January's Business Failures: Adobe & Wall Street Journal's Customer Service Sucks!

January's honors of Business Failures for Customer Service goes to Adobe and Wall Street Journal. Though to be honest, neither company has really offended me with any great gusto, but they sure as hell are annoying me!

Let us start with Adobe. Now, generally, Adobe is a company I respect and very much appreciate. I think they have great products and a great attitude towards modern web development. They really took strong steps towards Nirvana with Flex 2 and AIR, and its Adobe we have to thank for the online video revolution. But what if the awesomeness you need to create has nothing to do with Adobe's current product push? Or what if you need some detailed answers to your custom product idea? The answer - don't start with customer service. If you do, they get really annoying.

When they eventually get back to you, they don't send you an email. They email you a PDF. The answer you want ... is in a PDF. There's something to be said about a company that really believes in and uses its own products, but someone's drinking too much Kool-Aid if they think emailing a PDF is a good communication mechanism. What's the point of that? Really? Oy. Oh and I got it twice.

In any case, here was their response. Aside from sounding like a high school freshman wrote it ("this is to inform you that, this support portal ..."), I really think they have a bunch of form letter paragraphs and click checkboxes to automatically include them. The result is a disjointed, idiotic sounding response ... that comes in a PDF. Annoying and/or stupidness shown in red:

Thank you for contacting Adobe Customer Service.

Due to the Support Portal being closed on weekends, we were unable to
respond to your e-mail. We sincerely regret any inconvenience this may
have caused and appreciate your patience.

[We ... I ... pick a plurality!]

I understand that you want an Adobe product that will allow you to
convert documents to [Product] and those documents can be
downloaded in their original formats.

[ Wow ... they copied and pasted my original text ... and ended up with a sentence fragment. I assure you my original email would make my English profs proud. These guys, however ... ]

Jeof, this is to inform you that, this support portal does not have the
necessary resources to suggest which product to purchase, specific
upgrade paths, upgrade eligibility, product and pricing information. You
need to call our Adobe Sales Department.

Our Adobe Sales Department contact number is (800) 833-6687 option 2; we
are available 7 days a week, 6:00 A.M to 8:00 P.M, Pacific Time. Our
representative will also assist you to take the correct buying decision
based on your specific needs.

Jeof, for more information about the product in question, please visit
the product's information page here: http://www.adobe.com/pro
ducts/alphabetical.html

[ NOT the product information page! ]

For information on how to buy or order Adobe Products, please visit the
following page: http://www.adobe.com/buy/

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

For your records, your customer ID number is [ ... ] . The customer ID
number is the easiest way for us to access your account in our database.
In the future, please provide this number when you contact Adobe. Your
case number is [ ... ] .

Jeof, the Web Support Portal Representatives are available from Monday
to Friday. For your convenience, on weekends we have a dedicated phone
support for Customer Service related queries. Please feel free to
contact our phone support at 1 (800) 833-6687 from 6:00am-8:00pm PST, 7
days a week.

We thank you for your time.

I hope you find these resources helpful.
Best Regards,
Mac S.
Adobe Customer Service

So not only does product support apparently not know anything about how their products work or can be used, they have no ability to forward my request to their sales department, whom I'm apparently supposed to talk to. They copy and past my original email into a form that then auto-generates a response with bad grammar that overuses my first name way too often. Why don't companies allow their customer service people to think? Or more importantly, why don't they hire people who can?

Moving on to the Wall Street Journal. I subscribed to the venerable paper while in University, and decided it was high time to re-up. So at the beginning of the year I paid my dues and they happily took my money - on New Years Day, no less. And I was happy to get my first paper ... oh ... I haven't gotten my first paper yet. Now going on two whole weeks with nary a newsprint in sight.

I've been trying to sort it out with their customer service department, but now I'm just going around in circles. They're nice enough, in general, and seem generally competent, but they get the Customer Service Failure award because noting is resolved. In this modern day and age, is it really this hard to deliver a freaking newspaper? Is it really hard to track down why the newsie can't seem to drop it off with one of the other two dozen Journals that come to my building every morning?

Why is it so hard to just get answers? Answer that, and you may have the winning business plan for the rest of eternity.