Autodesk Support

I was helping someone purchase and install Autodesk AutoCAD on their work computer, and as of the current versions, it’s no longer an option to do an outright purchase, you have to ‘lease’ the software, much like Adobe initiated a couple of years ago.  It ran us about $1000 for 3 years of use of AutoCAD 2016 LT (the lightweight version which is usually 1/3 the price of the full software without add-ons).

In this instance, we bought the licensing but couldn’t get the user management portal to recognize the purchase and assign it to the user.  The crux of the issue was that the subscription was assigned to the wrong account, one which is outside of the 'team/business' to which it should have been assigned. Once I finally was able to speak to a human who had an understanding (Crystal in San Rafael), we got it sorted out quickly.

My real issue is that there is no phone number to call about this sort of thing (through a back-door means I obtained a number but no one could help me on that). The chat function was offline, and there was absolutely no documentation that I could find that described it. My CDW rep contacted his internal Autodesk person who wasn't able to help out either.

My client spent ~$1000 for a 3 year subscription (also not in love with perpetual purchase going away, but we understand that Adobe did a great job of ensuring constant revenue streams and others are following their lead). So we bought expensive (for us) software, can't get it running, and couldn't get support. It's one thing to have cheap software and get minimal support but it's an entirely different thing to pay for expensive software that's only rented and get minimal to no support. It's unacceptable really. I know that Autodesk is effectively the only game in town but please don't act like it, try harder.

Ultimately, I drove down to the corporate headquarters and talked to the receptionist, Joyce, and asked her how I could talk to a human about support. She said that they don't have any incoming phone lines but she would mail the manager my contact information. Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems a little ironic that customer support doesn't have any incoming phone lines. Just thinking aloud on that one...

Surprisingly, I did get a call about an hour and a half later from a San Rafael area code. Crystal from customer support called and we got things sorted, none of which could have been done without her. In other words, whether the initial mistake was CDW's or Autodesk's, there was no way for me to fix the issue via self-service, knowledgebase articles, or any other visible means.

If you encounter this issue, I can tell you that if you go to their front desk in San Rafael, talk to the very nice Joyce in reception and ask her to have someone contact you, you may get support. Otherwise, the best I got was an international support person who wasn't able to do anything for me.

Again, very expensive software that's now in the greedy rent it for a lot o' money model and you get no easy support on even licensing! Give us your money and good luck to ya'!

Crystal was awesome, everything else was terrible!

If any software vendors are reading this, your takeaways are this:

• Keep software prices reasonable, come on, don’t be ridiculously greedy.
• Support your customers, particularly if you have ridiculously expensive software!  Give me something for the absurd amount the software costs.
• Why, why, why, must you all do the subscription model?  Is it pure greed?  I get sick to my stomach every time I look at how much money streams out of my accounts each month, now we add yet another?