Getting response from Customer Service

[larkin2sf 14]

Can anyone tell me how to escalate a problem?

It's been 10 days since I opened a support request about problems with attachments and :

1. sent my version number - 2 times

2. sent the name of the notes I'm having trouble with

3. sent copies of the note and the attachment

4. confirmed that I have a .pdf reader on my computer

5. reinstalled the software

6. asked for a more timely response countless times

7. asked several unanswered questions.

This is disappointing and ridiculous. Is this typical?

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Did you get an auto reply with a ticket number? If not, your support ticket did not get submitted. If you did, please post the ticket number here.

Are you free or premium? Premium users get a reply within one business day, California time.

[larkin2sf 14]

Here's the ticket number: #16051-140388. I've responded to each and every message and request for version number, copies of notes/files, reinstallation, etc, etc. The instructions are often duplicated. Since yesterday (9 days into this problem), I've been told that it has been referred to the "Escalation Department".

Is this typical Customer Service for Evernote? My goal is to go paperless and I've made good progress in setting up a system, but if this is the kind of Customer Service that I'll receive, I need to rethink my plan.

I am a premium member.

Thank-you in advance for any insights you can provide.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

IME, premium customer service is better than advertised. I usually get a reply within an hour or two. I've flagged this so someone from EN can address it.

[larkin2sf 14]

Thanks. I get one response/day and not very high quality responses. I don't expect immediate resolution, but it concerns me that that I'm asked to resend files/notes repeatedly and the questions I ask are never addressed. Seems like everyday it's a new support person who doesn't read the history. Today, for instance, I'm being asked to resend the unreadable .pdfs - this time in a folder named "Evernote Test". Two whole days passed while "Do you have a .pdf reader installed on your computer?" was asked and answered. It's getting very, very frustrating.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Thanks. I get one response/day and not very high quality responses. I don't expect immediate resolution, but it concerns me that that I'm asked to resend files/notes repeatedly and the questions I ask are never addressed. Seems like everyday it's a new support person who doesn't read the history. Today, for instance, I'm being asked to resend the unreadable .pdfs - this time in a folder named "Evernote Test". Two whole days passed while "Do you have a .pdf reader installed on your computer?" was asked and answered. It's getting very, very frustrating.

Thanks for raising it here on the forums. I am sure that the Evernote team will get on top of this. More importantly, though, why don't you tell us about the problem so that we can help out?

[larkin2sf 14]

Thanks, Grumpy. I can only make 2 more posts to the forums until 9/1/12, so if I go silent, I've just run out of posts.

I use EN on 2 workstations, an iPad and my Android. I use the w/s client (Windows) any time I can because I like it better than the web interface. I have ~5 notes that I uploaded with .pdf attachments. The notes show an icon for the attachments, but I can't open them. I have many other notes with attachments that open and the attachments opened when I uploaded them.

Since I haven't had enough experience with EN to know whether or not I can rely on the product as a foundation to build paperlessness upon, I have copies of the .pdfs elsewhere, so I have a work around. My biggest concern right this minute is the quality and responsiveness of customer/technical support.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Thanks, Grumpy. I can only make 2 more posts to the forums until 9/1/12, so if I go silent, I've just run out of posts.

I use EN on 2 workstations, an iPad and my Android. I use the w/s client (Windows) any time I can because I like it better than the web interface. I have ~5 notes that I uploaded with .pdf attachments. The notes show an icon for the attachments, but I can't open them. I have many other notes with attachments that open and the attachments opened when I uploaded them.

Since I haven't had enough experience with EN to know whether or not I can rely on the product as a foundation to build paperlessness upon, I have copies of the .pdfs elsewhere, so I have a work around. My biggest concern right this minute is the quality and responsiveness of customer/technical support.

That's fair. Customer support is crucial, especially for something you'll be putting your life into. As for the posts, please PM me directly if you run out of them. And, if you wouldn't mind, could you send me the PDFs? I will give them a try and see what happens on my end.

[heather 604]

I've pulled your ticket, and I see that there may have been some misunderstanding on our side about the exact nature of your issue, which is why our team kept asking for additional information from you.

As the PDFs you provided were working, they didn't identify the correct issue you're having. It's now with our specialist team, and the person who has it will be asking you for more targetted information (yes, more) but exactly what will be needed to close out your issue.

