"Stop calling us"...that was the response from the last Adobe sales rep that I spoke to about this issue. Why would he say that? Look no further than Adobe's "system" for fulfilling orders.
I called the sales line for Adobe to order a cross-platform upgrade for CS3 on Sep 9, 2008. The order was placed, I chose the priority shipping, and I thought everything was fine. Three days later I hadn't received an email confirmation, tracking number, or anything from Adobe regarding my order. I needed a tracking number so that I would know the order arrived at the building I work at. It's a large building and I have to go find packages once they're delivered. So I call the Sales line again, which they then transferred me to "customer service". I was then told the order hadn't shipped (no kidding) and that there was an issue with it, but they couldn't resolve it...that I had to be transferred back to sales.
45 minutes into the call I managed to find out there was a "block" on my order for some reason and that "it was being lifted" and that I could call back on Monday for a tracking number. "Why would yuou need to call for a tracking number" you ask? Simple, Adobe doesn't provide ANY sort of communication about your order. I don't know if this is limited to cross-platform upgrades or not.
Monday rolls around...I call for a tracking number....SAME PROCESS. Call sales...get transferred to customer service. By the way, their customer service is apparently in India, which doesn't matter if you like repeating yourself twice and asking the rep to repeat themselves as well (I'm not exaggerating or trying to be rude...just being honest). I had NO problems talking to the extremely English-fluent sales reps. So I'm talking to the customer service rep in India on a call that lasted about 30-40 minutes. He says he will investigate and call me back. He never did.
Wednesday (8 days after ordering) rolls around and I call customer service directly to which I'm notified there is "a block" on my order after about a 40 minute phone discussion...and that I can be transferred to the sales dept and they can cancel the order and create a new one, which I did and hung up the phone after 59 minutes. I was told to call back on Friday for a tracking number.
I call on Friday (Sep 19...10 days after ordering) for my tracking number. What do I get? Well, after about 30 minutes I am notified that there is A BLOCK ON MY ORDER and that they will lift it and blah blah blah. Ridiculous. I was told to call back Monday
I called the sales department on Monday....spoke to a girl who put me on hold while she "researched the issue"...then was all of a sudden transferred to customer service with no heads-up. I had to repeat the whole story over again. I asked to speak to a supervisor. I was told that one wasn't available that was aware of the issue. Wha?! I told her to put one on and I would make them aware of the issue! She said she couldn't so I gave her the earful instead. She informed me there WAS A BLOCK ON THE ORDER (ARGH!) and that she would contact the fulfillment center to resolve it. I asked if I could speak to the fulfillment center and she said that I couldn't. So here I am a full two weeks after ordering with no software that I had paid for "priority shipping" for. The girl informed me that she would call me back.
Later that afternoon I called the sales like to find out what the deal was. Here is literally what I was told by the Adobe Sales Rep at 800-833-6687 option 2: Each time you call regarding an order, it "moves" your order to the bottom of the "shipping queue". So each day or every other day that I called, it supposedly moved my order to the end of every other order. INSANE. I was told they do not offer any shipping or tracking confirmation via email, phonecall, or anything. I was then literally told to "stop calling us" and "just wait". What other company does this?!?! I would expect it from a small business, but Adobe? A major corporation? Simply inexcusable.
If you're anyone other than Adobe, I am sincerely sorry you had to read all of this. I know you want your 5 minutes back almost as much as I want the hours back (yes...hours) I spent just trying to get a tracking number. If you ever have to order a cross-platform upgrade of Adobe software, I unfortunately have to advise you to "stop calling" and "just wait" for your shipment...that is until Adobe decides to implement an actual order placement/fulfillment/tracking system into their business.
The story ends with me receiving the software finally on Sep 24...a full 15 days after placing an order with priority shipping. I stopped calling and waited...and fortunately a co-worker saw the package and brought it to me. And yes...they still charged me for priority shipping.
I love Adobe software, but this experience was ridiculous.
*EDIT*
After 1 day of posting this, I received a phone call from the manager of customer service for Adobe North America apologizing for the issue and proceeded to work out a resolution. I'm confident they will work to keep this from happening to future customers, so hopefully you'll never experience this. I applaud Adobe for monitoring these posts and putting forth the effort to contact customers with the goal of resolving issues and fixing the root causes. That's the level of customer service I like to see out of a company such as Adobe. So thank you, Adobe. That was a great follow-up.
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