...if it has no support. I took a chance and supported your Kickstarter, only to be met with silence for months on the community forums.
It's clear that I have a defective product because other users on the forums have been able to run Ubuntu 24.04 on it, and you have videos showing it working. How do I go about getting a replacement or refund?
When I write to REDACTED, I get an automated response that says:
We do not provide email support as a free service, and you'll find the Community to be your best resource for the majority of troubleshooting conversations.
Great, so can I pay for support? No instructions on how to do that in the email or the website.
Hi @pzhine, I'm sorry to hear you’re experiencing what appears to be a hardware issue and have not gotten a resolution on your tickets. I’ll send you a DM so we can get this sorted out and make it right.
Thank you for the reply, Eric. The unpleasant interaction could be avoided in the future by providing a clearer path to obtaining support. The lack of clear specifications about what support is available and roundabout way of dealing with requests just wastes your customers' time and degrades the brand image.
In order to reach you I had to:
Dig through the Particle website for a support email or portal, finding nothing
Post several times to the community forums and wait for a reply that never came
Get frustrated and look for other angry postings on the forums, finally finding someone who got a response from REDACTED
Draft a thorough problem report for REDACTED, only to have it answered by a computer
Comb the fine print of the automatic message, where it said I could use @Support in my community forum post
Post an angry message for all the world to see
IMHO, a mature hardware company such as Particle should have this path:
I create a positive post in the community forums detailing my problem and the solution, because I am a Kickstarter customer and I obviously believe in the product and want others to find it useful
I hope you take my constructive criticism to heart.
Hi @pzhine, I understand your frustration. Typically direct email support is reserved for paid support contracts and this forum is used to track community tickets. I'm sorry you did not get a response to your community posts. In the future, it is best if you create a new topic with the issue you are seeing rather than respond to an existing issue. Deep responses can sometimes get lost.