Stupid frustrations over The Economist

A couple of weeks back I subscribed to a 12-week trial of the Economist. So far it has been nothing but trouble. Originally I planned to subscribe for the option that I get twelve issues for 24 euros and an other 12 for 36 and a USB stick for free. Then a popup came up advertising the 12-week trial, so I ended up with the trial subscription.

I contacted them to check if I still get the free USB stick (I am kind of an impulse buyer, but I also hate when I am cheated out of a better offer). Apart from the fact that they first dressed me down for not providing a "customer reference number" that one gets after the first issue is delivered (~21 days after he has subscribed) and wanting to check my location to confirm my identity. At this point I'd like to add that the Economist sends you an automated reply for every e-mail you send them that they will answer in two business days, which is getting annoying, and moreover frustrating, as they literally wait two days to reply every time. So after waiting another two days, they issued me a reference number and said that they are sorry but can't answer me.

This turned out to be the least of my problems, as my copies are not arriving. On their website they count down my remaining issues, but I'm not receiving any. So far I have managed to extend my subscription with one week, for not having received my copy, but I'm still waiting for the two days to pass so they do something about me not receiving this weeks' issue neither (and as I have just hinted at this, in total I will have to wait an extra two days on them). I'm not confident that I would receive the next issue as well.

An other issue I raised with them is that the student rates they offer are far better than this trial offer, and me already knowing that I like the articles in the Economist, so I wanted to just switch to a student subscription by cancelling my not-yet-started trial in September and paying the student rate (with three weeks for a subscription to register in their system, this would have been an easy change; but after waiting a couple of two-days it turns out their staff is not so helpful in cases of these kind of manoeuvres).

Judging by the length of this post, I'm sure you can guess that I'm totally fed up with them. If I don't receive my copy this week, I'll just cancel the whole thing and apply for a refund of as much as is salvageable from my initial subscription fees (given their full refund policy, and their 48-hour reply cycle I am not sure its worth my money to ask for a full refund arguing that I haven't received any benefits from this subscription...).

FeedBurner Support 2

FeedBurner hasn't lost all of its friendliness, as one would be lead to believe looking at the change in the way their technical support operates. There are no more letters signed "Your Friendly Neighborhood FeedBurner Support Team" but not all is lost.

I had an issue with one of their features not working with Blogger, and I have submitted the error outlining where, how it occurs and the exact error codes Blogger returns.

What response I got from Blogger? Zilch, nada, nothing.

Whereas in the FB forum at least a so-called "Community Expert" responded to check my IQ (not in so many words), and after finding me sufficiently intelligent forwarded my error report to the FB staff, and a member of their staff responded quite quickly.

It would have spared everyone's time if the vetting process was skipped, and I would have felt better if not a "Community Expert" were the one cross-examining my error report, but a staff member from the outset (even if this member of staff is the same person as the "C. expert").

In conclusion, I believe FeedBurner has not chosen the most consumer friendly way to deal with the increasing strain on their support department, but they are still the most human branch of Google I have come into contact with through the Feedback or Contact us buttons.

FeedBurner adopting the "Google way" to deal with customers (Updated)

I use FeedBurner to analyse the traffic to my blogs. From time to time I have to contact their support department. In the past there was a contact form to fill out and a staff member would contact me personally in no more than 48 hours' time.

All this has gone since they have been acquired by Google. Now direct contact with their support team is reserved for issues involving the misuse or transfer of feeds, all other support questions are directed at their forum. To make things more complicated you have to register separately for the forum and then check back regularly whether anyone has bothered to reply to your post - usually they don't.

With further integration into Google they had transferred their forum to Google Groups (you have to manually click on a link on the forum's homepage to get there - so far you have travelled the Contact Us -> Forum -> Google Groups route without the chance to provide feedback or to ask questions). The welcoming message in their help group informs you that (emphasis added)

While this forum is intended as a place for FeedBurner users to assist one another, from time to time Google representatives, nicknamed FeedBurner Guide will post tips and clarifications.

So that is the de-evolution of friendly customer support into an impersonal corporate nightmare, the same as that of some bigger Google services. This has happened to a team that posted a photo like this on their flickr account:

[Update]: After having successfully resolved an issue in both the old and new ways of FeedBurner Support I have written a follow-up in which I shall point out that FB support is still better than Blogger support.