Purchasing my Avid upgrade through the Avid Store was a frustrating experience--not the actual software upgrade, but the purchasing process itself.  It took multiple tries on the site to get it to take my credit card.  The site kept locking up.   When I was finally able to make the purchase, I received two invoices from Avid for different amounts, and of course was charged the higher amount.   Customer support was non-existent.  There was no phone number to call when purchasing--only a support request form. 

It took several days to get a response from the online help request.   When Avid Customer support finally responded they "closed" my case without resolving it.   I replied back to Avid Customer support.  In response, I receive a standard boilerplate email that stated.  "Our goal is to answer the question as fast and as accurately as possible... Your email has not been accepted."  

Apparently, Avid's contradictory response was written with a completely straight face by someone with no sense of irony... 

 

Terry Snyder:

Apparently, Avid's contradictory response was written with a completely straight face by someone with no sense of irony... 

 

Lost in translation perhaps?  Wow.

 

Terry

Yes there were issues with the Store and purchasing which caused us to NOT remove the upgrade offers on 12.31.14.  Videoguys.com is also selling still.  While I can't defend the store, as it should have been bullet proof to take the mad rush at the end of the year - it wasnt.  Then to boot, there were some issues with the Master Account page and some people still can not redeem a support/upgrade plan they bought.

The Customer Experience needs to be closely scrutinized by folks like Aidas, Kate and myself as we "think" like you and can identify the speed bumps in our processes that trip people up... and make sure they are resolved PRIOR to a date and not a reactive measure AFTER the fact. 

I will make sure my boss sees this as well as the store manager so he can take into account your experiences for the future.

As for support....  if you go to this link off the home page > support > contact

http://www.avid.com/US/support/contact/index.html

Then select the video / broadcast square in the middle which brings you too:

http://www.avid.com/US/Support/Contact/video-support.html

you can then expand the + symbol next to Contact and see this  

Video Annual Contract Support (Toll Free / Local)

Americas	Europe	Asia
Support: 1-800-800-2843 / +1 978-275-2476 Sales: 1-800-949-2843 / +1 978-275-2480	United Kingdom: 44 1753 650 660 Germany: 49 180 132 4009 France: 33 141 494 040 Spain: 34 917 628 625 Finland: 35 892 290 1690 Sweden: 46 844 255 90 Norway: 47 81522843 Netherlands: 31 357 723 561 Denmark: 45 39 55 99 98 Belgium:  32 2709 2121 Middle East: 971 8002843 If Country is not listed, dial: 44 1753 650 660	Singapore: 65 3158 2539 China: 852 3071 3498 Hong Kong: 852 30775 552 South Korea: 822 3483 3226 Australia: 612 8228 1456

You can send an email as well. email me please where your case stands ( case # helps) so I can get this resolved and use this as a test case for support and how they need to improve. Apologies Terry...... that this happend at all. Marianna 

Hi Marianna,

I did not contact you because I figured you were busy trying to get everyone upgraded under the deadline...and because this should have been such a simple problem not requiring intervention at your level.   I have always appreciated your efforts on behalf of forum members.   Before the store manager takes this into account for the future, I hope he/she will contact me, as my issue still has not been explained or resolved.   The ridiculous form letter in response was good for a laugh, if not a solution.

Terry

Maybe it also should have been possible to buy the upgrade somewhat earlier, I recommended my Swedish friends to have it all finished well before christmas and most followed that advice.

After all, we have known about this update now for , is it 9 months, at least eveyone visiting these boards rather frequently.

Have to say that I was somewhat surprised that so many waited for so long.

 

Terry Snyder:

Hi Marianna,

I did not contact you because I figured you were busy trying to get everyone upgraded under the deadline...and because this should have been such a simple problem not requiring intervention at your level.   I have always appreciated your efforts on behalf of forum members.   Before the store manager takes this into account for the future, I hope he/she will contact me, as my issue still has not been explained or resolved.   The ridiculous form letter in response was good for a laugh, if not a solution.

Terry

Perfectly fair request and one that I have escalated. I will keep you posted when I hear back but dont be surprised if you receive a call from an interested party ( besides me ).

:)

Happy new year.

