to get the new copy since my 10 day trial on the Mac had run out and I couldn’t use Photoshop anymore. It was May 21st – almost a month after I’d started.

On May 28th I went online to Adobe and asked where the software was. The said it was in processing. On June 22nd I still hadn’t gotten it and called and talked to a live human and was told they had a heavy order volume and it was still in processing. It was now over fours weeks since I had placed the order and handled all the bureaucracy.

On July 11th I got back from vacation and it still hadn’t arrived. I was now fuming and logged into Adobe customer support and wrote a very angry note. No response at all!

Things came to a head on July 29th. I was now ready to cancel the order and never use Photoshop again. Hello GIMP. I called Adobe one final time. I got a rep who told me the order had never been properly submitted! My fault, I’m sure. I really complained and said that I thought after waiting two full months for my order they ought to be able to give me an immediate download. The rep thought so too, but his supervisor didn’t. So, I had to wait for the slow wheels of Adobe to turn.

I finally got the disk in the mail July 31st, over two months from the order I placed and over 3 months since I had legitimately first tried to upgrade my licensed copy. Suppose this had been a critical situation for my small business? I think I deserve a free upgrade for Acrobat Pro for this ridiculous customer service, don’t you? Adobe, are you listening?

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