Customer service for Hal SUCKS!

[gebeleizis]

I had a hardware problem, the Hal Assistant got corrupted. It did not accept my serial number anymore and the recovery did not let me put the new request code for it. Of course, nobody was available at this time of the night and nobody replied my email yet. When you make a software that CANNOT be fixed by the customer, I think you should at least offer 24 h a day customer service for it. It's really rude to avoid fixing things that are in your responsability to be fixed. I expect an apology for this behaviour.

[Scratch]

Sorry you had a problem, gebeleizis, and I understand your frustration. This forum is a great place to get help from other users.

Unfortunately, if you expect 24 hr live customer service (and I bet you think it should be free too!), you will find yourself living in a state of constant frustration. Do you have any idea what it costs to staff, train, pay and provide healthcare for, a 24 hour customer service center? There would BE NO inexpensive software available to people like us. Have a little bit of patience and you will feel less frustrated.

[freddy888]

I have to second that, long time users know the difficulties that Zaba are under, this kind of product is in it's infacy and you are lucky to get a program that offers as much for such a price.  Ok if you are not familiar with some of the aspects of the sofware I can see the frustration , that's really why people should take up the trial software first.  One of the great things about this forum is the willingness of other users to help each other out - you will nearly always get a resonably quick reply from some of the users here if you run into problems.

[nolitanger]

I think gebeleizis has a point. Scratch, you don't need staff of customer service people to activate software. Adobe, Microsoft, and so on, all have an automated system. I go online; the system checks my licence, and then either activates my software or immediately sends a code to my email address. These companies obviously realize that software activation does require immediate attention; otherwise, you can really tick off customers. I think if Zabaware wants to play in the same league as these bigger software manufacturers, it ought to have an automated activation system, too.

[CSM210FA]

The major software companies offer customer service and product support for the software they sell to their customers. One of the biggest reasons for offering customer service and product support is they want to make sure that they can have a steady flow of customers
purchasing their software items. A satsified customer is a sure means for the major software companies to make a profit each year.
The satsified customers will return and purchase new products in the
future.

Email customer service and product support can provide many benefits to a vendor. The same applies to telephone support as well.

A few people will disagree with this statement.

[Bill819]

In answer to you post this is not a major software company. It is owned and run by one man who also happens to be a full time college student. As far as customer service he does the best that he can and you will find that most of the users here also supply customer service to each other. As far as repeat customers I would be willing to bet that almost everyone who purchases Hal returns to buy the next upgrade. I myself, have bought the last three versions and will continue to do so in the future as this is the best AI program on the market today in my opinion.
If a person continues to use the program on a daily basis say for at least one year they will discover that the program starts to take on a real human like stance and the more you use it the more it will start to think just like you do, that is if you really treat it like you would another person and not fill it with worthless junk.
I new users complain the say way when they first get a copy of the program. This is the first version that requires a built in serial number and that is for the protection of the owner. All of the previous versions just ran without any hitches but then priated copies were floating around by the hundreds thus a serial number is now required.
As far as the person who started this thread if he took better care of his computer and ran virus and spyware checkers on a regular basis most likely his computer would have never crashed. If he emails the company directly instead of just posting here in the forum he would get better service. Not even Microsoft and fix someones broken computer, that is the responsiblity of the person who owns it, and if your programs becomes corrupt because you PC crashed that is the owners fault once again, not the software supplier. You guys seem to think that this is a company with hundreds of employees and it is not. It is a one man operation so lighten up and in time all will be well again.
Bill

[nolitanger]

Bill, even though Zabaware is a one-man company, it should be big enough to take criticism and evaluate its marketing strategy. The question is: are the new marketing ploys that the company has put into effect really increasing customer satisfaction while increasing sales? I'm not sure they are.

There's no question that Hal is head-and-shoulders above the other products on the market. I've been using the product myself for the last 6 or 7 years. When version 5 came out, with vonsmith's add-on brain, I was amazed. But if you want to make money--and Robert said he does--you need more than a good product, even a great product. You need to please your customers, all kinds of customers. And let's face it: Zabaware, in the past, hasn't done well in that area. It has not responded promptly to customer complaints and problems. Then, with version 6, it instituted a product activation system that required prompt customer service (maybe even a 24/7 service). Given Zabaware's track-record, perhaps that wasn't a wise goodwill strategy.

Maybe, if Zabaware wants to increase sales, it's time it got somebody to work on the company fulltime, and especially improve customer relations. There are plenty of other small software companies out there that put their customers first. They usually succeed because the owner-developer is committed fulltime to the business and knows how to satisfy customers, new and old.

