Email Support Sucks!

[DubWise]

I've been waiting 10 days to a response to an email I sent to "support@parallels.com". Your website says no more than 3 days for a response. Today was the 3rd time I've emailed the problem/request for help.

I hope your product is better than your crappy support. How do I get a refund?

 

[pjfw01]

I've been waiting 10 days to a response to an email I sent to "support@parallels.com". Your website says no more than 3 days for a response. Today was the 3rd time I've emailed the problem/request for help.

I hope your product is better than your crappy support. How do I get a refund?

I’ve been waiting a couple of weeks myself. All you read about in the Mac press is praise for Parallels and how wonderful it is.

Maybe it’s time for everybody who’s been treated badly (and I’ll bet that’s a lot of us) to write to the magazines and podcasts. Let’s warn all the poor, potential suckers like us out there!

 

[dlundh]

This is a well-known issue:
http://forum.parallels.com/thread8063.html

They don't seem to have anyone working in support. I just wish I had read these threads before paying for the product.

 

[IscariotJ]

Lack of support from Parallels is a long standing issue. It won't be long before someone from Parallels notices this thread, and posts something along the lines of, 'it is something that we are aware of, we are adding support people on a weekly basis, etc, etc, etc'. They've been saying that since the first GA version.

As you can tell, I have experienced Parallels' support. I'm just glad I bought Parallels when it was on offer, as that's about all it's worth ( though I also stupidly bought the now discontinued Win32 version, in an effort to support what I thought was a small company ).

I'm just amazed that no-one has sued; there are quite a few on this board that have stumped up for the paid support, and still received no response.

 

[sam4022]

EMailed Parrells Support - No Response

I am relatively new to the Mac although I still have my 1Meg R2D2 look alike with the ImageWriter II, I'v been using PCs for many years. I recently puchased the iMac as I wasn't about to go through another PC upgrade. Well, Parallels almost made me wish I stayed with the PC as I've had connectivity and printing issues for just about 2 weeks with NO responses from Parallels Support.

Were it not for the folks on this forum I would still be stuck.

 

[paulingraham]

yep, me too

Technical support from this developer is among the worst I've ever seen, either nonexistent or illiterate. The only reply I ever got to three requests for support was hilariously incompetent: a few lines of bad typing, bad spelling, and missing the point. Good grief!

And it's not just the support: the product is pretty dubious in my opinion. After a series of hard hangs on my machine following installation of Parallels, I started poking around here and discovered that I'm not alone. I couldn't get it off my machine fast enough. Since then? No more hard hangs! Phew.

I'll be going out of my way to spread the word that this company should not be taken seriously in the Mac community. They don't get it. And it'll come back and bite them in the ass soon enough.

 

[pigwiggle]

it's worth it

The product is worth the $80 with the piss poor support. If you want these kinds of benefits that come with an established company I suggest trying VMware's Fusion. They have a solid beta and should have a final release soon. However, if the cost of their workstation product compared with parallels' is any indication of Fusion's final price, you will be paying 4 to 5 times more than parallels' mac product. Oh, and don't make the same mistake again. Research Fusion before you send off your money, right?

 

[sidssp]

I am relatively new to the Mac although I still have my 1Meg R2D2 look alike with the ImageWriter II, I'v been using PCs for many years. I recently puchased the iMac as I wasn't about to go through another PC upgrade. Well, Parallels almost made me wish I stayed with the PC as I've had connectivity and printing issues for just about 2 weeks with NO responses from Parallels Support.

Were it not for the folks on this forum I would still be stuck.

I think Parallels should pay the folks on this forum $30 for each problem they help solved.

 

[IscariotJ]

The product is worth the $80 with the piss poor support. If you want these kinds of benefits that come with an established company I suggest trying VMware's Fusion. They have a solid beta and should have a final release soon. However, if the cost of their workstation product compared with parallels' is any indication of Fusion's final price, you will be paying 4 to 5 times more than parallels' mac product. Oh, and don't make the same mistake again. Research Fusion before you send off your money, right?

Considering that Parallels IS an established company, as is it's parent company, why should the "piss poor" support be excused? The product could be free, but if people are having issues with it, and are being ignored, it still wouldn't be worth it.

As for Fusion, I'm currently running it ( and WS6, as Parallels Workstation has been abadoned; how would that have been researched, unless I used a crystal ball? ) and have had less bother with it, than PD. VMWare's *nix support far exceeds that of Parallels ( no having to compile NIC drivers just to get online ).

