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Why, after a year with Adobe EchoSign, I’m taking my business elsewhere

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Re: Why, after a year with Adobe EchoSign, I’m taking my business elsewhere

#11

Post by mark-r »

Jemaclus wrote: post #2

One of the biggest pieces of advice I have for junior devs (and software engineers in general) is actually quite simple: Remove the phrase "it works for me" from your vocabulary. The rationale is equally simple: I wouldn't take the time out of my day to send a bug report if it "worked for me." The problem could be any number of things: buggy code, incorrect instructions, browser incompatibilities, race conditions. Wh…

I remember reading about a company (game company I think) that got tired of unreproducible bug reports, and added an automatic RAM test to their software. The number of bugs that could be traced to RAM faults was significant.

I wish I could remember who it was, but my Google-fu fails me today.

Edit: found it - http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/whose-bug-is-this-anyway

Re: Why, after a year with Adobe EchoSign, I’m taking my business elsewhere

#12

Post by eropple »

mreiland wrote: post #10
eropple wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your experience certainly doesn't match my experience; I've worked with brilliant QA people who were able to diagnose problems both when deviating from spec and when performance is a feature that isn't being properly met. And when someone has not been up to snuff, in almost every case I've been able to teach the people you arrogantly dismiss as "noise" and make them better able to help us all create better things thr…

QA is not the same thing as a customer submitting a bug report, and quite frankly you're an asshole for conflating the two in order to respond to the above poster.

> even from QA departments

You were saying?

Also, do note that he edited in that last graf after he posted it. It doesn't help much, though.

Re: Why, after a year with Adobe EchoSign, I’m taking my business elsewhere

#13

Post by mark-r »

mreiland wrote: post #9
Jemaclus wrote: post #2

One of the biggest pieces of advice I have for junior devs (and software engineers in general) is actually quite simple: Remove the phrase "it works for me" from your vocabulary. The rationale is equally simple: I wouldn't take the time out of my day to send a bug report if it "worked for me." The problem could be any number of things: buggy code, incorrect instructions, browser incompatibilities, race conditions. Wh…

it isn't that black and white. Many times it's simply a misunderstanding, the developer isn't actually testing the right thing. Saying "works on my machine" is the opening to a dialogue that involves "can you show me what you did?"

Sometimes it can be as simple as initiating something via keyboard vs. mouse.

Re: Why, after a year with Adobe EchoSign, I’m taking my business elsewhere

#14

Post by mak4athp »

Jemaclus wrote: post #2

One of the biggest pieces of advice I have for junior devs (and software engineers in general) is actually quite simple: Remove the phrase "it works for me" from your vocabulary. The rationale is equally simple: I wouldn't take the time out of my day to send a bug report if it "worked for me." The problem could be any number of things: buggy code, incorrect instructions, browser incompatibilities, race conditions. Wh…

If an organization is having developers triage vague bug reports directly from end users, they're already in trouble.

Not only are developers a very expensive resource, they're generally not good at doing what you describe here. Nor are they usually well set up for it as their systems/devices are often tainted with development and debugging tools.

We can't make end users deliver bug reports that are detailed and reproducible, but (whenever possible) developers should only have to worry about reports that have those qualities.

Any organization that's grown beyond a couple founding engineers needs to have a layer of QA or Customer Support that's responsible for everything that you describe. It's a layer that not only pays for itself but also keeps both users and developers happy.

Re: Why, after a year with Adobe EchoSign, I’m taking my business elsewhere

#15

Post by mak4athp »

chx wrote: post #5
Jemaclus wrote: post #2

One of the biggest pieces of advice I have for junior devs (and software engineers in general) is actually quite simple: Remove the phrase "it works for me" from your vocabulary. The rationale is equally simple: I wouldn't take the time out of my day to send a bug report if it "worked for me." The problem could be any number of things: buggy code, incorrect instructions, browser incompatibilities, race conditions. Wh…

> Was the user mistaken? 99999 out of 100000 yes. Sorry but most bug reports, even from QA departments are noise at best, nuisance at worst. And as I posted here before: I am close 40, have 15 years experience as a professional in this industry, I have seen it all and yes it gets harder for you to break through to me because I will presume you have no clue what you are doing because so many before you didn't. Sorry i…

Deciphering bad bug reports is absolutely a waste of your time as a developer, but that doesn't imply that the user is mistaken. In nearly all cases, the user is correct in sensing a bug but incorrect or inarticulate in their description of it.

