Adobe Has HORRIBLE customer support

Question

I'm a High School Art Teacher. I teach Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects and Premier Pro. A year ago, my  family decided that I needed to upgrade from a PC to a Mac.  Unfortunatley, I was in no position to buy all new software - even with the educational discount. I've been living off whatever I can get done during my free periods in school. But recently, I needed to develop some photos for my Drawing and Painting class ( for self-portraits - needed to work with the contrast, so I payed out of pocket for the month subscription. I didn't realize that it was an auto-renewal until I got charged again ($60 ) for the month of March. I never selected auto renewal....it is evidently selected automatically for you - go figure. Of course I raced to unsubscribe, but ....no refund. I'm stuck paying $120 now for a job that took me 4 days. When I called for help, I waited a half of an hour for a call back, only to be accidently cut off on their end, and no one called me back. I'm sorry, but the chats are absolutely worthless. I needed some help with the original download as well - no help at all!!!! I mean, I imagine 14 year-olds on the other end .  I came from a family that owns a sizeable graphic design company and uses Adobe products - Adobe has been the power house for a long time. But lousy customer service? I expected more. Hey folks, I sell your products every day to my students. I tell them you're the industry standard and they should be getting used to it now. I send them off to some of the best design schools in the North East. I don't know if I'll recommend it so highly in the future.

Answer 1

Noel,
I will respectfully disagree here.
Now, it would be great if Adobe could hire experts in all of its products, and route each call to the appropriate expert. However, I just do not see that happening, at least any time soon. This problem can be greatly exacerbated, if a user has a full suite, and is having problems with more than one program in it.
Now, I have been using, and participating in the Adobe forums, from the days, when they were ONLY available via NNTP - before what we know as the Internet, was even born, I also did use ARPANET way, way back before that. Whether it is for an Adobe product, or another, I have found that the user-to-user (that term is now absent) forums offer better support. Almost everyone there does actually use the product(s).
It used to be much more simple, back when companies, like WordPerfect made only one product. You always got an expert on the phone. However, even back then, if one needed to "write a printer driver," the call might get transferred to the desk across the office, to the "Printer Wizard."
Personally, I am a very big fan of user forums. The only thing that I would possibly have placed above them, would have been a well-written, printed manual, but that is a thing of the past.
As I have mentioned in some other threads on T/S, and the product forums, most, that I frequent, have the addition of an Adobe presence, which is so greatly appreciated, as those employee contributors know what's under the hood, and when we, mere users, run out of ideas, they can often step in - then the OP, plus many of us, learn something new.
Imagine if Adobe were to relocate Chris Cox, and relegate him to answering the phone for simple user calls?
I want him busy in development, and then, if he has any spare time, helping out in the PS forum.
I understand where you are coming from, but just disagree. That, however, does not mean that Adobe could not do a better job.
Just my observations,
Hunt