What the heck happened to Stardock customer service

from Stardock Forums

I'm a long-time (well over a decade) customer of Stardock. I absolutely love its product suite, but have had to go through the many, many hurdles instituted by changing product registrations.

This has left me with dozens of purchases of Fences, Start(x) and other Stardock applications. I've went through both the time and monetary expenses through the years simply because I loved both the application quality and the small-outfit publisher experience of Stardock.

Fast-forward many years and for the past few years I've been roped into the subscription model of Object Desktop, which I would have abandoned with any other publisher.

I've now run into the 5-machine limitation of each Object Desktop license and had questions. Is there an avenue to contact customer support and actually speak to someone? Absolutely not. Here are the many issues I've encountered today in the hour I've wasted so far on this issue:

1. Cannot exceed the 5-machine license

2. Cannot reach customer support to add a second Object Desktop license to my existing account

3. Had to create a NEW Stardock account with a different email address. Could not take advantage of a discounted rate with existing purchases because, of course, they're tied to a different email address. Automated system does not work.

4. Received a COMPLETELY BLANK order confirmation email for this purchase from jira@stardock.atlassian.net

5. Responded to that email requesting proper order details. A Stardock ticket was opened AND IMMEDIATELY CANCELLED with no further recourse provided.

WTH happened to Stardock? It used to be a commendable story of a small company makes good?

I'm hugely disappointed with the broken automation added to replace what was once an excellent customer service organization.

Stardock should be ashamed at this level of customer support.

John

stardock software
4,561 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Hey John,

Sorry to hear of the troubles, let me try to help. We do have an avenue of contacting us, you can do so here with the link being found under the Support option at the top of the screen on this page and then click "Contacting Stardock"

The ticket you see that was opened and cancelled was because it was sent to an inbox that is not actively monitored, it should have included instructions saying something similar to that. 

Reading your thread, everything went sideways for you at step 2 - as you should have been able to purchase another Object Desktop license with the same email address for the discounted rate, did you get an error when this was occurring and if so, what did it say? 

We answer hundreds of tickets per week, we do our best but are not perfect - let me know how I can help.

Thanks,

Brad 

 

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Brad,

While it's very kind of you to attempt to assist here, and I'm sure you're not responsible for the direction Stardock has taken with customer service,  I am rightfully annoyed when an hour of my day is wasted with what should be a 2-minute phone call.

When I attempted to purchase a second Object Desktop license under my original email address, the dialog indicated an Object Desktop license already existed.

I'm not going to try to re-trace my steps for you here, but trust me when I say your customer service options are broken for all but very basic actions. If I want a phone call, I've determined I need a phone call. Automated workflow, at best, can only handle simple transactions, and Stardock is doing its customers a disservice by instituting all of these hoops.

I'll submit a request via email to have the new Object Desktop license moved over to my original email address.

No problem, my time's only valuable to me, right?

John

 

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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting BigWhiteNoise, reply 2

Brad,

While it's very kind of you to attempt to assist here, and I'm sure you're not responsible for the direction Stardock has taken with customer service,  I am rightfully annoyed when an hour of my day is wasted with what should be a 2-minute phone call.

John

 
End of BigWhiteNoise's quote

 

It is very much my responsibility, I oversee all of our software operations - so if something isn't working, then it's my responsibility to fix it.

We help hundreds of customers per week via email and that doesnt even count Steam, Reddit, or Discord, the process works but it's not perfect and while we would all love a phone number to dial, it is quite challenging to help customers as we need a lot of information to really dig into an issue...and this doesnt even consider the number of people who email us every day because they think we are Microsoft and we need to fix their email account.

We watch our data very closely as it's our best indicator if something is broken but please keep in mind we are a small team in Plymouth, Michigan - we do our best with the volume we receive but it's always a balancing game and occasionally a ticket/email/message falls through the cracks.

 

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Brad,

Well, I didn't realize your role, so it says something that you're responding to my issue yourself; kudos for that!

I would take my comments as one big data point indicating dissatisfaction with your automated customer service.

I'm well aware of the travails of dealing with the uninformed masses, but I wouldn't think that was your primary customer base. In fact, I'd think that your suite of applications is directly targeted at the power user. Balancing the desire to expand your customer base with the ability to satisfy your long-term powerusers is your charge.