Marianna 

 

mjolnarn:

After all, we have known about this update now for , is it 9 months, at least eveyone visiting these boards rather frequently.

Have to say that I was somewhat surprised that so many waited for so long.

Tomas....  

True that a lot of folks waited BUT our processes and our web store should be robust enough to handle this if we put a date in play.  Thats our issue and one that needs to be coreected.

In a perfect world I would have loved that everyone order a month prior to the deadlne and that everyone didnt have any issues with system ID validation, master account address validation, updater rile download issues.... but that didnt happen.

Combine that with the store having some issues and the last few weeks have not been our finiest hour.  But we hav the players involved who own these processees and they are very interested in making it much better for the customer.

Marianna

 

Hi MM , you can also look at this from the positive side, the fact that you didn´t have enough resources at Avid must mean that you also got a lot more users that upgraded than you had expected

Hi Marianna! Happy new year!

As you know, Bill has been trying to upgrade our systems since mid December.  We are grateful that the deadline has been extended so that VideoGuys can get us going.  Part of our problem is that we purchased our systems and upgrades from 3rd party vendors, which prevented our systems from showing up in our master account. My question is this:  Will this be any different now, as VideoGuys is also a 3rd party vendor? Will we be able to upgrade "by ourselves" from here on out, without having to call out the calvary to come to the rescue?

Thanks for everything, and have a sparkling day!

Andy

mjolnarn:

Have to say that I was somewhat surprised that so many waited for so long.

For those of us who didn't need to upgrade our system right away but wanted to make sure we locked in our perpetual license, it made sense to wait as long as possible so we would not have to pay again until the end of next year.

A case of really poor scheduling. 

Holiday time for many.

Last minute release of a promised update.

Folks looking to streach their pepetual licences.

A new licencing scheme, and some changes in the installation process.

Support personel, Ms M in particuliar deserve a bonus and time off when these issues are put behind.

Marianna:

Perfectly fair request and one that I have escalated. I will keep you posted when I hear back but dont be surprised if you receive a call from an interested party

Marianna,

I still have not been contacted by anyone from the Avid store to resolve my billing issue, but today I received a second boiler plate email telling me my case has again been closed.  As in the first case, when I replied to say it was not closed or the issue even addressed, I got the same response telling me my email has not been accepted.  

I am a Film Student trying to purchase AVID Media Composer Software (on and off since 2015). Yet the website has issues and after a day of dealing with it; it is easier to edit with something else. Everytime I try purchasing the software the Website just loads and loads.  I have tried contacting customer support. They honestly have no idea how to sell me the product. I am honestly shocked, that doesn't make sense. How can you have a product that is used throughout the industry that is near impossible to buy and customer service cannot sell me?

I have to go show my teacher all of the emails and say I really cannot buy this software and they will not sell it to me. It is going to be really hard to believe that I did not complete my homework because AVID refuses to sell me the software. Before I completely give up is there something else I can do. I have been dealing with this problem for years and I just edit in Adobe and have to spend hours reloading everything at school into AVID Media Composer. This is absurd because the software works fine on my computer but the trial version will run out days before the project is completely filmed. I will spend more time trying to buy your software then editing my assignment. It is not my credit card because I have a working copy of Pro Tools. There were no problems purchasing that one. 

Does this make sense to you? You verified my student verification instantly almost but cannot sell me the program or let me purchase through a person (who works for AVID). The third party outlets are charging me a two-year price up front. I am like come on man. If it doesn't work there is no refund. That is not fair! Customer Service just closed the ticket without solving the problems and from this post, it looks like they do it often. This is wrong! I need to pass this class to graduate school. I plan to show this to the school an urge them to change their policy (because you will not let me buy the software)! That should not be an issue! How does the company survive?

Hi Jamal Gary and welcome to the forums. Did You try shopping with a different internet browser? Don't know where You are located, but You should contact Avid Sales rather than Customer Service, or an Avid reseller. Hurry up there was a 20% off black friday offer going on, You may still be able to catch that! ;-)

Jamal Gary:

I am a Film Student trying to purchase AVID Media Composer Software

Hi Jamal,

Send an email to Marianna Montague ([email protected]) and Raff Condalor ([email protected]).  They are Avid's customer advocates, and can help you.