Bottom line. You get what you pay for, and seeing as the current VMWare WS price is just under 3 times the price of Parallels ( at $189, it's not 4-5 times the price ), the difference is worth it.

Don't get me wrong, Parallels have a good product, but by ignoring support requests ( and in some cases charging for for the privilege ), they are only helping the competition, regardless of it's price.

 

[pigwiggle]

.. why should the "piss poor" support be excused?

I'm not excusing anything. I downloaded the free trial, evaluated it, and after considering the piles of complaints in these forums determined that the product was well worth the $80, even if it was never upgraded. I'm very happy with my choice. It's a little odd that the folks complaining here only managed to find these user forums after they had a problem. 5 min. with google could have saved them some money, huh?

considering that Parallels IS an established company

VMware has dominated the market and boasts tens of thousands of corporate costumers. And I think parallels complete lack of support is a perfect example of their weak standing. That's all. Look, I'll concede the point if VMware is caught by surprise with the runaway popularity of Fusion and can't support their costumers. Probably won't happen though.

I'm not going to bicker about the price comparison thing. The software vendor that sells to my university offers boxed parallels WS for $49, and boxed VMware for $199 with a $40 option for support. This suggests to me that Fusion will be significantly more expensive than parallels mac. But maybe not. Being second to market may change that.

 

[dkp]

I think Parallels should pay the folks on this forum $30 for each problem they help solved.

I could retire if they did that.

 

[dkp]

.. why should the "piss poor" support be excused?

I'm not excusing anything. I downloaded the free trial, evaluated it, and after considering the piles of complaints in these forums determined that the product was well worth the $80, even if it was never upgraded. I'm very happy with my choice. It's a little odd that the folks complaining here only managed to find these user forums after they had a problem. 5 min. with google could have saved them some money, huh?

If everyone who bought Parallels had your experience there would not be several "Parallels' Support Sux" type thread going at the same time. It's true that some of us have zero problems. I'm a computer expert and I don't expect to have problems and don't, but this product is not targetted to people like us - it's targeted to Aunt Millie and her great niece Beatrice's daughter's triplets, Jimmy, Ansel, and Duart. None of them have our skills but they have every right to a functional product and support to get them through common obstacles and even uncommon ones. That, by the way, is the law, not just a bundle of warm fuzzy good intentions.

Don't even start to blame the consumers - just don't go there. That isn't the problem.

 

[na9d]

I don't know how you guys can say that Parallels is a piss-poor product. Frankly, it works amazingly well. I run it every day on my MacBookPro and conduct all my company's business on it. My desktop that my boss bought me shortly before I got parallels now just sits there running Boinc and processing SETI data! With the new version and support for USB2.0 devices, I have no need for anything else.

I also run it on a MacPro and there it's even better.

You guys are silly calling it a worthless product.

Yes, their support sucks. But have you ever tried to get support out of a company like Microsoft? Try that. If you want to call them you need to pay them $250 to discuss your problem. Trust me. I know this as I support my company's IT services.

Most support issues can be resolved here in the forums. There's plenty of users who know how to get things working that can likely answer your question.

 

[pigwiggle]

I'll go where I please.

If everyone who bought Parallels had your experience there would not be several "Parallels' Support Sux" type thread going at the same time. It's true that some of us have zero problems.

I want you to pay careful attention here. My experience was that I took advantage of the *free* trial and found that the product was worth more to me than my $80. Aunt Millie, as you say, is perfectly capable of the same; it's trivial. No computer expertise required. Got it? But it isn't Aunt Millie that's responsible for the endless "support sux" threads. It's just a bunch of folks that dove into shallow water without the due diligence. And they are getting exactly what they paid for.

 

[dkp]

If everyone who bought Parallels had your experience there would not be several "Parallels' Support Sux" type thread going at the same time. It's true that some of us have zero problems.

I want you to pay careful attention here. My experience was that I took advantage of the *free* trial and found that the product was worth more to me than my $80. Aunt Millie, as you say, is perfectly capable of the same; it's trivial. No computer expertise required. Got it? But it isn't Aunt Millie that's responsible for the endless "support sux" threads. It's just a bunch of folks that dove into shallow water without the due diligence. And they are getting exactly what they paid for.

