C1 Extraordinary measures to mask contact info...
I have been trying for over a week to contact someone (anyone) at C1. I am dumbfounded by the intentionality and thoroughness of their efforts to block any possibility of conversing with a human.
contact page contains NO contact info, save 4 social media links. I tried one (twitter) and their account is explicitly a 'non message account'. Didn't bother with the others.
sales@phaseone.com and support@.. are bounced back.
No phone.
Just a European address.
I am trialling the software and like what I see so far, but the impossibility of contacting a human, and the structured, oneway communication is frustrating, and extremely troubling looking forward. The product has a premier price, but I for one cannot imagine trying to get support out of a company that is this passionate about their privacy. Checking out the FAQ of this forum, the moderator has the phaseone.com website as his contact info!
This is not a premier contact experience. It is a NULL contact experience.
I have spent hours over the past week or so trying this (including this post, and a non responsive 'support ticket').
I simply don't understand the business case of being completely opaque to the public you are serving.
If anyone has an email address for a real live human at Capture one, that would help.
contact page contains NO contact info, save 4 social media links. I tried one (twitter) and their account is explicitly a 'non message account'. Didn't bother with the others.
sales@phaseone.com and support@.. are bounced back.
No phone.
Just a European address.
I am trialling the software and like what I see so far, but the impossibility of contacting a human, and the structured, oneway communication is frustrating, and extremely troubling looking forward. The product has a premier price, but I for one cannot imagine trying to get support out of a company that is this passionate about their privacy. Checking out the FAQ of this forum, the moderator has the phaseone.com website as his contact info!
This is not a premier contact experience. It is a NULL contact experience.
I have spent hours over the past week or so trying this (including this post, and a non responsive 'support ticket').
I simply don't understand the business case of being completely opaque to the public you are serving.
If anyone has an email address for a real live human at Capture one, that would help.
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Hi,
Did you try this ?
https://www.phaseone.com/fr-FR/SupportMain
Robert0 -
NN635637854287860457UL wrote:
I have been trying for over a week to contact someone (anyone) at C1. I am dumbfounded by the intentionality and thoroughness of their efforts to block any possibility of conversing with a human.
You say that as if "conversing with a human" is your right.
It isn't.
I simply don't understand the business case of being completely opaque to the public you are serving.
Nor are they - see Robert's post above.
Oh, and Phase One is not "serving the public" - they're a private company, not a government agency. Their support arrangements are for Phase One to decide on; and for you, as a (potential) customer, to use or not.0 -
Sounds like you need Capture One support - the support operation is in the process of redeveloping and separately identifying Phase One hardware and Industrial users and their specific, dedicated needs from the more open aspects of RAW conversion software support for the open market.
Similarly some differentiation of needs will be appropriate for Multi-seat and commercial users - studios, etc. - compared to, say, hobbyists who may well be seeking support at very different levels.
Here is the English language version of the main support page for Capture One with its recently introduced extension of using a FAQ style self help approach to enable 24/7 in some ways.
https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us
To Create a request for personal assistance (for Capture One) one is now asked to use the "Submit a Request" feature that appears on most support web pages near the upper right corner and also in other places on certain support pages
This takes you to the page linked below. (Depending, presumably, on recognised language preferences
https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
If you have already used these links and your comments above relate to the subsequent experience then I suspect you have been unlucky.
That said this is an unusual time of year for work patterns in the "Western" world and has probably been made especially tricky this year by certain technical issues related to the sales and upgrade process on one hand and some other non sales and marketing issues discovered in conjunction with technical partners on the other hand.
And of course bedding in a new support system.
Not really a desirable situation to try and attempt so much at the same time BUT, based on how the technology market in this area of interest works, I would guess there are very few options for arranging things substantially differently.
Meanwhile, although this is a User to User forum there are many experienced users visiting. If your questions are related to using Capture One someone may well have answer.
If they are more about marketing and delivery matters there may be fewer answers.
If you wish to communicate about other matters then it may be best to assume that 'normal' operations are most likely to resume fully next week.0 -
I have been using Capture One since Apple announced that Aperture was being made redundant, so version 20 is my 6th version. My experience has been mixed, but I have had times in the previous system when many days elapsed before receiving a reply. Coping with bugs in the new version, new support structure, and the holidays can't help.
When I have a problem understanding how to use a feature or want to know if others are having a problem with the software acting as expected, I write to this Forum or view one of the many excellent instructional videos. When I encounter an obvious bug or when the Forum members are flummoxed by my question, I write to the support team. I do not expect the support team to instantly know how to fix the problem. I expect they have to try to reproduce it, first. Then they have to determine if this is a reproducible bug or a user issue. Given some problems result from the interaction of the software and my own system, sometimes, they never can figure it out. When my problem is similar to other Forum members reported problems, they usually can fix it, but often not until the next update of C1.
