
Why, after a year with Adobe EchoSign, I’m taking my business elsewhere - codeN
https://medium.com/@mengwong/why-after-a-year-with-adobe-echosign-i-m-taking-my-business-elsewhere-835cbd23d4a6
======
Jemaclus
One of the biggest pieces of advice I have for junior devs (and software
engineers in general) is actually quite simple: Remove the phrase "it works
for me" from your vocabulary.

The rationale is equally simple: I wouldn't take the time out of my day to
send a bug report if it "worked for me." The problem could be any number of
things: buggy code, incorrect instructions, browser incompatibilities, race
conditions. Who knows?

You, as an engineer, should always always always assume that something is
broken until proven otherwise. You _must_ assume that there is a bug, until
you can prove that there is not. Once you have ruled out a code error, then
you can step into assuming the user is wrong. "OK, I did it the right way and
was unable to reproduce it. Therefore, the user must have done something
incorrectly."

Now you either try a bunch of different ways to accomplish it, or you go back
to the user and say "I'm unable to reproduce this. Can you elaborate on the
sequence of actions you took to cause this error?"

But what you should never, ever do is just dismiss the customer's complaint as
invalid because you were unable to recreate it. If you can't recreate it, then
you need to figure out why. Was the bug fixed by something else? Was the user
mistaken? Does it only happen on Tuesdays at 3pm?

I'll say it again because it bears repeating: Remove the phrase "it works for
me" from your vocabulary. From a reputation standpoint, it's bad news.

The customer isn't always right, and you don't have to blindly believe them,
but customers don't report things unless something isn't working for them.
Trust that.

~~~
chx
> Was the user mistaken?

99999 out of 100000 yes. Sorry but _most_ bug reports, even from QA
departments are noise at best, nuisance at worst. And as I posted here before:
I am close 40, have 15 years experience as a professional in this industry, I
have seen it all and yes it gets harder for you to break through to me because
I will presume you have no clue what you are doing because so many before you
didn't. Sorry if you are the one special snowflake.

This is not to say my software is bug free, of course not! But unless you can
describe the steps you made _clearly_ and also have an expectation/happened
instead , your bug report is useless. Again, this doesn't mean I expect
reproducable bug reports but I need something solid to work with.

~~~
mak4athp
Deciphering bad bug reports is absolutely a waste of your time as a developer,
but that doesn't imply that the user is mistaken. In nearly all cases, the
user is correct in sensing a bug but incorrect or inarticulate in their
description of it.

It's almost always a good idea to understand what's behind the report. It's
just that somebody in a different role should be doing most of that work.

~~~
Jemaclus
Small startups are often just a handful of people, and devs can and do pull
double-duty as QA and development, and sometimes customer support for
engineering issues! Freelancers also don't have customer support teams. For
larger orgs, however, you're right. And also, like I said in another comment,
the "customer" doesn't have to be _your_ customer -- your "customer" could be
the QA guy who says he found a bug, or your boss, or another engineer.
_Whoever_ tells you they found a bug, you should not dismiss their report with
"well, it works for me."

------
burnout1540
Co-founder and CTO of HelloSign here.

Sorry to hear that OP's bug reports weren't taken seriously. Good tech support
is a must for mission critical APIs.

At HelloSign we take great pride in our API and our tech support. Rather than
outsource support or rely on less technical people, we have our developers
directly support the API they built. So when you give our API a try, I
encourage you to check in with one of our developers by visiting our public
HipChat room
([https://www.hipchat.com/gq4BMFKt1](https://www.hipchat.com/gq4BMFKt1)) or
emailing them directly at apisupport@hellosign.com. And that's available to
all customers no matter what pricing tier they’re on (including free).

Take a look at our API documentation here:
[https://www.hellosign.com/api/documentation](https://www.hellosign.com/api/documentation)

We’ve had a lot of API customers switch over to us from EchoSign’s API due to
reliability issues. I have a lot of respect for EchoSign and their original
CEO Jason Lemkin, but I do think the API was an afterthought for them. At
HelloSign we think it’s the future and are committed to having the best-in-
class API.

I also wanted to touch on your point about wanting to work with "a company
with a soul". This is something I also look at when making buying decisions.
I’ve found a company's Glassdoor reviews to be an effective barometer of how
well a company treats its employees and, by extension, how its employees treat
the customers. That’s one (imperfect) way to measure "soul".

Happy to answer any questions anyone on HN might have.

