Is anyone at Evernote listening?

[jrzap 16]

I have been a paying customer for some time. I have promoted Evernote everywhere I go as this great company focused on helping us be more productive. 

 

Yet, in tha past months it seems Evernote is more focused on selling computer stands, socks, and other merchandise than in listening to its customers.

 

Who is Elvis at Evernote?? Is anybody in charge? Because from where we are, the customers, it seems no one is listening. This is not perception; we don't get a response, Penultimate is a disaster and no one has come out to even say, "We are arrogant and we will follow our own path"-not even that. Customer support is snail slow at best, Evernote desktop update brought more problems and no one addresses them. 

 

I hear about Evernote conferences, about Phil Libin (Evernote's CEO) being a speaker in this and that other conference. But what about us, the loyal customers, are we even a blip in Evernote's radar?

 

All we hear is silence, and silence is dangerous because it gives us time to take our business somewhere else. But maybe that is what Evernote is counting on. They don't want customers like "us", they want customers like "them". Ok, fair, but at least say farewell! Have some integrity! Tell us what you really are all about.

 

I can't see how investors don't pay attention to this ill treatment of customers. Of how designers just "go forward" as geniuses and don't feel for their customer base.

 

Evernote is an amazing idea, I wish I had come up with it. I know this was a great company made of what looked like amazing people that brought "Workflow for dummies" to the market. As it stands, we, the customers, don't get a say on where Evernote should go, that's fine, just tell us, DO YOU STILL NEED US?!

 

 

 

[gazumped 11,661]

Hi.  I understand your feelings,  but you should appreciate that this is a user forum,  so you're ranting for the wrong crowd.  Evernoters do read the posts for future feature ideas,  but I doubt they have much influence on company policy.  You're saying you/ we aren't being 'heard',  but what's the message?  Why do you feel ignored?  You have this forum,  Twitter / Facebook and Evernote's own blog entries,  and the feedback/ support link below.  There are complaints here about too much contact from the company about their releases,  but you're saying all is silence.  Do you have a specific problem?  A feature request?  If you can state it here we'll be glad to try and assist.

 

- And Evernote isn't solely concerned with its retail sock sales - all of that's outsourced to a separate operation so doesn't affect the software side at all.

[Frank.dg 1,385]

... This is not perception; we don't get a response, Penultimate is a disaster and no one has come out to even say, "We are arrogant and we will follow our own path"-not even that. Customer support is snail slow at best, Evernote desktop update brought more problems and no one addresses them. 

 

 

Here's the "apology" post for the Penultimate screwup:

 

http://blog.evernote.com/blog/2014/11/19/note-penultimate/

 

They came out with a significantly modified upgrade for Penultimate about something like a week later. Phenomenal for any piece of software. I know this doesn't make everything go away or make it all better - but we've seen Evernote act in response to their user base. 

[gazumped 11,661]

And Phil himself tweeted -

 

Phil Libin @plibin

Thanks to everyone for feedback and bug reports on the @penultimateapp release. Our team is working on fixes. Updates coming very soon.

8:11 AM - 17 Nov 2014

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

Actually, these EN Forums have a number of active "rants" (complaints against Evernote changes and response to users), so it would seem that this is the best place to express your concerns about Evernote.  I don't know any other place that has this number of Evernote users.  And, as many like Gaz have proclaimed, supposedly Evernote employees ready EVERY post on this forum.

 

Here's just a few of these "rant" threads:

 

POWER USER DISCONTENT - Best Alternatives to EN ?

What's going on?

Evernote CEO Phil Libin Takes On Microsoft Office

Evernote for Mac v6.0 and v6.0.1  (although Mac focused, there are lots of general complaints in this thread)

 

 

Hi.  I understand your feelings,  but you should appreciate that this is a user forum,  so you're ranting for the wrong crowd.

 

 

 

[gazumped 11,661]

"And, as many like Gaz have proclaimed, supposedly Evernote employees ready EVERY post on this forum."

 

Not exactly a criticism since the quote is actually - (my emphasis)

 

Hi.  I understand your feelings,  but you should appreciate that this is a user forum,  so you're ranting for the wrong crowd.  Evernoters do read the posts for future feature ideas,  but I doubt they have much influence on company policy.  You're saying you/ we aren't being 'heard',  but what's the message?  Why do you feel ignored?  You have this forum,  Twitter / Facebook and Evernote's own blog entries,  and the feedback/ support link below.  There are complaints here about too much contact from the company about their releases,  but you're saying all is silence.  Do you have a specific problem?  A feature request?  If you can state it here we'll be glad to try and assist.