Compared to the consumer base of popular appliances and electronics, the C1 user base is tiny. The better support sites like Apple, require a subscription. Still, live support is often disappointing because complex problems often cannot be solved in a matter of minutes or by folks ready canned responses.
One of the ways to reduce the need for support is to make the software as intuitively easy to use and bug free as possible. This means a yearly upgrade with new features as opposed to upgrades when they are ready is problematic. Unfortunately, C1 has determined that it must compete with others who tweak their software by the calendar. Personally, I would be content with the current version (when bug free) until the DAM could be rewritten. I really am not going to move my 60,000+ images to another application just to get a few new bells and whistles at the cost of losing metadata and adjustments.
Perhaps C1 think those of us who would find it hard to replace C1 are not numerous enough to delay the next upgrade until it actually is ready and a real improvement. Perhaps they could survey their customer base for the answer.
Jerry C0 -
Jerry,
From memory the upgrade cycle used to be about 18 months and would tend to try to avoid the most obvious "holiday" periods.
When Apple and then MS went to an annual major upgrade cycle with intermediate fairly serious 6 months updates that simply REQUIRE some activity more often than not some of the flexibility was removed.
Vendors will be forced to follow the OS updates by their users.
It's a form of "Perfect storm" that the big boys initiating it can cover by fitting to target dates rather than shipping correctly tested code. They probably don't care too much about correctly considered and tested code because everyone else that build products that need to use that code will be forced to take corrective action to make up for the quality shortfall.
Actually it's not so much that they don't care but rather they know others will need to pick up the problem in the short term to protect their businesses and so the pressure and stress on their mage sized and numerously staffed operations will be likely less then we, as consumers, might imagine.0 -
Thank you to all who took the time to share your thoughts on this. I apologize if I came across as 'whinging’. Just very frustrated at the experience of trying to contact this company. (ok I WAS whinging, but there is a time and a place for most anything!)
That frustration stands.
Someone mentioned that 'conversing with a human' isn't a customer right. Maybe yes, maybe no. My point is they have actively masked themselves from all customer contact. (at least all contact I could find after hours of trying). I agree, they can run their business anyway they see fit, and as consumers we can choose to buy or move on.
Yes they ARE 'trying to serve' a public user base. No they are not a governmental or other public institution with a duty to be accountable.
My reasons for contacting them were relatively minor - a few questions about licensing, registration, and whats up with an 80% off sale that is more expensive than the regular price.
I too am a refugee from Apple’s Aperture. Used Lightroom for a few years, but couldn’t stomach the infinity pricing of subscription. I tried On1 Photo Raw 19, but it is still too buggy to serve long term.
The list of DAM grows very thin. I am trying to create a stable set of software on my Macbook pro and once set, I plan to never upgrade it (or the system software). I have a 2015 Macbook pro - the best one they made before butchering the design. I stopped upgrading the OS at High Sierra, and have a nearly complete set of ‘locked in’ software that I plan to do only maintenance updates on. I am lacking only a DAM for photo/video to complete.
My question for the support teams boils down to this: Will C1 continue to support version 20 after the next version drops. If bugs are found late in the development cycle, will they be squashed or do they expect the user to ‘upgrade’ to a new version to fix them? This was the approach of On1 and I am not very interested in repeating that here.
The essential thing I am trying to grasp about the company is : do they take pride in their work? Do they complete the job all the way to the edges, and the next version is truly offering something new, rather than just slapping on some paint and asking for another fee.
I am not a photo professional. This is a lifelong passion for me, and I am looking for software that is a pleasure to use, and does its job well, and predictably. The ‘pleasure to use’ part includes the relationship with the people behind the software. It is a lot like dating. They are asking for much more from me than money. They are asking for me to invest hundreds, and eventually thousands of hours using their product. Years of work invested in the C1 platform. Learning and growth, confusion, delight and pride all lie ahead in mastering a DAM of this complexity and power.
So yes, I am asking for more from them than a download and a license key. I am asking for a vendor - customer RELATIONSHIP. A give and take between two co-interested parties.
This has been a very very poor first date.
Hence my whinge.0 -
SFA wrote:
Vendors will be forced to follow the OS updates by their users.
Absolutely true. Every time Apple upgrades the OS, software like C1 has to adjust. If the C1 upgrade cycle time were longer, there would be time to adjust to MacOS changes for the current version of C1 before beta testing the next version. If we as users insist on yearly updates to C1, the potential conflicts with a new OS and the complaints about the cost of minimal improvements will continue.
