No more free tickets for free users?

[Nadya De Angelis 24]

I noticed a serious synchronization problem, with web version and mac version having significantly different number of notes, but cannot submit a ticket: all I get is "Ask the community" advice. 

 

Is it that free users cannot submit tickets any longer? Since when?

 

Another possibility that comes into my mind is "one ticket at a time" policy, and I still have a ticket opened days ago (found a solution already). Ironically I opened it while still being a paid user, but never got a reply. 

 

[ddewees 0]

I am also having sync issues (only from Windows Desktop), am not a premium member but I am only given the option to see the forum. No option to email support. I do not have a pending support ticket.

[Metrodon 2,188]

No more support for free users seems to have been the policy for a few weeks.

Check the number of notes in your trash, that might be where your discrepancy might be.

I guess if you really need support you could go premium for a month.

[JMichaelTX 4,118]

I noticed a serious synchronization problem, with web version and mac version having significantly different number of notes, but cannot submit a ticket: all I get is "Ask the community" advice. 

 

Is it that free users cannot submit tickets any longer? Since when?

 

Another possibility that comes into my mind is "one ticket at a time" policy, and I still have a ticket opened days ago (found a solution already). Ironically I opened it while still being a paid user, but never got a reply. 

 

 

Per GBarry, Free Account owners should still be able to submit Support Tickets for:

• Account/Billing issues
• Report Bugs and Lost Data issues

Just select the proper item on the Ticket form.

[Trilln451 6]

I noticed a serious synchronization problem, with web version and mac version having significantly different number of notes, but cannot submit a ticket: all I get is "Ask the community" advice. 

 

Is it that free users cannot submit tickets any longer? Since when?

 

Another possibility that comes into my mind is "one ticket at a time" policy, and I still have a ticket opened days ago (found a solution already). Ironically I opened it while still being a paid user, but never got a reply. 

 

 

I was able to get a ticket. Actually I got another today for the same issue - I just don't know how long it takes to get a response, I've never had a problem before.

[Latisha 0]

They still have free ticket but you need patient to wait.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

They still have free ticket but you need patient to wait.

Like about a month or more. Technically, they *have* dropped support for free users with a few exceptions such as not being able to log in, premium upgrade not working, etc.

[Nadya De Angelis 24]

Is there any sort of official statement? It's not a minor problem, the lack of support is a big deal. 

[JMichaelTX 4,118]

See the bottom of this thread:

 How To Prepare Support Ticket

[jefito 5,598]

Is there any sort of official statement? It's not a minor problem, the lack of support is a big deal. 

The official stance is that free users are, for most types of issues, prioritized after premium users. Practically speaking (as far as I can tell), that means that free users won't be handled individually, at least until there's a real slowdown in support requests by premium users or staffing is increased enough to handle the premium traffic more rapidly. For certain types of issues (account access and payment issues), though, they will try to handle you more efficiently. And bug reports should always be allowed, though, free users shouldn't expect feedback from those, unless clarification is required.

 

You can get a fair amount of free support here in the forums, and that's enough for many types of issues.

[GER_TX 6]

 

Is there any sort of official statement? It's not a minor problem, the lack of support is a big deal. 

The official stance is that free users are, for most types of issues, prioritized after premium users. Practically speaking (as far as I can tell), that means that free users won't be handled individually, at least until there's a real slowdown in support requests by premium users or staffing is increased enough to handle the premium traffic more rapidly. For certain types of issues (account access and payment issues), though, they will try to handle you more efficiently. And bug reports should always be allowed, though, free users shouldn't expect feedback from those, unless clarification is required.

 

You can get a fair amount of free support here in the forums, and that's enough for many types of issues.

 

How many tickets do they get per day if I may ask?

And how many tickets does one work on per hour?

I mean the average would be 13 to 15 tickets per hour, good people can do 30 tickets per hour and that all with a First Ticket Resolution of I would say 80% you shouldn't have a problem giving free users also free support.

[Metrodon 2,188]

Why should they give free users support? Or put it another way, why should Premium users subsidise free support?

 

Given that they probably have over 90m free users, providing support is going to be hugely expensive with a very small ROI. Evernote is a business that exists to make money, I completely understand why they removed free support.

[GER_TX 6]

Why should they give free users support? Or put it another way, why should Premium users subsidise free support?

 

Given that they probably have over 90m free users, providing support is going to be hugely expensive with a very small ROI. Evernote is a business that exists to make money, I completely understand why they removed free support.