As I've previously stated, I adore your products and have a long, happy history of usage, but my experience on the licensing and subscription sides of things leaves a lot to be desired, and is souring my overall opinion.

I'll see if the subscription is able to be transferred within the incident I just submitted. I'd give you the ticket number, but one wasn't provided either during ticket submission or within the confirmation email sent back to me. Sigh.

Thank you for your time and have a nice evening.

John

 

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

Brad,

I've spent waay more time on Stardock today than I'd planned, but one final comment because I realize this thread is primarily me bashing Stardock:

Apart from my displeasure with the state of affairs on the administrative side, I am very grateful that Stardock exists and continues to publish its own software.

It has long shored up the many and varied indiscretions of misguided Microsoft product managers for me, and it fills a niche that IMHO has not been filled by any other developer, large or small, over many, many years.

So, yes, I'm rooting for Stardock as I'm an OG Stardock fanboy.

John

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

Appreciate it John, will make sure your ticket gets handled today.

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello John,

I'm sorry to read you had an unpleasant experience.

I am Sean Drohan, the Product Lifecycle Manager at Stardock. I am responsible for all customer contact points (excluding sales); this includes all of Stardock Software's support. I answer directly to Brad Sams. 

Naturally, I would like to address some of your points here: 

Is there an avenue to contact customer support and actually speak to someone? Absolutely not.
End of quote

I'm not going to try to re-trace my steps for you here, but trust me when I say your customer service options are broken for all but very basic actions. If I want a phone call, I've determined I need a phone call.
End of quote

WTH happened to Stardock? It used to be a commendable story of a small company makes good?
End of quote

Stardock should be ashamed at this level of customer support.
End of quote

What is curious is that your last contact with support seemed to meet your expectations:

May 4, 2021 at 4:20 PM

Sean,

Thank you for the very prompt response. [redacted]

Thanks again!

John 

You created that ticket on May 4th, 2021 at 1:02 PM.  I personally answered it at 3:41 PM that same day.

That issue, like the one here, was an account\sales-related case.  This is the chain to create such a ticket:

"Support" (on all Stardock pages) -> "Stardock Accounts & Sales" -> "Stardock Account Help" (self-help options here) -> "Account Management" -> "If you are still having trouble, please click here to place a ticket."

This is a video of that entire process:

https://cdn.stardock.us/support/uploads/msedge_2024-10-22_10-13-01.mp4

You have stated that you have no desire to detail the steps you took that had you frustrated.  However, if you have changed your mind, I would very much like to know where this broke down in this instance - where we failed you at the support level.

If this is a case where no matter how robust the online support systems may be - that nothing short of being able to call and speak with someone here at Stardock was going to suffice - I would like to know that as well.

That all said, I will again personally answer your latest ticket. A preview of the answer; you do not need another Object Desktop subscription - you just seem to be using the wrong keys with the products you have installed. 

Again, I am sorry that your experience was poor.  I am, however, looking forward to reading how you feel we could improve. 

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

Sean,

I believe I've documented in enough detail my frustrations, and assume you should be able to track down where the process broke down.

Asking anything more of me is an unrealistic expectation of your customer. I, too, have a job and a personal life. If you're offering a consultancy role, then by all means lay out the requirements and I'm happy to set aside some time.

As it is, your example from 2021 bears little on today's case. If it was something easily addressed in an email, then great. This issue required further explanation and, I think, warranted a phone call. The choice to offer phone customer service is one that you need to decide upon, as all customer-facing organizations do.

That said, your peers are increasing turning to blocking phone access, and [gasp] even worse, turning to absolutely horrendous AI solutions.

Again, it's YOUR mandate to satisfy your customers. This is a cost equation of course.

For the time being, I will be happy if my ticket is handled properly and promptly.

Thanks for your input here!

John

Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top

As a final update here (please close this thread): the fact that both Brad and Sean have responded to my issue and complaints both here and external to this thread, give me reassurance that their customer service is alive and well, but might require a bit more patience than I generally offer!

Anyway, thank you both for considering (and not simply disregarding) my feedback, and working with me to address my original issue!

John