Regarding the support issues, if the software just worked efficiently as it should, it wouldn't require so much support.
When Apple chose to not develop Aperture further, C1 developers realized the potential for a new market and adjusted C1 to capture refugees from Aperture. You have to wonder why Apple abandoned Aperture when it could have kept to a development trajectory that could have surpassed C1. I expect Apple thought the niche was too small to justify the cost and C1 has to deal with that same problem, but with fewer resources.
Until a company with Apple-sized resources decides to put its resources toward something that produces the results of C1, we are not going to see a substantially better alternative worth the pain of transitioning. Adobe could do it, but Lightroom shows how even Adobe falls short on the details related to the images it can produce, to say nothing about its business plan. It could be long wait to replace C1 with something better than C1 could produce if it changed its upgrade priorities.
I would gladly pay the upgrade price for a version of C1 with the bugs worked out, an efficient DAM, and support for Metal, without other additional features.
Jerry C0 -
aperture was indeed exceptional but when apple trashed it the number one lession I have learned was to never trust any of this companies again and so I did set up my archive totally independent from software !
a lot of photographer have a romantic view on soft hand & hardware but truth is the digital imaging industry is a fast turning battle field driven by business interests which only sometime overlap with ours. to choose an software based on the assumption that it will improve in the future only leads to disappointment.
when c1 turned to annual updates it was not in the interest of us user but it provided a path to move to an subscription based system and it raised their revenue because they also drastically increased the upgrade price and delivered less.0 -
NN635680879799322049UL wrote:
SFA wrote:
Vendors will be forced to follow the OS updates by their users.
Absolutely true. Every time Apple upgrades the OS, software like C1 has to adjust.
Yes, but... most needed adjustments are quite minor, worthy of no more than an application dot release. Major changes are telegraphed long in advance.0 -
marchyman wrote:
NN635680879799322049UL wrote:
SFA wrote:
Vendors will be forced to follow the OS updates by their users.
Absolutely true. Every time Apple upgrades the OS, software like C1 has to adjust.
Yes, but... most needed adjustments are quite minor, worthy of no more than an application dot release. Major changes are telegraphed long in advance.
Apparently minor changes, not uncommonly made or revised at the last minute - intentionally or accidentally, can often be problematic.
Indeed that is why so many developers seem these days to avoid even attempting to get their revised "compatible" product out of the door on day one of a new known significant OS release.
The trouble is that leaves them exposed to the urgent "fixes" shipped by the OS developer (but probably randomly installed by users) that may "unfix" something they have worked to "fix" after the initial release.
Ideally one would take a few months to work through to a quality product that customers would appreciate.
However the same customers seem determined, year after year, to dive into a first release minutes after it is launched into the wild ignoring all advice to wait a short while. Some have no problems (they tell us) other have serious issues that are difficult to diagnose.
Trying to keep everyone happy all of the time when your technical "partners" are not always helping much must take a special type of mental strength.
And for those who are first to dive in to the Brave New World of a major update ... a special kind of masochism. (Although I will allow that in some cases people may find they made choices that temporarily commit them to the update even if they fully recognise the risk.)
Grant0 -
NN635637854287860457UL wrote:
<snip>That frustration stands.
<snip>
My reasons for contacting them were relatively minor - a few questions about licensing, registration, and whats up with an 80% off sale that is more expensive than the regular price.
<snip>
So yes, I am asking for more from them than a download and a license key. I am asking for a vendor - customer RELATIONSHIP. A give and take between two co-interested parties.
This has been a very very poor first date.
Hence my whinge.
Oh man I can feel you pain. I have had several support interactions during v11 and v12 time frame and found them to be pretty helpful. Stuff that they could answer they got me sorted quickly. Stuff that was harder they made the effort to get to the bottom and package up the results to feed into development. So, they can do it and I hope they will get back to it.
My experience with v12 was pretty good but I felt like I might want to wait a little time after the initial release to make it official for subsequent releases. So, I wasn't in a huge rush to move to v20 right away. With the support system change and the totally terrible experience that has been - like you simple questions go unanswered for a loooooong time. One of my recent questions was actually handled not bad at all so I have no idea what causes what. I had a case on going in the old system with v12 that I guess has just died. I was going to re investigate once I get to v20 and start over but honestly I am in a holding pattern. There is no way I'm going to move to v20 and hit one of the many problems that you can hit in an upgrade and end up being ignored by support.
And yes I have expressed my concerns about the way the new system does not handle cases to their support team and even to the vendor that provided them with the new support software in the hopes that they can help guild them to make use its features to improve the experience.
I hope it does not take to long before they get back on their feet.0
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