Be Advised: Maybe not the WORST customer support…

  • Updated: See final Update in comments. They never actually resolved my issue (in time), but since they did step up on support I went from 1 star to 3.

    PLEASE CLICK THE TITLE (LINK) TO READ THIS MESSAGE PROPERLY FORMATTED. – I must say, I am simply STUNNED by the sheer audacity of this company. This is simply the WORST customer support I have EVER seen from a plugin company. EVER. We’ve placed several tickets. They emailed us some some “canned” bs and then promise to resolve our issues within 2 or 3 business days. But that is NOT what they do …AT ALL. Consider…

    1.) We posted a support request -as of this writing, a full WEEK ago- on Dec 8, 2020 @ 12:22pm (ticket #82628).

    2.) On Dec 8, 2020 at 2:50 PM we received a “reply” from Rick Alday asking us if we enabled this or that (we had). We replied THAT SAME DAY (roughly 4 hours later at 6:55 PM) and even provided more information on the bug.

    3.) We never heard from Rick Alday again.

    4.) Two days later (Dec 10, 2020 at 9:01 AM EST), the Network Administrator for the (non-profit) followed up inquiring about the lack of support. “I am inquiring as to why there has been no response to ticket #82628.”

    5.) A few hours later (Dec 10, 2020, 7:19 PM EST), we received a response from the Ben Meredith who identified himself as “Head of Support”. Ben then stated the following: “I’m the Head of Support here, and Rick looped me in on the issues you are having with GiveWP on your site. I’ve reviewed the ticket thoroughly, and we can get you a quick resolution on this.” He then went on to ask us to create a staging environment where they could login and see the issue(s) for themselves, WHICH WE DID.

    6.) On the NEXT DAY (Fri, Dec 11, 12:30 PM ), we responded to Ben that we had prepared a staging site for him to access and were eagerly awaiting his review and response.

    7.) Then we heard NOTHING from Ben (the HEAD of customer support). It’s now been a week since we posted our original support request and we have still heard N-O-T-H-I-N-G! Not from the “Head” of support or from anyone.

    8.) Out of sheer frustration, we even sent a another correspondence TO BEN indicating our dissatisfaction with the lack of support and got –you guessed it– no response. Not from Ben, not from anyone.

    So, we paid full boat for their top-tier package, we have nothing to show for it. We have received ZERO support and we are now forced to investigate our “options” for dealing with a company so completely callous to the needs of its own customers.

    In conclusion, It is insane that we have to go to this level. I never enjoy posting negative reviews. It really sucks. But this company’s support is SO BAD that I must consider it a PUBLIC SERVICE to the WordPress community to make you aware of our experience. So you, dear buyer, LEARN FROM OUR EXPERIENCE!

    Truly, we should have taken the previous complaints of terrible support more seriously (see here, here and here (this guy said he waited WEEKS for a reply …WEEKS!?!).

    There will be more coming soon. I am writing a review for a major blog.

    • This topic was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by Preston.
    • This topic was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by Preston.
    • This topic was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by Preston.
    • This topic was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by Preston.
    • This topic was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by Preston.
    • This topic was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by Preston.
Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Plugin Contributor Ben Meredith

    (@benmeredithgmailcom)

    Hey Preston,

    I can’t dispute any of the facts here. I and my team dropped the ball on this ticket.

    I did just reply with good news on the ticket. I was able to replicate a problem, and what happened on your site was the result of a missing database table. The steps I provided in the email should get you and your client back up and running. If you choose to remain with GiveWP, I’ll work very hard to earn back your trust.

    If you and the client decide to go elsewhere I’ll understand, and even though it is well outside of our 30-day refund period, I’ll happily refund your payment in full. Please follow up on the ticket.

    The service you received from our company is not representative of how we run our business, and I apologize.

    Thread Starter Preston

    (@pkdsleeper)

    Ben, I’m sorry it had to come to THIS before we received any of the services you CLAIM to provide. That said, we responded to your reply. Unfortunately, NONE of what we mentioned (as problems) were addressed or resolved. The problems remain.

    We await your prompt reply.

    Thread Starter Preston

    (@pkdsleeper)

    Update: We’ve met personally with the COO, Matt Cromwell and I am happy to report that a dialog has ensued. Further, after a heartfelt apology (which we humbly accepted), they took our criticisms positively (many do not demonstrate this level of maturity) and we BOTH now consider this a learning opportunity.

    The issues I reported -while critical- are starting to look like they may be edge cases. They are difficult (but not impossible) to reproduce. The developers (esp. Ben) are working with me, making recommendations and providing clear communication as we sort this out. While the problem is not yet resolved, I now feel comfortable that -with the strong communication we are receiving- a solution will emerge. I am grateful to Matt Cromwell for immediately reaching out to us. I am also grateful to Ben for his continued work on resolving this issue.

    …more news as it happens.

    Preston

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by Preston.
    Thread Starter Preston

    (@pkdsleeper)

    Update: After the initial lack of support (and after I posted a message here) they absolutely got busy trying to resolve the issues we had. So I plan to update the post to suggest that support did get it together.

    So in trying to fix our issues they suggested it was our server (it wasn’t, was happening on 3 different servers: Digital Ocean, SiteGround and Local), they suggested it might be the fact that we were using an “old MyISAM DB Engine” (we weren’t, we were using InnoDB), they said it might be our cache (we disabled all caching everywhere, still broke).

    Eventually, they wound up modifying their plugin code (and rolled out an update) and suggested that that would fix the problem. But unfortunately by that time (several weeks) and after multiple attempts to solve my problem, the client lost all confidence in the plugin and made us uninstall it.

    So did they (eventually) come around, support-wise? Yes. Absolutely. Did it help us? Not really. Not in this case.

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by Preston.
Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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