~~~
vivekajayshah
We have used Hellosign for years, and they are modern, awesome, and always
responsive.

We did a case study here - if that helps:
[http://blog.hellosign.com/simplyinsured-leverages-
esignature...](http://blog.hellosign.com/simplyinsured-leverages-esignatures-
redefine-industry/)

~~~
mmmmax
Same here -- never had a problem with the product or customer service

~~~
arram
Another proud user of HelloSign. Their product is one of the most useful
services I pay for and their support is incredibly responsive.

------
ninjastar99
Not recommended. Adobe Echosign allows NO WAY (at least no easy way) for
regular users to export signed documents in a single batch. I've been a paying
customer for 6 years. When I asked their tech support where this (surely
obvious) feature was, they said that I must have an Enterprise account to
export a batch of my own documents. For an account like mine with hundreds of
signed documents in it, that would take hours. It took 27 (!!) messages with
their support technicians to get a batch of my own documents. Sadly, it seems
with the acquisition by Adobe, any hustle, humility, or innovation on the part
of Echosign is out. Best of luck to Hellosign to make up for the slack.

~~~
manigandham
What is your complaint about? They have a feature available but costs money
which you just don't want to pay?

Counting on them to just "be nice" and do it for you anyway isn't really a
valid option, nor something to base your objection on. If you don't like the
service and aren't happy with the price then move on to someone else.

~~~
MitchellKnight
Getting your data out of a system isn't a "feature", it's one of the basic
functions of a computer.

~~~
vacri
The GP could get the data out of the system, but wanted an additional
convenience factor. And the system is a 'service', not a 'computer'.

------
zem
offtopic, but "plodding craftsmanship" is a more attractive job descriptor
than any number of "ninja", "rock star", "changing the planet" and other such
overinflated and overused terms. reading between the lines, it means that the
company values both doing things right and taking their time to make sure
they've done it right, which is the exact thing that both drew me to and keeps
me happy in my current job.

------
adekok
FTA:

> ... the solution is to reinvent Adobe: to change the system from within. If
> Customer Success could talk directly to Product Engineering, then the bugs
> would get fixed, and the volume of complaints would go down, making
> everyone’s lives easier.

That process is enormously beneficial. I run an open source project, and spend
a good chunk of my day answering low-level tech support questions. These are
often "where is the ANY key". But a high percentage of them are people with
real issues. I listen, fix the issues, and give feedback.

The result is _enormous_ customer satisfaction. They get responses (and fixes)
in 15 minutes. Their previous commercial solution would be 6 months, if they
were lucky.

Shortening the feedback loop is a well-known engineering principle. But
apparently not known enough in software companies. For systems with negative
feedback, low latency is very positive.

More companies should have engineers deal with customer issues.

~~~
dublinben
This is a perfect example of why the open source programming model (licensing
concerns aside) is superior to closed source when it comes to _any_ mission
critical program. You cannot let your entire business rely on a single
company's buggy software.

------
donbronson
As a user, having to file a form using EchoSign, I would to cringe. It
requires flash and has some really bad usability. An example of that is
requiring at least two non-standardized date formats. UX is important for
forms because humans make errors when information is not clear.

------
jbrantly
You should try AssureSign [1]. I know they have "programmers somewhere inside,
who care about the product enough to read and respond to bug reports" because
I'm one of them :) Support tickets go to everyone so the person most qualified
to answer can do so directly without navigating support tiers first. This can
sometimes be a drag on my personal productivity but I know customers
(especially technically minded API integrators) appreciate it.

1\. [https://www.assuresign.com/](https://www.assuresign.com/)

~~~
getsat
If you wanna shill, you gotta do it like this:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9474565](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9474565)

