InDesign and OutSourcing

Yesterday I spent almost an hour on the phone with Adobe Customer Support, trying to fix a problem I was having with InDesign. I'm not a graphic designer and my company does not currently have a designer (or anyone who knows design software) on staff, so my 2 semesters of graphic design in college make me the resident expert and problem fixer. I tried unsuccessfully to solve the problem with our internal IT person, and finally resorted to calling the 800 number.

After navigating through a few automated menus, my call was answered (promptly, I'll give them that) by a woman who must have been sitting in the middle of a congested call center somewhere in India. The background noise was really distracting right off the bat, and sometimes I couldn't tell if she was talking to me, someone nearby, or if I was just hearing the person next to her on another call. This in itself was maddening.

The first thing I was asked to provide was a name, telephone number and email address. Name - easy enough. Phone - had to repeat it twice, slowly. Email address - total nightmare. Granted, the domain name of my company is long and consists of two words whose spelling is very similar. However, I lost count of how many times I had to repeat the spelling of my email address. It took a solid three minutes of excriciating "a like apple, b like banana" spellings to finally get it right.

Once all this information had been recorded, and knowing that it was being used to find a record of past service calls and/or identify my registered Adobe product, I explained that I had never personally called Adobe before, and that the product (Creative Suite 2) was registered to my company under the name of someone who no longer worked for us. After a few moments of confusion on her end, she asked for the name, number and email address of the person to whom the product was registered. I gave it, but no records were found.

I again reminded the woman that we may have never called for support before, so we might not be in her database. I asked if there would be anything else she could use to identify me, and she then asked for the registration number of the product I was using. Since I had InDesign open on the machine in front of me, I looked up the 20-digit number and read it off to her. Three times, slowly, until she got it right. She said it seemed as though there were some numbers missing, so I read it again. Nope, she said, there should be 24 digits to the registration number, and this was only 20. I figured I must have looked in the wrong place and asked where I could find the number.

She then proceeded to walk me through a number of steps that not only didn't work, but didn't apply to my specific version of the software. She was asking me to open menus and options that did not exist in the version I was running. I'll spare you the details, but she finally informed me that the 24-digit number could be found on the box that came with the software. Knowing it was a longshot that this was still in the office somewhere, I dispatched our IT person (who was standing next to me this whole time) to find it.

Miraculously, he came back with a box - but it was for CS3 (which we run on different machines), not CS2! I explained this to the woman on the phone, reminding her that we had legally purchased copies of CS2 and CS3, and is there any way we can use the registration number for CS3, just to get me thorough to a tech support person? Remember, I'm STLL talking to someone who is simply trying to verify my account. I haven't even begun to solve my real problem yet. She said that that definitely won't work, but that we could try it. The four readings that it took to get this 24-digit number recorded correctly took more patience than I thought I had left, and brought me straight to the end of my rope.

The IT guy, sensing disaster, stepped in and grabbed the phone before I had the chance to hurl it across the office and give someone a concussion. He talked to her for a few more minutes while I calmed down, giving the details needed to create an account for our company. When he put me back on the phone, the woman told me that although we had given the necessary information to receive support for CS3, since we were calling about an issue related to CS2, the tech support department wouldn't really be able to help me, but I would be able to ask some "general questions" about Adobe products. At that point I didn't even care who I was transferred to or what they could or could not tell me, I just wanted to be done with her, so I grunted some kind of reply and was released.

As my call was routed across the Atlantic Ocean back to Adobe tech support in the US, I glanced at the clock. 45 minutes on the phone trying to verify a product that my company had legally purchased multiple times for different people in the organization. Absurd.

My exchange with tech support was mostly unremarkable except for the fact that the bored and sleepy-sounding guy I spoke with seemed to be holding the phone about 10 feet in front of his face, only bringing it closer when I said politely (four times) "I'm sorry, I'm having a really hard time hearing you." He didn't really solve my problem, but he gave me an idea of what the problem might be and how it could be fixed (the solution will require the assistance of a freelancer who knows InDesign a bit better than I do). I was on the phone with him for less than 15 minutes.

Now, I realize verifying that a product is legal is an important step for a company whose software is pirated every day by people around the world. According to Adobe's own web site, the economic loss associated with software piracy is estimated in the tens of billions of dollars. That may be something you want to try protect yourself against, but why put the burden on your customers who are calling in for help using your product? From what I remember from my hacker friends in college, it's easy enough to obtain a legit registration number for a piece of pirated software anyway. Plus, if I did own an illegal copy of the software and received friendly, quick and helpful support for that product, I'd think it would make me much more likely to actually purchase from the company in the future.

Regardless, I think taking down these ridiculous, time-consuming, and bang-your-head-against-a-wall frustrating barriers to service might also bring down some of the costs of running Adobe's customer service department. If phone operators could spend less (or no) time trying to clear someone like me to receive the help I need, maybe there wouldn't be the need to have as many operators. Of course, when you're hosting your call center in India, I guess your cost per person isn't really that big of a deal anymore... but I'm not going there... not today at least. Check minus for Adobe.