Awful Ecommerce Experience/Customer Service

[jongos]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I'll attempt to be as cordial as possible.

In all my years on the internet I've never had a worse customer experience online than I have at this website. For the past 24 hours I've been trying to purchase Office:Mac2008 to no avail. I've tried with my credit card, my girlfriends credit card, my companies corporate card. Nothing. Further more, when placing a purchase online, most ecommerce sites will at least tell you whether or not hte transaction went through. But Mactopia/Digital River....they don't tell you anything. No confirmation email, no call, no order number to check status.

I've called Microsoft, Digital River and Mactopia and all they've told me is that I have to wait for an email thats never come. It's been more than 24 hours waiting on a product-key for a digital product.

Lastly, to make matters worse, my trial product key also isn't working so I'm effectively sitting here with bricked software, with no recourse.

I can say I'm not surprised most of the Office:Mac users I know just steal the software if it's this difficult to make a legitimate purchase from you people.

 

[CyberTaz]

As soon aas you click one of the links on the Forums page you are no longer
"on the web site" -- you're in a newsgroup which you've accessed from that
site. Consequently you are *not* communicating with "you people" [i.e.,
Microsoft or Digital River] here. The newsgroups are user-to-user support
venues & nobody here has anything to do with sales, distribution, or any
other aspect of marketing or software development.

I'm sorry for your experience & appreciate your frustration, but there's
nothing to be gained by ranting about it here. I'd suggest that you get on
the phone again & insist that the matter be escalated until you get to a
level of competence where you can be properly assisted.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[jongos]

Thanks for the response Bob. I totally get that this may not be the designated place to rant but companies that make it hard for their customers to reach them (no email, no intl phone, no ticketing system) almost invite situations like this. I could call back but I'll just get another person who tells me to call back later.

Secondly, I think it's absolutely the right thing to do to post my frustrations here, in the case that case future customers have similar experiences or are wondering what level of service to expect from this company.

 

[Howard Brazee]

In all my years on the internet I've never had a worse customer experience online than I have at this website.

What web site are you referring to? I would like to avoid it, but I
didn't see it mentioned.

--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."

- James Madison

 

[CyberTaz]

I'm not disagreeing with you at all, it's just that your message gave the
impression that you expected it to be seen by someone from MS rather than
just us newsgroup participants. That simply is not the case. It's also
unlikely that your warning -- well-intended as it may be -- will do any good
here since 99% of the visitors to the newsgroups aren't looking to order the
product, they already have it

As for the lack of contact capability that isn't exactly correct. I don't
know where you're located -- that can make a difference as to which specific
web site you're accessing -- but on the US site there is a Contact Us link
on every page which points to this one:

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/contactus.mspx

Even if you're in a different part of the world the site you're accesing
should provide a similar link that offers regionalized contact information.
Whatever the contact method, if the initial contact can't resolve the
problem insist on speaking to their supervisor. If they balk, get their name
& report them.

 

[Marshall_Nam]

Can you provide a description of how the transaction ended?

The last page presented in the purchase process in the online store should be a page with your product key and a download link.

You should also receive a confirmation email in addition to seeing this page.

If you didn't reach a confirmation page at the end of the purchase process, what was the last page you saw? Please provide as detailed a description as possible, or it will be difficult to determine how to help you.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Diane Ross]

In all my years on the internet I've never had a worse customer experience
online than I have at this website.

Just so you know Marshall Nam is a representative for Microsoft. Hopefully
your opinion will improve now.