albertop9

Here's the outcome.

Hello everybody!

As you probably experienced before me, DreamPlan's features are heavily limited in its free version (contrary to what its marketing conveys and even states) so, like anyone else, I could not test the program properly without buying a license key. 

«NCH Software offers a no-nonsense 30-day money back policy», so fair enough… (actually pretty good, right!?) …I bought my license. - Only to quickly find out that the program's advanced tools are inaccessible (!) on my still supported computer; a huge bug (at least for me) I reported a week ago in this topic.

I must also mention that I haven't received any answer whatsoever as to: 
- another issue I reported directly to tech support six days ago: the fact I cannot login to this forum via the Safari browser either on my Mac not on the latest iOS (I can via Google Chrome but it's a crippling memory hog I avoid if possible); and
- how to attach screenshots in here.

Anyways… Five days ago I did get an answer about my main problem (hurraaah!) 

No… Not hurrah. Because it was so lousy in every aspect, it looked like a prank! - But it wasn’t. It was a real tech support response to a customer who could not fully use a product he’d paid for days ago because it was seriously faulty. It was rightfully outrageous.

Since I (we?) cannot attach screenshots, I'm pasting that email below (and here's the shot for the doubters) for everyone to see what I mean, and to maybe get some manager in NCH feel ashamed enough to do something and straighten up their act - for dignity, their customers' good, and their company's.

Quote

 

Hallo ,

Wir haben unten einen Antwortentwurf auf Ihre E-Mail. Diese Antwort wurde maschinell übersetzt, damit Sie sofort die Antwort von unserem englischen Mitarbeiter im Technischen Support erhalten. Wenn die maschinelle Übersetzung nicht ausreichend ist, klicken Sie bitte hier https://run.brisksupport.com/replyautotranslatedecline?a=59547ea43b95eee6a1f84fad9d3620df5bd71f21&t=ffpf900001&m=6ksf900001 und unsere deutschsprachigen Support-Mitarbeiter werden Ihnen mit einer besseren Übersetzung behilflich sein (dies kann einige Tage dauern, je nachdem, an welchen Tagen sie arbeiten).

----- Antwortentwurf(maschinell übersetzt):

Ich kann nichts fehlen sehen,

in diesem Beitrag im Forum haben Sie ein Zitat von einer Website bereitgestellt,


können Sie uns einen direkten Link geben, woher dieses Zitat stammt

----- Originalantwort von dem Technischen Support :

I cant see anything missing,

on that post on the forum, you have provided a quote from a website,


can you provide us with a direct link to where that quote is from





> -----Original Message from Customer-----
> From: albertop9@gmail.com
> Sent: 2022-08-19 19:38:55 +0000
> To: support8@nchsoftware.com
> Subject: Pty3 DreamPlan TechnicalSupportRequest Mac
>
> DreamPlan TechnicalSupportRequest Mac:
> “Problem” clearly described in this forum thread (screenshot included): https://nch.invisionzone.com/topic/39664-landscaping-tab-advanced-brushes-how-are-they-accessed/
> --- This customer has NOT paid for support using this email address
> Extra Information (1): Current
> Extra Information (2): mac10_11
> Extra Information (3): Full user agent string: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 15_6 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/15.6 Mobile/15E148 Safari/604.1

 

Now… What on Earth do you do with such unpresentable rubbish of a "support" email !?

I know… You're probably thinking it's not that bad. All of us are too used to receiving and accepting similar emails from "serious" organisations day in, day out (some people even send them out themselves!) - but we should never send out, nor receive, nor accept shitty time-wasting emails like that!

So… After regaining my cool, and pondering what to do, here is what I replied - screenshot and copy-pasted:

Quote

Hi Jose,

 

I can tell you were having a really bad day! (or you should be looking for a different job). Here's why… 

 

1- I wrote on DreamPlan's forum and my previous message in English. Why would you reply to me in German??

 

2- As I stated right above that quote in my forum post, it is from page number 18 of DreamPlan's User Guide in PDF - not "from a website"! 

Did you really read the thread?? 'Cause either you did not, or you weren't paying any attention.

