I completed an Autodesk customer experience survey this morning. I vented a bit and then figured I could cut and paste my reply to Autodesk here. Perhaps someone else has had similar problems and may be comforted by the fact they are not the only one receiving such lousy service. Funnily enough the most I hear from them is in the last month or two before I need to renew my license. I have already had 3 emails in the past week as there is about 60 days left on my current subscription. My reply to the two comment sections of their questionnaire is below...
Autocad Price is Excessive and Support Poor- My Complaint to Autodesk
Promises Promises and no delivery!!!! Also expensive at over $1000 a year just for subscription without buying the product. Poor support for any tricky problems and I only need support for tricky problems. I could not load my upgrade (never has been easy but this was worse than usual). There is usually a problem loading my upgrades (almost the only support I ever need), so I quite often do not load them, they just sit unopened as very expensive paperweights. My last support question I answered myself by the internet. It was a common problem and my Autodesk support person could not solve it, yet there were forums where the exact thing had happened to others. I still have one support request unsolved for over 600 days. I wasted about a full working week trying to resolve that one. I should be billing you for my time!!!(publishtoweb command only works with Internet Explorer, other browsers see it as code not drawings). I was finally told perhaps the development team could include the fix in the next (2012) version. It did not happen. I am now telling everyone how my experience with Autodesk is exceptionally bad and now have started to write a blog on transitioning my practice from Autocad to Archicad... yes my Autodesk experience has resolved me to not go to Revit.
I have contracted to almost every major practice in Adelaide over the past 15 years and have previously always told others Autocad was a necessary tool. I no longer believe this, and are now telling others. Because of my large network that is a lot of bad PR. I am however being unbiased in my blog on the changeover to Graphisoft so perhaps they will not fare well either, that remains to be seen. I predict that you are going to lose a lot of business because of your recent poor service to what had previously been a very loyal customer. I really do not see a very bright future for your company if it continues to be run this way.
I would be prepared to pay about a third of what I do now and that is what your product is really worth in the current market. If your price was lower you may also get more paying users and make more profits. For every 10 people I know using Autocad, about one has a legal copy. Not many can afford the large sum a license costs here in Australia, so you are losing trade. I even know a few Architects that have transitioned to using Google Sketchup (free) as their main documenting tool. An extra hundred dollars or so for an upgraded license and you get all the extras you need to produce drawings. My recommendation is drop your price or you will go out of business.
It will be interesting to see if I get a reply from Autodesk. I have complained before, but had just accepted that there was nothing I could do about the situation due to the hours I have invested in learning their product. I am small fish to them and they have not worried about keeping me happy. With the advent of BIM superseding CAD I now have a chance to shed the costly Autodesk noose around my neck. My affair with Autocad is almost over and like most jilted lovers I am bitter. I now love SKETCHUP and like most converts heartily recommend it to everyone. It works brilliantly, was easy to learn, costs nothing and has great newsletters and tutorials. I feel more involved than I ever did with Autodesk. I will make my mind up about Archicad over the next few months, but Graphisoft will have their work cut out for them to come out in front of the Sketchup team!
