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One woman's plight in technical support.

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Thursday, December 27, 2007

It's Gone Now

The latest news from the The Fun Company Tech support front:

News Flash! Software company removes redundant feature! More at 10'o clock....


So, recently we put out a new version of our software. Lets call it The Bean version 2.0.
It is a piece of software that is run with another program that goes on servers.

In our original software - Jumping Bean v.1 it jumped all on it's own, because the platform we were installed on (called The Table) was flat and unmoving. Recently, The Table was changed to The Trampoline Table and now the jumping component of our Jumping Bean v. 1 is obsolete.

We recently changed the name and removed that functionality, so now it's just "The Bean v2.0". We also have an optional add-on called "SuperJump" that can be purchased at an additional fee.


I had an admin call me yesterday, and this was the basic conversation:



Admin: "So, I found out you took the jump out of the Jumping Bean Software."

Me: "Yes Sir, the regular Jump function no longer exists."

Admin: "I was using that function. Why did you take it out? "

Me: "Well, Sir, because your Table software added the Trampoline function, it does the bouncing now. "

Admin: " I don't like the way my Table software does the bouncing. I want your software to do the bouncing."

Me: "I'm sorry sir, we no longer bounce in this version. But if you like, you can get an extra high bounce by purchasing this add-on called SuperJump .
Or, alternatively, you can uninstall the new The Bean software, and use the old Jumping Bean software instead, or you can also make it jump by hand. "

Admin: "I don't want to pay more. I don't want to make it jump by hand and I don't want to back up to the old version.
I think your company should tell me how to use The Table Trampoline's jump function because you no longer do the jumping."

((Now, remember a few posts back where I gave advice on not asking for advice for a third party program?))

Me: "Mr. Customer, I am not authorized to support the jump feature on your Table Trampoline software. If you would like us to help your beans jump really high, you'll need to get the SuperJump feature in our software."

Admin: "I want you to tell whoever you need to tell that they shouldn't have removed the jump function. I was using that, and it's not fair that you can't tell me how to use the Trampoline function in my Table Trampoline software."


So, this is what happens when software changes. We understand that you are comfortable using the old familiar way. But sometimes that isn't an option. We love that you love our software so much, and we understand that the other guy charges, but that doesn't change the fact that we were doing something that's already being done.

We have a better option, but the better option charges. The reason is because the better option is more of a service, and you get updates every ten minutes. Where before, the option was free, but only getting updates every few months.






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If you have tech horror stories you'd like to share I'd love to hear them! If I really really like it, I'll even blog about it. So let's hear it, what do your dumb customers do?

posted by Reine at 7:29 AM

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