 

- And Evernote isn't solely concerned with its retail sock sales - all of that's outsourced to a separate operation so doesn't affect the software side at all.

 

No-one's ever said that Phil scans anxiously through the posts looking for complaints.  (Though you never know...)

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

Speaking of rants, here's a big one starting in the middle of the EN Mac 6.0.3 release thread, and it continues on for a number of posts:

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/78578-evernote-for-mac-603-released/?p=331024

[gazumped 11,661]

There are a lot of rants,  some of them are well founded,  some not.  We haven't yet found out what the OP's issue(s) are though...

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Speaking of rants, here's a big one starting in the middle of the EN Mac 6.0.3 release thread, and it continues on for a number of posts:

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/78578-evernote-for-mac-603-released/?p=331024

 

The next post by Zachster didn't sound like a rant. The post after that by me is a response to Nightstalker's rant in which I try to clarify the recent changes by putting them into historical context. The third post doesn't sound like a rant. Then, there is me again in the fourth post trying to put things in context again. The fifth post is a link to somewhere else. The sixth one is a rant (?) or complaint (?) about another product (Skitch). Then we get Nightstalker again. 

 

I guess I don't see several posts of rants, unless you count Nightstalker's repeated rants. Then again, I don't exactly know what a rant is. It's difficult to draw the line between complaints (focused, unfocused, rambling, etc.) and rants sometimes. At any rate, I'd recommend a new thread devoted to tracking them

 

In this thread, my guess is that the OP is not referencing Dr. Who ("Silence will fall when the question is asked!"). I think the OP is trying to figure out if customer input matters and the OP is trying to figure out what is going on at Evernote. Besides the many employee responses about the new Mac interface, I'd say check out the Evernote conference videos from October. They spell out in great detail where they see themselves now and where they are headed in the future. My guess is that they are listening to all of their customers, but they are more likely to implement the ideas and suggestions that fit with their business, uncluttered, simple, collaborative, contextualized, surfacing, presenting vision.

[jefito 5,589]

Oh great, let's just list *all* of the rants that exist in these forums here, and then discuss them here, that'll be fun...

 

But completely irrelevant to the topic.

 

For jrzap: if you spend any amount of time on the forum, you'd see that Evernote employees are participants here; I'd love to see more of it, but they are present. As it is, they do give some indication of what direction they're heading, they do discuss why, and they do respond to complaints, issues, and suggestions. They do claim, in multiple forum posts, that Evernote staff read all posts. None of this is to say that they either communicate perfectly or execute their plans perfectly, but they are trying to make things better, for example, the problems with the current Mac release.

 

You *do* have a voice in what Evernote may become, but that's not the same thing as having the final word. Your final word comes when you ask yourself questions like "Is Evernote a product that helps me to do what I want to do"?

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

GM, good point.  "Beauty in the eye of the beholder", and all that.

That's why I don't like anyone classifying another post as a "rant", implying it should be ignored.

To me, a "rant" is simply a passionate complaint.

 

 

Then again, I don't exactly know what a rant is. It's difficult to draw the line between complaints (focused, unfocused, rambling, etc.) and rants sometimes. At any rate, I'd recommend a new thread devoted to tracking them

 

 

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Oh great, let's just list *all* of the rants that exist in these forums here, and then discuss them, that'll be fun...

Do it. I dare you

I think our oldest rant (at least, an explicitly declared one) is 2010.

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/13853-security-pin-code-feature-request/

That makes four years of rants to collect and savor. Interestingly, this rant produced a change, right? I believe that the Android phone now has a pin lock.

To the OP's point, though, Evernote staff are (as you noted) present on the forums, responding, and making their positions quite clear. In fact, for Penultimate there is a blog post specifically saying they screwed up. Of course, interpretations vary, but I think the point here is that it isn't so silent out there, even if you don't like what you hear.

http://blog.evernote.com/blog/2014/11/19/note-penultimate/

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

GM, good point.  "Beauty in the eye of the beholder", and all that.

That's why I don't like anyone classifying another post as a "rant", implying it should be ignored.

To me, a "rant" is simply a passionate complaint.

 

 

Then again, I don't exactly know what a rant is. It's difficult to draw the line between complaints (focused, unfocused, rambling, etc.) and rants sometimes. At any rate, I'd recommend a new thread devoted to tracking them

A passionate complaint? Oh my. I am afraid I have a lot of rants out there on the forums then. I believe my latest one related to the Mac interface accused the poor developers of misunderstanding the implied message in The Giver criticizing a world devoid of colors.