I ran into a bug
So I clicked on “help”, then “submit feedback.” The message there said
Please Note:
If you are having a problem with Quicken and need to contact our customer support team, please contact us here.
Submitting your feedback below will NOT go to the support team and you may not be contacted to resolve your problem.
So I clicked and then chose “chat.”
Below is an exact copy of a chat I had with Quicken this week, regarding a bug in Quicken 2011. In it you will find two treasures:
1. The exact nature of the bug
2. The abysmal nature of their customer support
Hopefully someone from Quicken will find this blog, and will send the bug report to their programmers, whom I’m sure would be all too happy to get my thorough report. It should be easy for them to fix. They just overlooked their code path in their regression testing. Until Quicken stops forcing users to follow only one path to report a bug, I will use my blog to report their bugs.
It’s too bad, because it’s a product that Quicken’s technical people can be proud of, but the company hasn’t gotten its act together yet on customer services, especially good samaritans who wish only to help their developers.
Here is the chat:
Mohd. Aqil: Hi, my name is Mohd. Aqil. Thank you for contacting Quicken, please allow me a moment to read your question.
Mohd. Aqil: Hi Linda, how are you?
Linda: Here are the steps to reproduce the error:
Linda: 1. Edit Account Details
Linda: 2. Change the “account intent” from home to business (in my case, I changed it on two accounts)
Linda: 3. Then click on customize OR choose “account list” from the menu
Linda: 4. Make any change to the order of accounts
Linda: 5. You will see that the two changed accounts revert back to their original category
Linda: I have one more note for you to pass along to your programmers which may help them:
Linda: I looked into the bug, and saw that the “account intent” function does not result in a changed “account intent” when you view the changed accounts in the “Account List.”
Linda: They will want to know that, as it could cut down on their fix time.
Mohd. Aqil: Linda, I am pleased to inform you that you can provide the feedback and suggestions under the Help menu > Submit Feedback on Quicken
Mohd. Aqil: Your suggestions and feedback directly goes to the product development team
Linda Moran: Well I’m not pleased because I just took the time to tell you. Now you are going to direct me to do yet another favor for Quicken? A good customer service department would send this information to the product development team.
Mohd. Aqil: I can understand your concerns but we don’t have any direct communication with the PD team.
Linda: Please escalate a copy of this chat up the chain. This is horrendous treatment of customers who want to only help your company. Thank you.
Mohd. Aqil: I appreciate your co operations with us. I am pleased to inform you that you can also contact us on phone support on Monday.
Mohd. Aqil: The link to submit the call back request is: www.quickendirect.com/phone
Voice support is available from 5 AM to 5 PM PST, Monday to Friday.
Linda: You’re joking. I’m supposed to poke yet another hole in my day, and I have to schedule it for when it’s convenient for Quicken? I’m speechless. Instead, I will blog this chat. Thank you.
Update:
This customer service issue has changed from egregious to hilarious. Why? Because I decided to see where Mohd. Aqil was sending me. It was to back where I had started:
If you are having a problem with Quicken and need to contact our customer support team, please contact us here.
And where is here? To the chat function, which is where I went in the first place.
Apparently, Quicken does not view a bug as a problem.
When will the Quicken company care about its customers’ time? When it hurts their bottom line, which is imminent, as I hear they have some new, serious, competition.
I, for one, want to stick with Quicken. But they need to “get with the program.” Soon.
