How not to do customer service…in my book.

Posted in True Life Adventures - August 24, 2012 - 0 Comment

If you’ve read other postings in this, rarely updated, blog you know that certain things about customer service rub me the wrong way.  My Open Letter To AT&T, for example.  Well, I got a new one.

For years I was a longtime user of Quicken on the mac.  I had well over 7 years of finances tracked there.  Long story shot, Apple updates their system software and Intuit decides it’s no longer going to support mac.  So if I want to upgrade to the new system software, I need to find a quicken alternative.  After looking around I choose iBank by IGG software.  It’s certainly not as simple as the Quicken I was used to but it worked and they have an iPhone app which is a plus.

So for over a year I’ve been using iBank.  The other day, I encountered a problem where data downloaded from my back, which in the past had imported fine, was crashing iBank.  No matter what I did, the data never imported and the app just crashed.  So I did all the usual things you do: Make sure I had the latest version, browse the IGG Support site for similar issues, look through their knowledge base.  Nothing really seemed to point to my problem so I go to their email support page.

I filled out the questionnaire they give you.  I described the problem I was having and at their request, included the crash log and the console reports from the crash.  I send off my email and then wait.  Two days later I received the following email from them…

Hello,

Thank you for contacting IGG Technical Support.  I am sorry to hear you are experiencing issues with iBank.  Can you answer a few questions for me?

– Have you restarted your Mac recently
– Has iBank always behaved this way for you?
– Have you recently transferred data into iBank from another financial application?
– Has there been any changes on your Mac recently?  Any Upgrades?
– Where are you saving your main iBank Document (data) file?
– How many different accounts, categories and transactions do you have? (estimate is fine)
– What happens if you select your accounts individually and then go to Account> Download Transactions for Selected Account?
– Have you read the iBank 4 Manual? http://www.iggsoft.com/manuals/iBank_4_Manual.pdf
– Have you watched the iBank Tutorial videos? http://www.iggsoftware.com/ibank/tutorials.php
– Have you tried contacting our Live Chat Support team?   Live Chat support is available from 9:00-5:00 EST Monday-Friday.  To start a Live Chat session go to the following page on our website and click on the green “Live Chat is ON” button below number 3: http://www.iggsoftware.com/support.php 
Best regards,
John
—
John Sawyer
Technical Support Specialist
IGG Software, Inc.
www.iggsoftware.com

—
First of all, that’s not a few questions.  Secondly, it’s the most ridiculous list of questions I can imagine.  A few of these, I understand, but Have You Read The Manual?  Have you watched the tutorials?  I looked in both, there’s no chapter or video called “Crashing while importing Bank Transactions”
And then the most telling question on that list…Have you tried contacting Live Support?  In other words, don’t email us, contact live support.  My question to IGG Software, why have an email us link if you don’t want to be bothered answering questions via email?
I will say this, when I saw I had a reply email from IGG I was excited because I figured I would be able to continue with balancing my finances.  To open the email and be hit with this…wall…of questions was beyond frustrating and made me want to scrap iBank all together.
I see now Quicken has been updated to work on the current Mac system software.  Maybe it’s time to return.
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