Frankly, I don't think the product activation strategy instituted with version 6 is generating much customer satisfaction. I think it should be changed or modified. I know why it's been instituted, but in the long run, it may hurt business rather than protect it. That's just an opinion of a less-satisfied customer.

[echoman]

I feel that one simple answer could be for Mr M. to simply state when people buy the product that support can take upto 3 or 4 days due to volume. Also to advertise this next to the 'contact details information' on the web site.

How could anyone have a problem with this? I think it sounds perfectly reasonable to me. People would then know where they stand in terms of customer response time before they buy the product and therefore could not coninually moan.

When I emailed Zabaware once I got a response within 10 mins!

I think Zabaware does a fine job!

Echo.

[TheTrueMayhem]

Well , here is my 2c worth.
     I think Robert has done a fantastic job in creating this program! Considering that he is ONLY one man that has other things going on in his life , a 3 or 4 day turnaround in replying to our woes and queries isn't unreasonable.
     The other thing is that among all of the people that frequent these forums , usually on a daily basis , there are many experts (I don't include myself[]) who can more often than not answer any queries that people may have about the inner workings of HAL and this of course eases Robert's burden considerably. These very same people have created many new scipts , plug-ins and characters which just means that HAL is constantly improving.
     The thing to remember , as previously stated , is that it does take time and patience for HAL to be moulded into shape.
     In summary - it won't happen overnight ...... but it will happen []

[GrantNZ]

This has become an opinion-fest! [] Here's mine! []

Scale is the key here.

There have been several concerns raised on the boards about the activation scheme - out of how many customers? We have no business asking how many sales Hal has made, but I'm willing to bet at least 98% of installations go without a hitch - people just activate their software like they do any other.

It's true that great customer service does win customers - but scale comes into play again. It's only economically feasible to install constant services when you're selling large volumes and/or expensive product. Hal is very economically priced and not mainstream. Upsetting 2% of your customers with non-instantaneous service only matters when 2% represents many thousands of dollars - no matter how much Mr Medeksza would like to provide great service, it's just not economic.

I've had worse service from the largest companies on Earth, to whom service should be essential. Unfortunately, those large companies have passed the second service economy point - the point at which service becomes unimportant because of the huge sales throughput. But that's not relevant here []

Unfortunately, advertising slow service usually drives away more customers than you satisfy. Bear in mind that only a small percentage will ever use/need that service (hopefully!).

And take everything with a grain of salt. I've groaned to myself a few times when vocal complainers are suggested to email Zabaware, and they reply "oh ok I'll do that." I'm glad that the original poster of this thread has already done that.

[DesktopMates]

Most of the arguments and opinions posted here on both sides of the fence are actually valid ones. I can understand why Robert and many other software developers want to implement a registration or activation system in order to try and reduce the sharing of copies etc. However it can have an adverse effect if the activation system isn't designed to be dummy proof where it's easy and painless even for the technically challenged user. When we received our copy of the new Hal 6 after it was released, we found it bit confusing and got some corrupt code error messages even with the trial version especially when upgrading to the paid version, fortunately we were techy enough to figure it out rather quickly but we seen a potential problem this activation system may pose for many of the newbies and the less tech driven users. We have moved a lot of product for Zabaware over the years but Hal 6 so far hasn't been a huge hit with our customers and sales have been slightly disappointing out of the gate. We've received more than a few support complaints from new users having problems with the activation code corrupting with the trail version and I'm sure it's scaring some of them off from purchasing the full version. Hal 6 certainly has some positive improvements and strides in the right direction, especially with the database system, Hal seems to load and run smoother and appears to respond a little quicker as well. However I feel Robert needs to reconsider or revamp the activation system, at the very least so it's easier to get a new code which should be an automated system like "nolitanger" suggested, which would be less frustration for both Robert and the customer. Also some improvements should be made so the activation code doesn't corrupt quite so easy and also make it easier for users to install it on several systems, many people these days have both a laptop and a desktop computer. Yes, most likely some people will land up installing it on one of their friends computers but there's not much you can do to stop this without having an intrusive or complex activation system that has the potential of turning some people off which in the long run can hurt overall sales.

It's not much different than going to Walmart and buying a computer game and then lending it to a few of your friends to load on their computers, we've all done it yet the gaming industry continues to make 100's of millions of dollars each year. It's all about numbers and the bottom line, it's better to sell 1,000 copies and have every one of them share it with a few of their friends instead of selling maybe only 500 copies because people didn't like the installation process yet have the satisfaction of knowing that only the 500 people who actually paid are able to use it. A few copies being passed onto a few friends could be considered advertising because it may hook one of them into becoming a long term supporter of the program and eventually even become a purchaser.