Why does a game like World of Tanks even allow people to play for free and give free support to all users?

The company Wargaming wants to make money as well.

[Metrodon 2,188]

I'm assuming that they have advertising or some sort of revenue channel. If it's ads then they need as many eyeballs as possible.

Again, as a premium user I have no interest in funding support for free users.

[Nadya De Angelis 24]

The matter is HOW they removed the support: cowardly, without any announcement first, then pretending that it is done only to make a premium support better.

Unfortunately, it never happened. In fact, premium support has never been as bad as AFTER they cut off free users: tickets lost, tickets replied after a month with a complete gibberish that has nothing to do with an initial request etc.

I personally gave up. In 2014 I spent hours communicating with them: explaining and re-explaining the problems, making screencasts, screenshots, uninstalling and reinstalling. The result? None of my issues were resolved. Lost data remain lost. Bugs remain unfixed. It was a complete waste of time.

As for the argument "but they are so big! 90 m users" — it only means that if the company cannot handle growth, it shouldn't grow.

[JMichaelTX 4,118]

^{IMO, Evernote blew it in how they handled the dropping of support for free account owners.}

 

^{They should have announced it to all, and make the point that for only $5, a free account owner could upgrade to Premium account for one month, and as  as result receive:}

• ^{Full support}
• Response to all  tickets within 1 business day
• Access to real-time Support Chat
• Increase in upload allowance to 4GB.

$5 is a very low price for personal support.  All other companies (like Microsoft and Apple) that I know of, charge $20-$50-$75 PER incident.  With Evernote Premium you get full support for all incidents for one month for only $5.  That, is a very good deal.

 

Of course, Evernote has to deliver on their support promise.

[Sugeeth Krish 476]

I am a premium user, and to be honest, I have not faced any issues with support so far. But some time ago, I was free, and i did receive support, as far as i can remember. 

 

If evernote has grown too big that no support is going to be offered for free users, then, why not make the issue public? Yes, it means negative publicity all right, but atleast, thats being transparent.. Why do free users have to go through all the hassle, for something they may never get and eventually have to come back here.. 

 

Evernote's transparency on critical issues concerns to worry me more and more and more.. I think Its serious.. i had a backup plan like a NAS in place or something.. The way things are going.. Although, I have premium left for another 2 years.. My guess.. is that in another 2 years.. all the Note taking and App using guys can go to hell.. we make more money selling bags, socks and premium scanners.. So, we focus on them.. I guess.. will be my premonition.. 

[Metrodon 2,188]

You have no disagreement from me on how badly they handled the removal of free support. It was cowardly and embarrassing. Personally, I don't think their support has ever been all that great but for premium users it did at least in my experience deliver on it's personal response within 24 hour promise. My recent experiences with email support have been pretty useless and I've had to chase them for responses. Chat however has worked pretty well.

 

Personally, I just think that their support organisation is pretty badly run.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

The matter is HOW they removed the support: cowardly, without any announcement first

I doubt you would find anyone who would disagree with this. Back when moderators were hand picked by Evernote staff (as opposed to the current standard of anyone with over X number of posts is automatically a mod), the ~10 of us discussed this issue off line first between ourselves & subsequently with EN staff & did not receive any replies of substance. Finally, we went public on this board b/c it got to the point where we could no longer justify the manner in which Evernote was handling support tickets (both free AND premium). 

 

Personally, I just think that their support organisation is pretty badly run.

Back when Heather ran it, whenever someone complained about not receiving support (premium or free!) & posted a ticket number, nine times out of ten, it was b/c the reply from Evernote had gone to the user's spam/junk box or the user had not replied to the latest email from Evernote. And the few tickets that truly did fall through the cracks were owned by Heather & got expedited.

IMO, not only is the support team pretty badly run, but certainly there are issues with the web client team, the Windows team & Evernote overall, since there are long remaining issues that encompass the entire app such as searches producing different results in different clients & my gripe of choice - scalability.

[GER_TX 6]

Back when Heather ran it, whenever someone complained about not receiving support (premium or free!) & posted a ticket number, nine times out of ten, it was b/c the reply from Evernote had gone to the user's spam/junk box or the user had not replied to the latest email from Evernote. And the few tickets that truly did fall through the cracks were owned by Heather & got expedited.