Unfortunately, sometimes the symptoms of a case can be misread by our triage team, especially when it's a very rare bug such as the one I believe you're encountering. Without the next step our specialist team will need to take, though, we won't know for sure.

[larkin2sf 14]

Heather - thank-you for the update. Perhaps you could address a question that I have been asking for 10 days. Is this representative of the quality of service that I can expect from Evernote? It took 2 solid days to ask and answer the question "do you have a .pdf reader on your computer?". I am simply trying to determine whether or not Evernote is typically responsive or if this call is the norm.

Fortunately, I haven't shifted all of my eggs to the Evernote basket. I have copies of everything. What is running out is my patience and confidence in Evernote as a system that can support a paperless organizational system.

-julia

Please note: this is the last note that I am permitted to post until tomorrow which means we will move ont day 11 of my quest to get an answer on this issue - maybe longer if Evernote doesn't provide support on weekends and holidays.

[heather 604]

No, it's not typical.

We had a major issue with our Support system provider which caused all of our tickets to be misqueued and jumbled all together, and as such our response times have been slower of late. We've still been within our SLA (24 hours for Premium members), but we're usually much faster than that, as we're able to identify and answer our Premium members immediately.

As soon as we identified the problems with our Support System vendor we took immediate action, but unfortunately the major damage was already done

[jbenson2 2,147]

Perhaps you could address a question that I have been asking for 10 days. Is this representative of the quality of service that I can expect from Evernote? It took 2 solid days to ask and answer the question "do you have a .pdf reader on your computer?". I am simply trying to determine whether or not Evernote is typically responsive or if this call is the norm.

-julia

From my perspective, the Evernote support has been spot on.

I usually get a response in just an hour or so.

And the response usually solves my issue with no more interaction required.

[ClutterBGone 152]

As soon as we identified the problems with our Support System vendor we took immediate action, but unfortunately the major damage was already done

I think this speaks volumes about the superior support service that is given by Evernote. Can you think of another major company that will put it out to the public, yes we have made a mistake! Go Evernote!!

Regards,

David in Wichita

[cynwren 9]

Just wanted to add that my experience with customer support has been very good. I've only had a couple issues that required a support ticket, and although they both ended up being bugs that took some time to resolve, the communication with me was timely and helpful. I knew they understood the problem and were working on it. And both were successfully resolved.

[larkin2sf 14]

Thanks, everyone, for your input. Heather - I appreciate you jumping in and acknowledging that there is a problem. I'm glad I found the Forums - there has definitely been a change for the better since I posted my question.

I also appreciate the help from GrumpyMonkey - particularly since it came at a time when I was only hearing back from Evernote support once/day.

I haven't heard anything back from the specialist team to which I've been escalated. Heather - does this team have it's own SLA? I guess I should, but I don't really know how your SLA works. When should I just throw in the towel and admit defeat?

-julia

[larkin2sf 14]

As of today, it's been 2 weeks since I opened my support request and 4 days since I heard from anyone at Evernote. From the feedback I've gotten so far, most everyone's experience with EN CS is positive.

Looks like I've been hit with a perfect storm - a rare bug and a problem with the Support System vendor. No apologies from Evernote, but I guess they've satisfied their SLA, so it's really not their problem.

When I created the problem notes, I also stored copies of the attachments to Dropbox and they're still readable, so this doesn't create a disaster for me. It does teach me that I'll need to have accessible duplicates of anything I attach to notes.

Very disappointed.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

As of today, it's been 2 weeks since I opened my support request and 4 days since I heard from anyone at Evernote. From the feedback I've gotten so far, most everyone's experience with EN CS is positive.

Looks like I've been hit with a perfect storm - a rare bug and a problem with the Support System vendor. No apologies from Evernote, but I guess they've satisfied their SLA, so it's really not their problem.

When I created the problem notes, I also stored copies of the attachments to Dropbox and they're still readable, so this doesn't create a disaster for me. It does teach me that I'll need to have accessible duplicates of anything I attach to notes.

Very disappointed.

I am sorry to hear your experience has not been a good one. I hope that you hear back from them today. It was the labor day weekend, and so that may have contributed to the delay, because they probably need a specialist to diagnose your problem.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

and 4 days since I heard from anyone at Evernote. .

