Popular woodworking customer service is horrible :(...

[john davey]

I have subscribed to the Popular woodworking shopclass on demand videos for a while now. over time with all subscriptions my online credit card needed to be updated to renew the subscription. I received an email that the card failed and needed to be updated. I updated the date on the card and it has not been re processed. I have sent several emails to their customer service email in their contacts and all I receive is a canned message with information on things to try. I keep replying that I have not forgot my password, I know the link and actually can log in. I just cannot watch the videos because they need to re process my card. All I ever get from them is the same canned email. It is obvious no one is reading my email and it is very frustrating. I actually enjoy the videos + Roy and am disappointed that it is this difficult to get them. It is so obvious in this day and age that web content is taking over for news and magazine in print and it is hard for me to believe this company can survive if they do not pay any attention to this.... Anyone else have similar problems or know of a way to contact them??? I half posted this as I know some of them actually do pay attention here and maybe this will get through to them. Sorry for the rant...John

[Mike Holbrook]

John,
I tried several times to use the Shopclass on demand videos. I had many problems trying to get things set up and always seemed to have trouble signing in. The various areas within Popular Woodworking that require sign ins IMHO ( in my humble opinion ) are just too complicated and inconsistent. Like you say, support was horrible and they did not understand the terms refund or credit. I got frustrated and stopped using them for a while. When I came back I found I had misunderstood the subscription time frames due, IMHO, to horrible documentation. My subscription expired before I could figure the process out and get it working, despite considerable effort. I have not tried using it again and have no plans to. If I buy anything from PW these days it is DVD's and I often find buying those frustrating. Why pay a subscription fee for information one can pay for one time and be done? Unless there are constant additions to the content and improvements...

[Daniel Rode]

I did the trial subscription for ShopClass on demand. While the content might be good, the site it's self is unusable and relatively expensive. I canceled after just a couple hours.

It's as though they don't want customers to use it. The PWW site is slightly better but I'm concerned that thay will end up shutting down like their sibling American Woodworker. That scenario is not good for anyone.

FWW is the only site that seem to be well executed and it's still far from ideal.

[Jim Koepke]

Currently the only defense may be they are all off at some show. At least that is what some of the emails from the 'free' subscription has been saying.

On the other hand they do need to get a better handle on doing business on the internet.

I ordered a DVD and didn't receive any confirmation or shipping notice. All was quiet until it arrived in my mail box. It was slow for snail mail and my email inquiry was unanswered.

jtk

[george wilson]

I quit subscribing to them,but for reasons other than yours.

[Jim Belair]

Megan Fitzpatrick is a member here (is she still editor?). You could shoot her a PM and she might be able to help even though it's not directly in line with her responsibilities.

[Mike Brady]

Megan would be helpful, but I believe her blog states she is also away at this time.

[Simon MacGowen]

FWW is the only site that seem to be well executed and it's still far from ideal.

Agreed. Many woodworking business sites are horrible and not user friendly. LN's is better now with its new website than in its old days but is still no good; many others are equally bad and you can hardly find things quickly and that means lost sales. I am not saying they should have the Google ability but their check-out, shipping info. navigation, etc. are really bad. The best? No one is near Lee Valley in terms of search feature, product organization, etc. They must have spent a lot of resources on maintaining it, but their user-friendly site also generates a lot of sales for them, I am sure. Of course, Lee Valley can improve its site further as sometimes I couldn't find an item by the name that appeared in the packaging.

This isn't the first time I heard about the problem with the PW site and it has nothing to do with people away from their offices but the unwillingness or inability of the owner of the site to make changes. To commit to make such changes means financial resources and not many woodworking businesses could afford to do that. Lee Valley is an exception and knows IT is critical to serving its customers.

Simon

[Frederick Skelly]

I quit subscribing to them,but for reasons other than yours.