 

Back when Heather ran it, whenever someone complained about not receiving support (premium or free!) & posted a ticket number, nine times out of ten, it was b/c the reply from Evernote had gone to the user's spam/junk box or the user had not replied to the latest email from Evernote. And the few tickets that truly did fall through the cracks were owned by Heather & got expedited.

IMO, not only is the support team pretty badly run, but certainly there are issues with the web client team, the Windows team & Evernote overall, since there are long remaining issues that encompass the entire app such as searches producing different results in different clients & my gripe of choice - scalability.

 

How long before Evan was that?

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

 

 

Back when Heather ran it, whenever someone complained about not receiving support (premium or free!) & posted a ticket number, nine times out of ten, it was b/c the reply from Evernote had gone to the user's spam/junk box or the user had not replied to the latest email from Evernote. And the few tickets that truly did fall through the cracks were owned by Heather & got expedited.

 

Back when Heather ran it, whenever someone complained about not receiving support (premium or free!) & posted a ticket number, nine times out of ten, it was b/c the reply from Evernote had gone to the user's spam/junk box or the user had not replied to the latest email from Evernote. And the few tickets that truly did fall through the cracks were owned by Heather & got expedited.

IMO, not only is the support team pretty badly run, but certainly there are issues with the web client team, the Windows team & Evernote overall, since there are long remaining issues that encompass the entire app such as searches producing different results in different clients & my gripe of choice - scalability.

 

How long before Evan was that?

 

 

I no longer keep up with who runs what at Evernote, since I am so disappointed with their new direction (or lack thereof, if you ask me) and no longer use Evernote.  So I don't know Evan.  AFAIK, Heather ran it from the get go up until spring of last year.  That's also about the time it became clear to me that Evernote was going a different direction, eventhough there had not yet been any official announcement...only mostly silence & distancing themselves from their users.  IIRC, Heather officially quit Evernote last May or June.

[GER_TX 6]

As far as I know Even was or is manager in Austin for the tech support.

That's the place that hired book authors instead of tech people.

 

And I know that as I got an answer from one and as this person is also in the German EN Google+ group I just looked it up.

[Metrodon 2,188]

Don't get hung up on this hiring writers instead of tech people to do support. First level support is a completely non-technical role, it's basically a communications task especially for an app like Evernote.

[GER_TX 6]

Don't get hung up on this hiring writers instead of tech people to do support. First level support is a completely non-technical role, it's basically a communications task especially for an app like Evernote.

 

In other companies they have a different believe.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

 

 

Don't get hung up on this hiring writers instead of tech people to do support. First level support is a completely non-technical role, it's basically a communications task especially for an app like Evernote.

 

In other companies they have a different believe.

 

Actually, most/many other companies don't need tech people for first level support, as Metrodon has repeatedly stated. First level normally has a protocol to adhere to that filters out people who don't have their computer turned on, aren't logged in, etc.  Anyone who can read & follow directions is qualified.  It is a waste of valuable resources (tech people who are more highly paid than first responders) to filter out the more common & repeated issues.

[JMichaelTX 4,118]

 

Don't get hung up on this hiring writers instead of tech people to do support. First level support is a completely non-technical role, it's basically a communications task especially for an app like Evernote.

 

In other companies they have a different believe.

 

 

I agree.  IMO, tech people are much better at providing technical support than non-tech, including writers.  Tech people are much more likely to better understand the problem and pick up on subtle clues that others would miss.

 

We're not "hung up" this.  We just want much better tech support than we've been getting.

[GER_TX 6]

 

 

Don't get hung up on this hiring writers instead of tech people to do support. First level support is a completely non-technical role, it's basically a communications task especially for an app like Evernote.

 

In other companies they have a different believe.

 

Actually, most/many other companies don't need tech people for first level support, as Metrodon has repeatedly stated. First level normally has a protocol to adhere to that filters out people who don't have their computer turned on, aren't logged in, etc.  Anyone who can read & follow directions is qualified.  It is a waste of valuable resources (tech people who are more highly paid than first responders) to filter out the more common & repeated issues.

 

This reminds me of the US Army, when the device is sent up to the higher support they can do everything but change a light bulb, they have to call low level support to get that indicator light changed. What a waste of resources.

I know from Buffalo Tech that the Level one support can already fix most issues that are out there.

Other companies might sent the same problems to Level two or three support.

And this seems to be the problem with EN and many other companies, you hire people that can't change a light bulb and than wonder why the support is so bad.

 

If EN would get a more efficent Level one tech support, they would make the users happier even when a problem can't be solved.