As GM pointed out, it was Labor Day weekend, in the US. Premium customers receive a reply within one BUSINESS day, California time.

[larkin2sf 14]

Good point - my perfect storm has included a holiday weekend.

And, you're right, BurgersNFries, I always receive a reply within 1 business day. I'm disappointed that seems to be the maximum number of times I'll hear from them and that the responses are not more efficient. Like, when a user reports problems with .pdf attachments, couldn't the first response include "do you have a .pdf reader", "can you open the file locally" and "could you send a copy of the .pdf for testing on our server" be asked all at once? It took 10 days for them to ask me to set up a test notebook and grant them access!

It's been a good lesson.

-julia

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

It took 10 days for them to ask me to set up a test notebook and grant them access!

I can understand your frustration. But as Heather said...

I've pulled your ticket, and I see that there may have been some misunderstanding on our side about the exact nature of your issue, which is why our team kept asking for additional information from you.

As the PDFs you provided were working, they didn't identify the correct issue you're having. It's now with our specialist team, and the person who has it will be asking you for more targetted information (yes, more) but exactly what will be needed to close out your issue.

Unfortunately, sometimes the symptoms of a case can be misread by our triage team, especially when it's a very rare bug such as the one I believe you're encountering. Without the next step our specialist team will need to take, though, we won't know for sure.

[larkin2sf 14]

Yea, BurgersNFries, I saw Heather's note. On Day 2, the support technician (Ian) said:

"The PDF you provided us appears to open fine on our end. Have you attempted saving the PDFs to your computer, confirm they open locally, and then re-add them to Evernote to see if this corrects the issues you are experiencing?"

That pretty much confirms the issue that I am having. Like I said, I seem to have been hit by a perfect storm of circumstances.

His suggestion to re-add the attachments to Evernote supports my practice of keeping a copy in Dropbox or some other accessible location. I probably should have just made note (no pun intended) and carried on.

Thank-you for following my sad tale. No one said going paperless was going to be easy! Evernote is still looks like it will be helpful - I just have to factor in the reliability issue. My husband and I moved onto our boat in February and sold the house (where I stored a lifetime of paper files) in July.

-julia

[heather 604]

Hey, my husband and I did that in 2007, and it's been an interesting experiment. Might want to check this thread out:

http://discussion.ev...ailing-boating/

(Hunter 450 Passage)

[larkin2sf 14]

What a great thread! Thank-you, Heather! Looks like you're still living aboard - 5 years? Apart from MBEA (My Big Evernote Adventure) over the last 2 weeks, I'm trying to decide how to maintain the safety net for those documents that absolutely cannot be lost due to technical or maritime disasters. What's your solution?

-julia

[heather 604]

We actually have a combination of things. We have a waterproof safe onboard for things we need to have with us, and we also have some trusted relatives with our "dead files" on land in case something happens to us on the water.

Additionally, as we roam around the planet, we use the exceptional service http://www.earthclassmail.com to always get our mail immediately, no matter where we are.

[larkin2sf 14]

Update!

EV CS requested and received a copy of my log files!

Fingers crossed they'll be able to interpret them enough to let me know how to avoid this problem in the future.

[larkin2sf 14]

Update and the end of the story....

Per EN Support ... "We've found the cause of this issue."

My notes had gotten "separated" from their attachments and "became buried in our server". EN was able to locate the attachments so no data was lost. I was told "This is not something you did, but it was a bug in a prior version of our software that you had installed at once time on one (or both) of your machines, which we have since corrected and no longer exists. More information on this bug is here: http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/27111-lost-attached-files/"

Because I have duplicates of the original attachments, I was advised that it will be much easier to upload them again to my notes than to try to reattach them from their location on the EN servers. That's fine with me. It gives me the assurance that if it was truly the only copy I could hope to access, there's hope.

I also received sincere apologies, additional storage space to accommodate to reuploads and the promise of a partial credit against my annual renewal fee.

Thanks again to everyone for their comments, input, escalation efforts and willingness to help me. I'm glad to have found the forums - there's a great resource here.

Happy ending to my tale!

-julia

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Update and the end of the story....

Per EN Support ... "We've found the cause of this issue."

