Tweet
We have a nifty little freeware product on our web site. It is designed for students who are learning certain skill but anyone is welcome to download and use it, even if they are not a student.
Because it is freeware we have a statement with the download link informing people that we don't support it. (Although we do offer limted support to teachers so they can support their students in turn.)
We do get some calls and emails from folks seeking support. For the most part they just didn't see the notice and act like civilized humans when I politely let them know that we don't support freeware.
But some of them get pretty entitled. I you do thread search under my name with "freeware" as the search term, you'll find some examples.
Todays EW was this:
Caller: I'm using [freeware] with [other program] and [other program] isn't working right any more.
Me: [Freeware] isn't designed to work with [other program.]
Caller: But it worked before and it's not working now!
Me: I understand. However, [freeware] only does one thing and it is not supposed to work with [other program].
Caller: But it did before!
Me: Nevertheless it's not designed to work with that program and we also don't have tech support for [freeware]. There's really nothing we can do to change that.
Caller: But it did it before! And I use it for work!
Me: Our [paid product] is designed to work well with [other program] and comes with tech support. If you have a license for [paid program] you can [perform the same function] and [other program] will work just fine with it.
Caller: I dont have a copy of [paid program.] We are using [competitor's product].
Me: I see. Well, [freeware] is designed with very limited functionality. It is simply not designed to work with [other program]. It should be possible to use it for [its intended function] without also using [other program].
Caller: It's not very useful to me that way.
The rest of the call was me making soothing noises at her until she gave up and went away.
She gave me a headache. It's smegging FREE for crying out loud. If we spent all of our time making this product "useful" (as our SCs define useful) it would have all of the functions of our paid product and we'd either go out of business or end up charging the same price for it as our paid product.
Because it is freeware we have a statement with the download link informing people that we don't support it. (Although we do offer limted support to teachers so they can support their students in turn.)
We do get some calls and emails from folks seeking support. For the most part they just didn't see the notice and act like civilized humans when I politely let them know that we don't support freeware.
But some of them get pretty entitled. I you do thread search under my name with "freeware" as the search term, you'll find some examples.
Todays EW was this:
Caller: I'm using [freeware] with [other program] and [other program] isn't working right any more.
Me: [Freeware] isn't designed to work with [other program.]
Caller: But it worked before and it's not working now!
Me: I understand. However, [freeware] only does one thing and it is not supposed to work with [other program].
Caller: But it did before!
Me: Nevertheless it's not designed to work with that program and we also don't have tech support for [freeware]. There's really nothing we can do to change that.
Caller: But it did it before! And I use it for work!
Me: Our [paid product] is designed to work well with [other program] and comes with tech support. If you have a license for [paid program] you can [perform the same function] and [other program] will work just fine with it.
Caller: I dont have a copy of [paid program.] We are using [competitor's product].
Me: I see. Well, [freeware] is designed with very limited functionality. It is simply not designed to work with [other program]. It should be possible to use it for [its intended function] without also using [other program].
Caller: It's not very useful to me that way.
The rest of the call was me making soothing noises at her until she gave up and went away.
She gave me a headache. It's smegging FREE for crying out loud. If we spent all of our time making this product "useful" (as our SCs define useful) it would have all of the functions of our paid product and we'd either go out of business or end up charging the same price for it as our paid product.
Comment