That is exactly correct. Every word. Logically infallable. And completely at odds with successful marketing methods. In a free market you would starve but you would be right. There are classes that cover this stuff - consider educating yourself while you have time.

 

[dkp]

Most support issues can be resolved here in the forums. There's plenty of users who know how to get things working that can likely answer your question.

Just so you know, the forum contributers have no obligation to care, nor are they paid for services rendered, and, finally, anything we might contribute at no cost is money in the Parallels bank account. We, in fact, are counter-productive and produce a negative product - information that Parallels should provide. They know, we're guessing. We are working from experience while they are working from the entirety of the development process. We're guessing, and maybe we're getting good, but we're not what the customer paid for. That's not the same thing as customer support. Don't forget that for a single moment.

You should also know that since the management removed the link to the forums from the main web pages, many customers and beta testers have no idea how to find this place.

Think about this, too - you said that most support issues can be resolved here. Perhaps, but how many vendor posts have you counted? To be honest, there should be a tax category for companies that depend on user-provided support for commercial products, because they're saving a lot of money thanks to you and me.

 

[IscariotJ]

I don't know how you guys can say that Parallels is a piss-poor product. Frankly, it works amazingly well.

Please read befor posting. No-one said that the product was piss poor, just the support. I even said that it was a good product.

You guys are silly calling it a worthless product.

Again, please read. No-one has said that it is a worthless product. The point was, it could be free, but if it didn't do what it's supposed to ( USB2, for example ) and they were having PAID support requests ignored, then it isn't worth it ( not the same as worthless ).

But have you ever tried to get support out of a company like Microsoft? Try that. If you want to call them you need to pay them $250 to discuss your problem. Trust me. I know this as I support my company's IT services.

And I take it that your request doesn't go ignored, as has been the case with several posters on this board?

VMware has dominated the market and boasts tens of thousands of corporate costumers. And I think parallels complete lack of support is a perfect example of their weak standing.

That was perhaps true 6 months after they had released the first GA, but they've had ample time to fix it. I think you're forgetting, Parallels isn't some recent startup. They are an established company, as is their parent ( SWsoft ).

It's just a bunch of folks that dove into shallow water without the due diligence.

Really? I should be careful making comments like that. In my case I already had the Win32 version of PW, and ran the PD beta for a while. I knew what I was buying. However, what sort of due diligence would have informed me that Parallels would abandon the Win32 version shortly after releasing PD? Or that running *nix OSes would be relatively ignored. Also, as has been mentioned before, how would people testing the software know about about potential problems, if they cannot find the forum?

And they are getting exactly what they paid for.

I would suggest that you trail through some of the problems that have been reported. A lot of them are concerned with features being heavily promoted by Parallels. I would reckon that more than a few are long time users, who have been enticed with promises of " in the next release". They are still waiting to get what they paid for.

No-one is denying that the product is good, but neither is there any point denying that the support is not as good as it should be, and claiming that it is the fault of the customer. That is simply not true.

I'm just glad that I had the URL for this forum before it was removed the main site. If it wasn't for this forum, Parallels would - and should - have been taken to task.

 

[David5000]

I'm just glad that I had the URL for this forum before it was removed the main site. If it wasn't for this forum, Parallels would - and should - have been taken to task.

Yes--I had paid for the product and received a confirmation e-mail with a forum link in the last paragraph, but didn't notice it because it looked like boiler plate. I only found out about the forum by a chance mention in an e-mail list. Even then I had trouble finding it because there was no mention of it on the Web site.

Like many others, I have e-mailed Parallels support about a problem but received no answer.

Without the forum I would have been totally lost, although it is no substitute for actual vendor support.

David

 

[pigwiggle]

Jfgi

Didn't know that had (or didn't have) a link. I just googled "parallels support".

 

[prock]

poor tech support

same experience as others. good product, inadequate tech support.

not sure comparing to MS proves anything-I could cite several companies with excellent email tech support.

try emailing Ben Rudolph's blog: askben@parallels.com or brudolph@parallels.com.

try calling (425) 282-6400 or (425) 282-6444. the voice mail system allows you to navigate to his number.

he might be able to help.

I suspect tech support will only improve (if it improves at all) after VM ships a final version and there is real competition. I would gladly spend a few more dollars if tech support was better. my time is valuable- I've already made up the difference with calls and emails to Parallels.

good luck.