George, even with all YOUR skills and experience, you subscribed to (what I think of as) a hobbyist magazine? You ought to be a Contributing Editor there, writing articles to teach the rest of us. That surprises me Sir.
Fred

[Megan Fitzpatrick]

I'm sorry to hear we're still having trouble with customer service and with the ease of using the Shop Class site. I'm still away, but as soon as I'm back, I'll make sure the right people are aware. And if you ever have trouble with any of our sites/customer service/etc., please send me an e-mail (you'll find my address, and contact info for all the editors, in every issue, and my name is linked to my e-mail at the bottom of each blog I post). I'll make sure to get the problem addressed.

[paul cottingham]

Yeah, I guess I'm too late here at the party, but I have found PW's customer service to be spotty at best. A couple times it was resolved, several times my emails were ignored, and a couple of issues were just dropped without comment. Now that I think about it, that's pretty poor.
On the good side, Megan herself once resolved one of my problems!

[John Crawford]

Similar experience. I had some problems with a streaming video product that I paid for. Got several canned responses that did not at all address my question. The canned responses were spaced a week or so apart. Personally, I would prefer someone to say "I will not help you" or "I am unwilling to help" instead of a robot response that does not even address the problem. This was regarding a product that cost very little, but it made me wary of actually spending any more money there. I was surprised, as most of the modern high-end woodworking-related businesses these days have over the top excellent customer service.

[Ron Kanter]

I was an early subscriber to Shop Class on Demand. Because I subscribed early, it is relatively inexpensive for me otherwise I would not continue to subscribe.
Content varies from excellent to superficial. Navigation and searching are often awkward and often impossible.
Firefox is my standard browser software, but Shop Class didn't recognize me as a subscriber when logging in on Firefox. When I use Safari as my browser, I have no problem logging on.
I corresponded with Megan about this problem probably a year ago. Firefox still doesn't work.
Megan, if you are reading this, I would be happy to work with your IT people to solve this problem.

[john davey]

Well, sadly I guess I am not the first to experience this. I am going to lean positive here and hope since Megan has responded she will hopefully resolve my issue and put some time into bettering their product. I am a fan of the content they put out and do want to renew. So hopefully this can get resolved and will make the issues go away for future subscribers. Thanks for the reply Megan and I look forward to hearing from someone that this is resolved.... John.

[Megan Fitzpatrick]

John, I asked the group who handles that site to get in touch with you and others on here who have had trouble – if you don't hear from them very soon, please send an e-mail to to rocky.landsverk@fwmedia.com – he's the guy who can get it fixed...and he'll work with customer service to ensure they know who can resolve problems in the future (though I hope we're getting these ironed out and there will be no more problems, of course!)

[john davey]

For those that were wondering Megan did get me in touch with someone that got my issues resolved. thanks for that Megan.

[paul cottingham]

nice to hear! I'm not so lucky.

[Ron Kanter]

Nor am I.
I can now log in using Firefox.
It recognizes my account and has all the correct information.
HOWEVER, when I try to play a video it tells me that "You do not have access to this video." That is the message I get no matter what video I try to watch. Meanwhile, my subscription period is wasting away. I am going to try tech support, again!

[Doug Ladendorf]

Disappointed to hear about the trouble. At least a modicum of actual support is price of admission to selling. That content is too good to have poor stewardship. I have been close to subscribing a couple times but will wait until things are sorted.
Doug

[Ron Kanter]

Spent ten minutes on the phone with Customer Support - No Joy.
Gave her my Firefox version number and my operating system version number. She didn't have a Mac to try to test from her end.
Said she would take it to a higher level and get back to me.

[Megan Fitzpatrick]

Paul – please send me a message either here or via e-mail with the trouble. I'll see that it gets addressed.

[bridger berdel]

Paul – please send me a message either here or via e-mail with the trouble. I'll see that it gets addressed.

Megan, it sounds like there are some, ah, *structural* issues there at the magazine, aside from poor coding on the website. The best avenue to tech support is via one of the editors? sounds like there is a problem. either tech is badly under resourced or badly mismanaged, can't tell from here. so while intervening as you are doing is the right thing to do in the short term, in the long term it only entrenches the problem. it's a good magazine, one of the best currently publishing. I'd really like to see it succeed in this mixed paper/web world.