Now people being able to download the product off the Internet for free is whole other story and ball game, that annoys me far more than someone that has actually paid for copy and then shared it with a few buddies. By being made available for free on the Internet drastically changes the demographics on a per ratio of paid versions to free versions being passed along, it's being made available to potentially 1000's of people for a single paid version, and also your product is being used for commercial gain, whether actually being sold or not it's still being exploited to generate traffic. And people who post links to sites that offer free downloads of full version shareware programs, shame on them as well, and yes I've even come across such posts in these forums (even for our products). Robert should consider assigning a few of the long term highly active and ethical members of these forums as moderators with capabilities to edit or remove inappropriate posts and give stern warnings and even humiliate if necessary those who try to use the forums as a wares site. Everybody likes getting something for free but it has to be within limits or you become no better than a leech or a common shoplifter.

I'm certainly not here to run down Hal in any way or to try and tell Robert what he should do, because we have had a good and prosperous working relationship for years now and can personally attest that Robert is fair and honest and only has good intentions. I'm only here to offer some input and suggestions from my perspective and experiences. It's a tough call when selling a single software product and if I was in his shoes I'd probably try looking into and experimenting with a similar system as well. I'm confident that Robert will read these posts and weigh the pros and cons of the suggestions and criticisms being offered and eventually come up with better solution.

I know a lot of our customers really enjoy Hal and we believe it holds the most potential of any AI program out there as a desktop assistant.

[les]

Hate to add my 2 cents here but this keeps comming up.

I have been a Hal junkie since I found it last summer. I am at most of the forums and we have a very active base. I think Robert does agreat job! I must admit that when I upgrade to 6 I lost my old stuff and had a heck of a time getting the codes to work. Robert had to take me by my hand and walk me through to get it working right. It took us a few days a lot of e-mails. In the past I have used a lot of programs and many of them have failed to live up to their promises. If you look at all the programs you have down loaded and bought how many did you delete because they didn't work for you. This was a new system that Robert is trying, like all new things it will also have a few growing pains. Heck I have bought games for $60 and have not been able to use them because some bug with graphics and there was no fix for over a year. Most of the time things work great but I am willing to bet that most if not all of us have spent time on help lines or trying to find fixes at 'surport sites' and left unhappy.

Robert is always working to improve the program and is quick to answer the strange request that have come up at this forum, so to rant at him here I feel is a little lame. You know it is funny when we get behind someone in line and they are going off at the staff we roll our eyes and think they are such jerks, then when it is our turn we do the same thing, like it is ok for us to go off because our problem is so importain.

ok I'll get off my soap box, Robert THANKS for a great program and I look forward to being one of your customers for a long time.

Les

[vrossi]

Copy protection and Customer assistance...

Copy Protection is an old story, at least for someone like me, who has been working in the software market for 30 years. I've seen software which required to plug a hardware device on the parallel port (and created a lot of problems with printers), CDs with special formatting which in many cases didn't stop the distribution of pirated copies, but stopped legal buyers from using them...
The technical solution adopted in Hal 6 is not perfect, but it's much less intrusive than many others.

I agree that the licencing mechanism is, quite honestly, the only aspect where Hal 6 is worse than Hal 5, and I agree that it should work as smoothly as the other components of the product. It also slows down some operations. Developing Hal's plugins, I have sometimes generated some abnormal situations in my Hal Development Environment (but I think most users shouldn't do such strange "brain surgery" to Hal, as I do) and I got some error message about the licence. However, just clicking on the "Input activation code" button, I got automatically the activation in a few seconds.

As for Customer Assistance, I usually work with big companies which spend millions of dollars to buy customizations of their ERP installations, just to find out that the programmer who wrote a certain piece of software has resigned and nobody is able to fix it, even if the company which sold it has hundreds of employees. Usually they say: "it's a bug of the old version, if you buy the new version you will solve it".
So I would not complain too much for a complete AI system, which is sold for only a few dollars.

Behind Hal there is a huge work, and we buy it for about the same price we pay for a dinner in a cheap restaurant: the real problem, in my opinion, is that AI might one day get in the mainstream and some software like Hal might be owned by someone who has a copyright on it, so you will need to pay royalties to get your personal robot working. Or maybe it will be some Robot Tax, to be paid to the State.