My notes had gotten "separated" from their attachments and "became buried in our server". EN was able to locate the attachments so no data was lost. I was told "This is not something you did, but it was a bug in a prior version of our software that you had installed at once time on one (or both) of your machines, which we have since corrected and no longer exists. More information on this bug is here: http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/27111-lost-attached-files/"

Because I have duplicates of the original attachments, I was advised that it will be much easier to upload them again to my notes than to try to reattach them from their location on the EN servers. That's fine with me. It gives me the assurance that if it was truly the only copy I could hope to access, there's hope.

I also received sincere apologies, additional storage space to accommodate to reuploads and the promise of a partial credit against my annual renewal fee.

Thanks again to everyone for their comments, input, escalation efforts and willingness to help me. I'm glad to have found the forums - there's a great resource here.

Happy ending to my tale!

-julia

Great! Glad there was a good resolution & that you posted back. Pudding cups for everyone on me!

[dlu 628]

Great! Glad there was a good resolution & that you posted back. Pudding cups for everyone on me!

Where does one go to claim a pudding cup?

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Great! Glad there was a good resolution & that you posted back. Pudding cups for everyone on me!

Where does one go to claim a pudding cup?

Haven't quite got the details worked out, yet... Tried email l but it just got my modem all gunked up...

[deedee 0]

I have a business account with 6 team members, my overall e pertinence with EN support is disappointing. I get the automated ticket always, followed by a light weight reply, with suggestions that are very basic and have all been tried before I contacted support. That seems to be it for day one!!! Despite the problems I stick with it, there is so much right about EN, it is only a shame that support seems so weak.

[jefito 5,589]

I have a business account with 6 team members, my overall e pertinence with EN support is disappointing. I get the automated ticket always, followed by a light weight reply, with suggestions that are very basic and have all been tried before I contacted support. That seems to be it for day one!!! Despite the problems I stick with it, there is so much right about EN, it is only a shame that support seems so weak.

This is common to a lot of support strategies: figure out what the most common problems are (by experience with customers), then, when an incident happens, get to a stable installation and attempt to apply those solutions first. I figure that if the basic solutions didn't often work, then they wouldn't offer them up: it's not pleasant for either the customer or the support tech to try things that don't work.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

I have a business account with 6 team members, my overall e pertinence with EN support is disappointing. I get the automated ticket always, followed by a light weight reply, with suggestions that are very basic and have all been tried before I contacted support. That seems to be it for day one!!! Despite the problems I stick with it, there is so much right about EN, it is only a shame that support seems so weak.

Hi. Sorry to hear about the problems. Why not list the steps you have already taken so that support doesn't suggest them to you?

[jefito 5,589]

I have a business account with 6 team members, my overall e pertinence with EN support is disappointing. I get the automated ticket always, followed by a light weight reply, with suggestions that are very basic and have all been tried before I contacted support. That seems to be it for day one!!! Despite the problems I stick with it, there is so much right about EN, it is only a shame that support seems so weak.

Hi. Sorry to hear about the problems. Why not list the steps you have already taken so that support doesn't suggest them to you?

Doesn't always work with tech support organizations (not pointing at Evernote here, necessarily). Had an experience with a router manufacturer where I'd gone through all of the steps, several times, before I even called them. They still wanted me to jump through all of the hoops, more than once, until she finally got so bamboozled, she had to call a supervisor, who I was able to convince, finally, that the router was broken, and they needed to give me a new one. It's just the way of it, sometimes, though it may be worth telling them what you've tried beforehand. Worth a shot anyways.

[larkin2sf 14]

Evidently, my issue was very unique, though very problematic. My experience taught me (and challenged me) to stay with it, remaining persistent and insistent without losing my religion. 

 

 

Keeping chatter going on these forums, along with escalating to public comments (no poison pills) posted to Facebook, seemed to bring me to a result that was satisfactory. Deedee - as you and others have said, the response to the basics is fairly available. It's when you have a real problem, that needs real troubleshooting that reveals EN weakness. I love 'em, but I'm concerned about the viability of a long-lived enterprise EN product with the current support model.

 

 

-julia

[b*RadJNeiMan 0]

For me it has been 6 days since I submitted a ticket (#866170) and there has been no response. I am a long-time premium user. (I've submitted many tickets and response has been much faster)