[Tony Leonard]

I usually don't bother chiming in on these types of discussions, but my expreiecne with them was awful at best. Various technical issues attemptint to download purchased videos, very poor customer service, etc. I quit subscribing a while back and wouldn't dare send them any money for DVD's or downloads. I just don't trust that I'll get them and the quality has not been that good anyway. And they bombarde you with emails! My goodness...I've never gotten as many emails from anyone as I do from them.

I pick up the magazine at the bookstore and give it a look now and then and it just confirms that it is not worth the price (for me - where I'm at in my woodworking).

Tony

[Simon MacGowen]

I... I just don't trust that I'll get them and the quality has not been that good anyway. And they bombarde you with emails! My goodness...I've never gotten as many emails from anyone as I do from them.

I pick up the magazine at the bookstore and give it a look now and then and it just confirms that it is not worth the price (for me - where I'm at in my woodworking).

Tony

I can't comment on the customer service aspect, etc., but I agree on the comment regarding spams. I unsubscribed all their emails/links shortly after they began bombarding.... When will retailers learn that more is not necessarily better? This actually applies to bloggers, too. I have stopped checking out most blogs because they think quantity is quality. Paul Sellers' blog is usually very good, but he posted some garbage today; Chris Schwarz loses it too sometimes (especially when his side kick fills the void for him -- how many people really read the long essays there?). Some of the amateur bloggers are even worse...why do they think they have to produce a daily post to keep their audience? They may not know they are pushing people away.

Daily posts are fine if you have something interesting or technique to share, or better some interesting photos to show (David Barron's is a good example).

Simon

[john davey]

Now that I am back online (happy for that) I can comment that I have had issues with my browsers as well. I am a Mac user as well and have had issues with different browser versions. I am guessing the web site staff there is one person part time and it is a struggle to keep it afloat. IT resources are expansive. Sadly the print industry is going to digital and PW better get on top of this as it is probably going to be their bread and butter soon. When my problem was resolved they asked me if I would share any issues with them which I agreed to do but have not heard back from them. For the record I work for a large Gov't agency in the IT department and help with the infrastructure to a web site that gets millions of hits. Our Quality Assurance tests all possible browser versions plus many other things well before something makes it's way to production. My guess is there is no budget here for equipment or people to test it. So if it works on the computer/browser they have it is live. With customers literally all over the world this will fail and these issues will never really get resolved. I don't really have a good answer to them as the fix really does involve a serious amount of cash. But a PC and a Mac with Chrome, Safari, Firefox and IE at a minimum for testing would probably eliminate many issues. Hoping for the best with this as I am a fan of the site and the mag....John

[David Weaver]

Some of the amateur bloggers are even worse...

I think a lot of their readership expects them to. When you subscribe to people on youtube, the ones who are making money off of their videos feel obligated to, because it's a race to keep subscribers and get new ones. More subscribers means more views means more money. Take a day off and you get fewer, but it's a fine line between churning material and losing subscribers because of that vs. just losing them for not posting anything.

[Megan Fitzpatrick]

I sent a note to the fellow in charge of the site, Ron. He (Rocky Landsverk) or his co-worker, Bryan Griffith, should be in touch w/you shortly.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Megan

I agree with the spam comment above. It detracts from what is for me a fine magazine. On the other hand, I experienced excellent support from Rocky a few months back, when I had difficulty viewing a video. He was prompt with replies and very helpful, even checked that all was OK. That was an example of customer service at its best.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Megan Fitzpatrick]

I absolutely agree that, no, the editor is not the best avenue for tech support, and I'm taking a discussion re that up the chain so that we can get the problems addressed on a global basis. (But in the meantime, I'll get as many things solved individually as I can – so please don't hesitate to let me know if/how I can help!) And thank you for your kind words about the mag – much appreciated.

[paul cottingham]

Megan, I posted a message thanking you for taking an interest in resolving my issues, but it seems to have disappeared. So, thank you!