 

 

3- I also provided this link to a screenshot of my DreamPlan window. If you had compared it to the screenshot your colleague EIB from Support attached in his previous post for me to refer to, you should have noticed that several icons in the toolbar are different, and you wouldn't be wasting each other's time telling me "I cant see anything missing" and the rest of your crappy reply.

 

Anyways, after only 4 days, my experience with NCH's software, its web resources and its "technical support" (with the exception of EIB) is already sooo dismal, I'll be deleting DreamPlan right after I hit Send. So don't bother replying. I've had more than enough. Ticket closed, customer lost…

 

Thank you very much!

 

 

* And yes, I do review apps on websites.

 

Harsh? - Of course! For their own good.

And for everyone - specially at NCH - to further grasp how crappy and utterly unacceptable (for me, anyway) that tech support response was, in comparison to what can be delivered and we all should expect and demand as customers (or clients or citizens), just compare it with the little exchange I had the day before with no other than… the customer service of the NCH's competitor I'm taking my money to! (I'm not revealing who they are. I've carefully redacted the screenshot so they are not identifiable, out of respect for NCH in its own forum, okay?) Please have a look.

Read it? Have you noticed any difference, in form and  substance, between both responses? About one hundred!? - Me too… In fact, there's not a single detail in that competitor's response that doesn't scream We care, and We excel. As opposed to…… You already know… 

To remain fair, early on Monday I received a response to my "angry farewell," this time from the competent representative, EIB. Had it been their first reply, I would not be writing this (which is something!) for it was acceptable enough to not trigger me. To be specific, it was just as lousy in its form (the almost two thirds in German come by default, it seems!), but acceptable in substance: a polite invitation to follow a troubleshooting procedure to get for them the log files necessary to «create a bug report so the developers can look into it for further diagnosis and fixes.»

Assuming my problem with DreamPlan was due to some rare bug, that  is the best help I could have expected, and I do appreciate that. But let's evaluate… 

Pros: 
- Get to enjoy DreamPlan's wonderful features some day

Cons: 
- Way too time-consuming 
- Far from a prompt solution
- Not even guaranteed! 

Determining factors: 
- Have not even started using the software
- Already lost my trust in NCH! 

So, sorry but no… I'm still switching to the competition. 

…Yet not without hoping and trying with this crazy rant that you guys at NCH take it as a tough-love lesson (from a single nobody, no big deal! I know; but still!) and just RAISE YOUR DAMN QUALITY STANDARDS - A LOT! 

No doubt your remaining and future customers will notice the difference. And so should your business!

My apologies for stealing too much of your time, dear reader!  Chime in!  and something good might come out of it all…

Sure. Thank you!

I’ll post back about the outcome in case anyone’s interested.

C'mon… It's an easy question… Anyone!? 

Hi EIB. Thanks for your quick reply!
Yes, I am using v7.47 of DreamPlan Plus (licensed) on this system:
OS X El Capitan v10.11.6
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2009) 
Processor   2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 
Memory   4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 
Graphics   NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB 
 

And here's my DreamPlan window.

Btw, how do you attach screenshots here? The toolbar right above what I'm typing has no upload/attach button, neither on Safari nor Google Chrome. - !?

Hi. Greetings everyone! An absolute beginner here.

To the point…  I just cannot figure out, nor find any info on how the advanced brushes in the DreamPlan Landscaping tab are accessed.
The User Guide reads (page #18 in the PDF):

Quote

There are several tools to aid in modifying the landscape. Based on system settings, one of two sets of terrain editing tools are available:
Basic Tools:
Basic Brushes:
[…]
Advanced tools:
Advanced Brushes:

Well… What are those oh-so-special system settings that apparently can't be revealed in a damn (pretty crappy, btw) User Guide?!?

Shortcomings like this seem so glaring and inexcusable to me that, from this one alone (yet not the only one I've noticed after hardly one hour of exposure) I've already regretted choosing and purchasing this software.
I don't give up easily though… so I'll give it a few more hours. Let's see if I get to like it and eventually praise it! - I really want to…

Thanks in advance for any help!
Alberto, from Spain