Stick a fork in me...I'm done!

PDMan · Post by **PDMan** » Sun Dec 18, 2005 5:06 pm

After more than five years and at least that many versions, I have finally abandoned Photoimpact for another product. I am so disappointed with version 11. It has brought my job to a standstill.

But, you know, I might have hung in there if I thought Ulead gave a s*** about their customers. I have dealt with a lot of software companies in my lifetime, but I believe Ulead's customer support is the worst I've seen (Corel moves to number two).

Thanks Ulead!

davenz · Post by **davenz** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 12:59 am

I hear ya and Im about the same. Ill use 10 because it works but the support (or lack of it) is intolerable. The problem is that these software people make far too much money to give a damn about even their own customers. They are remote and untouchable, unbound by any workable fair trading agreements. If I ran my computer business this way I would be broke in a few weeks. What a rip.....

Dave

ronlaw · Post by **ronlaw** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 1:50 am

I read your post and thought it was interesting. I have owned Nero for a year, got totally fed up with the non existant customer support. If you get lucky and get an email response, it's some dumb canned verbage instructing you to a tutorial that's outdated by 2 or 3 versions. I purchased Roxio EMC 8 in October, have not yet been able to burn a good quality DVD. Their so called customer service takes you down many dead end streets, with no contact to a human being available. I am beginning to think this crappy and frustrating customer service is commonplace to Software companies. They take your money, you open the box and you're on your own and don't even think about getting your money back. Well, thanks for the venting.

ronlaw · Post by **ronlaw** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 1:59 am

Also, I have decided I am not buying any more software unless there is a full trial version available.

Xyzzy2 · Post by **Xyzzy2** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 9:51 am

ronlaw wrote:I am beginning to think this crappy and frustrating customer service is commonplace to Software companies. They take your money, you open the box and you're on your own and don't even think about getting your money back. Well, thanks for the venting.

There ARE companies, sometimes single person, that really CARE, even for non-paying customers. XnView or iMatch come to mind, but there are many others. As a general rule one can look up product forums to check company responsiveness.

I would not dare to depend on Ulead for any business activity. It's like, you know, Russian roulette software. They are absolutely abysmal when it comes to support.

X.

RWP · Post by **RWP** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 6:19 pm

User support forums (like this one) have become the best and fastest source of support for quite a few software companies, and often, that is a good thing: It helps keep the price of a product low AND usually provides prompt support by other experienced users. If Ulead offered PI users as much tech support as Adobe does, PI11 would probably have to be priced halfway between Elements and CS to pay for it. (And feature-wise, PI is certainly more powerful than Elements).

What surprises me is the lack of traffic in this forum. Seems like only a handfull of posts per day -- except during a new version release time period. Don't know if that means there aren't many PI users, or that most users aren't having problems so have no need to seek the user forum... or what? The few supporters that do hang around here on a daily basis answer most of the support request posts. If there was a greater volume of daily participants here, it might get more attention from Ulead and perhaps a quicker fix for current v11 bugs.

I am quite active in the Pinnacle Studio forums, and we have hundreds of thousands of registered members, and many hundreds of new posts every day. With that large of user base, peers are much more helpful than Pinnacle's tech support 99% of the time. The current version of Studio has many more bugs than any previous version, so I can certainly identify with posts in this thread reporting poor support after a new software release from other companies. If we didn't have a great peer-to-peer support forum there (or here) things would be much worse.

davenz · Post by **davenz** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 7:08 pm

RWP wrote:User support forums (like this one) have become the best and fastest source of support for quite a few software companies, and often, that is a good thing: It helps keep the price of a product low AND usually provides prompt support by other experienced users. If Ulead offered PI users as much tech support as Adobe does, PI11 would probably have to be priced halfway between Elements and CS to pay for it. (And feature-wise, PI is certainly more powerful than Elements).

What surprises me is the lack of traffic in this forum. Seems like only a handfull of posts per day -- except during a new version release time period. Don't know if that means there aren't many PI users, or that most users aren't having problems so have no need to seek the user forum... or what? The few supporters that do hang around here on a daily basis answer most of the support request posts. If there was a greater volume of daily participants here, it might get more attention from Ulead and perhaps a quicker fix for current v11 bugs.

I am quite active in the Pinnacle Studio forums, and we have hundreds of thousands of registered members, and many hundreds of new posts every day. With that large of user base, peers are much more helpful than Pinnacle's tech support 99% of the time. The current version of Studio has many more bugs than any previous version, so I can certainly identify with posts in this thread reporting poor support after a new software release from other companies. If we didn't have a great peer-to-peer support forum there (or here) things would be much worse.

I agree with you, though it is my opinion (for what its worth) that companies shouldnt soley rely on their users to support each other. This seems to be the way it has gone with many software houses. A few other products I own and use have even worse support, if thats possible. I think that there are less PI users than pinnacle users and that there were less overall issues with earlier versions of the software. I have used it (registered, not cracked or pirated) from version 4 and have had almost zero problems. I got the odd crash, but show me a windows programme that doesnt. I have had no need in all those years to even come here. I came here a day after the release of PI 11 to find some answers and instead found lots of people with the same questions, and no answers were forthcoming from the company then and they dont seem to be now either. Like it or not, many people (and now me included) will cruise a support forum before buying or trying a product. This forum is not a good advertisement for Ulead, and I think a lot of people would be put off by the comments here.

I claimed and was awarded a full refund, so I am not out of pocket, (and to be honest, with me it isnt the money; I just want software that works) but I have lost the faith I had in Ulead products. I was looking at purchasing Video Studio before this but I think I'll pass now. Their loss. For the price of an email they could save their reputation and retain a (formerly) loyal customer, but I guess an email from someone there is too much to ask. I have recommended earlier versions of this software to many of my clients who have gone on to purchase; I just hope they dont come calling on me if they decided to upgrade as I dont have any good news for them.

RWP · Post by **RWP** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 12:20 am

I agree with all points of your post.

Here's hoping Ulead does take an active role in improving the products (or at least PI) and communicating with the customers. Just a statement about when the next patch or public/private beta will be would make a big difference.

I really do like some features of PI (and which Elements lacks), but will have to continue using PI 8 until v11 gets sorted.

J_fike · Post by **J_fike** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 1:50 am

One thing that really puzzles me is I was unable to create an active account on this forum using my AOL email account. I sent in support messages to Ulead and got back the standard "we will look into it ..." response.

I've seen similar messages to the problem (AOL doesn't like Ulead so they automatically filter Ulead email out).

Eventually, I had to use a Google Gmail account to get and account here. If other AOL members were able to get their activation email statment, I never heard back from Ulead Support.

Now AOL my not have the best Internet service or reputation, but there's an huge number of AOL users out there, and I can't comprehend how Ulead wouldn't care.

So I guess I'll save my upgrade money (PI11 since 7.0) and give it to Adobe.