Autodesk Subscription - Follow Up

I fairly well blasted Autodesk's new Subscription site the other day. It is often said the bad news runs on Page One and the retraction runs on Page Six. Well I don't need to retract anything because it wasn't working and it still isn't according to the information I was sent by the subscription team. I CAN however at least access my account using my old credentials, more on that in a bit.

I can say that they have been very responsive. I received email support from their support team. I also received an email from Michael Hall, Senior Program Manager, Global Subscription & Support. He followed that up with a phone call that I missed because of a conference call. He and his team have been very supportive and receptive of the "bad news" and my temporary "Captain Attitude" mode. I wasn't at my best and I'm grateful they didn't take it badly.

Now I could be cynical and say my blogging contributed to this response and truthfully it did help escalate the issue. However I'm confident that they'd take similar criticism in any form with an equal resolve to work through it.

Mike's exact words to me when I apologized for "moaning" on my blog were,

"As for groaning, it can be surprisingly effective and the fact is, the more we understand the experience of the user, the better we can serve that user. All feedback is welcome."

I realize it might make Michael uncomfortable a bit to see me quoting him but I think this is indicative of the attitude of practically every Autodesk staff member I've ever come into contact with.

The issue at hand is that during the consolidation of customer accounts there are some who just didn't get resolved fully. Mine was one. Some of my accounts were successful but the subscription account was not. Naturally the new consolidated login information I received like many others led me to believe that I just needed to log in according to the instructions. Reasonable response. Now we know otherwise. The short term fix is to use my old credentials and I'm back in business.

Now that I've been able to poke around the new site I must say it is much improved. I was able to use whichever browser I felt like and this is just the beginning. This is part of the reason Michael called, he hoped to share some of their longer range goals with me. So I'll take him up on his offer to chat and if I can share what I learn here I will.

If you are encountering issues with subscription, let them know. You should also just try to use your previous credentials as that may resolve it for you too. At least until they get the remaining accounts consolidated.

Thanks Michael and thanks to support for figuring it out! Thanks for taking my criticism in stride! It is a bit cliche but, usually, "what we do" when mistakes are made is far more important than the mistake itself. Okay that's enough...starting to get "preachy"...