It's almost always a good idea to understand what's behind the report. It's just that somebody in a different role should be doing most of that work.

Re: Why, after a year with Adobe EchoSign, I’m taking my business elsewhere

#16

Post by manigandham »

ninjastar99 wrote: post #7

Not recommended. Adobe Echosign allows NO WAY (at least no easy way) for regular users to export signed documents in a single batch. I've been a paying customer for 6 years. When I asked their tech support where this (surely obvious) feature was, they said that I must have an Enterprise account to export a batch of my own documents. For an account like mine with hundreds of signed documents in it, that would take hou…

What is your complaint about? They have a feature available but costs money which you just don't want to pay?

Counting on them to just "be nice" and do it for you anyway isn't really a valid option, nor something to base your objection on. If you don't like the service and aren't happy with the price then move on to someone else.

Re: Why, after a year with Adobe EchoSign, I’m taking my business elsewhere

#17

Post by burnout1540 »

Co-founder and CTO of HelloSign here.

Sorry to hear that OP's bug reports weren't taken seriously. Good tech support is a must for mission critical APIs.

At HelloSign we take great pride in our API and our tech support. Rather than outsource support or rely on less technical people, we have our developers directly support the API they built. So when you give our API a try, I encourage you to check in with one of our developers by visiting our public HipChat room (https://www.hipchat.com/gq4BMFKt1) or emailing them directly at apisupport@hellosign.com. And that's available to all customers no matter what pricing tier they’re on (including free).

Take a look at our API documentation here: https://www.hellosign.com/api/documentation

We’ve had a lot of API customers switch over to us from EchoSign’s API due to reliability issues. I have a lot of respect for EchoSign and their original CEO Jason Lemkin, but I do think the API was an afterthought for them. At HelloSign we think it’s the future and are committed to having the best-in-class API.

I also wanted to touch on your point about wanting to work with "a company with a soul". This is something I also look at when making buying decisions. I’ve found a company's Glassdoor reviews to be an effective barometer of how well a company treats its employees and, by extension, how its employees treat the customers. That’s one (imperfect) way to measure "soul".

Happy to answer any questions anyone on HN might have.

Re: Why, after a year with Adobe EchoSign, I’m taking my business elsewhere

#18

Post by adekok »

FTA:

> ... the solution is to reinvent Adobe: to change the system from within. If Customer Success could talk directly to Product Engineering, then the bugs would get fixed, and the volume of complaints would go down, making everyone’s lives easier.

That process is enormously beneficial. I run an open source project, and spend a good chunk of my day answering low-level tech support questions. These are often "where is the ANY key". But a high percentage of them are people with real issues. I listen, fix the issues, and give feedback.

The result is enormous customer satisfaction. They get responses (and fixes) in 15 minutes. Their previous commercial solution would be 6 months, if they were lucky.

Shortening the feedback loop is a well-known engineering principle. But apparently not known enough in software companies. For systems with negative feedback, low latency is very positive.

More companies should have engineers deal with customer issues.

Re: Why, after a year with Adobe EchoSign, I’m taking my business elsewhere

#19

Post by dublinben »

adekok wrote: post #18

FTA: > ... the solution is to reinvent Adobe: to change the system from within. If Customer Success could talk directly to Product Engineering, then the bugs would get fixed, and the volume of complaints would go down, making everyone’s lives easier. That process is enormously beneficial. I run an open source project, and spend a good chunk of my day answering low-level tech support questions. These are often "where…

This is a perfect example of why the open source programming model (licensing concerns aside) is superior to closed source when it comes to any mission critical program. You cannot let your entire business rely on a single company's buggy software.

Re: Why, after a year with Adobe EchoSign, I’m taking my business elsewhere

#20

Post by mreiland »

eropple wrote: post #12
mreiland wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

QA is not the same thing as a customer submitting a bug report, and quite frankly you're an asshole for conflating the two in order to respond to the above poster.

> even from QA departments You were saying? Also, do note that he edited in that last graf after he posted it. It doesn't help much, though.

I was saying you're an asshole for conflating the two.

Did I misspeak?

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