As a lifetime subscriber, I’m really trying to feel as though my investment was worth it and that those of us who support Roon mean something to the company. That said, I’m quite frustrated with the response to this issue. The issue was reported over a year ago and the community has provided enough detail to understand and reproduce it.
I was happy to see that the defect was acknowledged and there were plans to fix it, but that was nearly a year ago with no significant updates since. I became curious about the lack of progress and asked for updates but those requests were ignored. Now I can’t even post additional inquiries in the thread due to limits on consecutive posts.
It’s annoying that we have basic features like this to help keep track of listening habits but defects like this one make it completely unreliable/useless. Beyond annoyances, the Support response and follow through has been terrible.
Not to be nitpicky, but you haven’t been ignored by support. The issue was recognized (maybe slowly) and brought to the attention of the developers, who said they plan to fix this. Support probably can’t do much from this point on, and I personally would prefer they don’t waste their time running through the forum to post „sorry no fix yet“ everywhere. They don’t have enough resources for the important things as it is.
Apparently that hasn’t happened, like many other things, which isn’t unheard of in software development. And yes, it can be frustrating with Roon (but other software projects also have looong fix lists). You don’t want me reposting all the things I reported that haven’t been . Others have been
I am getting so tired and annoyed by all the Roonsplaining going on… @tretneo clearly stated that this has been acknowledged nearly a year ago, and that he wished to get some feedback about progress… is this admissible on this forum, or is this already too much to ask? He also states that he can’t even post anymore on the original thread, as the last three posts are by him, and the forum software configuration conveniently shuts him up…
It’s annoying having to read on every other thread that Roon support is understaffed… so what?? That’s not a problem a user should care about. A paying subscriber-customer who is offered support as part of his service deal should expect decent support performance, but that is clearly not the case with Roon.
There are too many very old open issues which simply don’t get addressed at all. They stay eternally open, with no feedback to users, who will never know if those issues will be addressed at some point in time, and hopefully sooner than later.
I have tried very hard to keep a positive outlook about Roon, its pros and cons, its accomplishments and its failures, but lately I feel that this is ever more difficult to keep up. I feel that too many users are being let down by the company, that Roonlabs apparently don’t care anymore. It’s everybody’s guess why this may seem to be so, and I will abstain from speculation. But clearly, I am disappointed in Roon.
Well to each their own. It was my opinion. At work I also don’t have time to constantly contact thousands of users to tell them every month that something hasn’t been addressed. We will tell them when it has, and IMHO everything else is unreasonable.
It’s just a fact that they are understaffed in support whether we like it or not, and frankly it’s the same in every support organization. (Same for developers). Try finding good support people. I do every day and it’s hugely frustrating too.
Not true. Apple managed to chat and call me within 30 minutes of my complaint to them. Impressive people with skills. It really is just a matter of whether a company views client relations to be a worthwhile investment. Roon makes its attitude clear every day.
I’ve worked in enterprise support organizations for the last 15 years and currently as a Director of Support Operations. There are a few key tenets high quality support teams follow.
Always communicate and set expectations. Along these lines, dropping an engagement and going radio silent is a big no no.
Advocate for the customer. Obviously support engineers are limited as far as influencing product direction and engineering prioritization but customers should not have to chase progress.
Internal problems and org challenges are not the customer’s problem. Who’s doing what, who isn’t doing their job, who is understaffed and unappreciated, etc. It isn’t anything the customer should hear about or be concerned with.
One could argue whether or not Roon should be held to the same standard as a large enterprise support org but the fact remains that the handling of these issues is sub par at best and it’s a reflection of the importance Roon places on customer satisfaction.
“Understaffed” is a company failure, not a user problem. The customers should never even know.
“Gee whiz, roon has management that can’t figure out how to hire the necessary staff, why are you upset?” is a terrible answer to the question.
They’ve already pushed most support onto their customers without any sort of compensation; maybe they should expose their codebase on Git, and we users can fix the bugs ourselves, and maybe implement some of the wishlist items, too.
SongKong and Yate devs are responsive and constantly stomping bugs and fulfilling user requests.
Panic software: same
Econtechnologies (ChronoSync): same
Lux Optics (Halide): same
I could go on for ages.
These are all small companies with very large user bases. It can be done well. It just isn’t.
Wasn’t the expectation „we want to fix it but don’t know when“? This is what I took from it, and as you know this happens all the time in development.
It’s also a minor issue, frankly, IMHO more like a preference as I mentioned in the original thread
We have no insight into what they do
They could simply wait, in non-critical cases. Our customers are extremely happy with our support. We tell them that for such non-critical things we can’t make promises and that it has to fit into the roadmap, we will tell them when it’s done, and basically everyone understands. And these are very demanding costumers in work-not-fun situations.
Fully agreed, but at the same time the reality is what it is and there is no magic fix
Well, my company (similar size, probably a few times larger) tests and interviews about 250 applicants per month for testing and support, globally. There’s about one among them who satisfies requirements. It’s not easy
It doesn’t matter if it’s easy. Lots of things that aren’t easy get done anyway— because that’s the job. If I had told my clients “it’s not easy”, they would have laughed and responded “suck it up, buttercup, get to work”. It isn’t an excuse.
My SO runs the HR division at a high-powered tech company. I asked her about your “250 interviews”, and she said that someone over there isn’t doing a good job filtering applications. Her comment was “Are they posting positions on Craigslist?”
Wasn’t the expectation „we want to fix it but don’t know when“? This is what I took from it, and as you know this happens all the time in development.
It’s also a minor issue, frankly, IMHO more like a preference as I mentioned in the original thread
I don’t agree that it is a preference. If you’re watching a movie and pause it, maybe for an extended period of time because “life happens” and maybe you even have to watch it over a few sessions, would you tell people you’d seen the movie 2 or 3 or 4 times? This doesn’t make sense.
I also don’t agree that it is a minor issue. This issue causes play counts both in Roon and on last.fm to be inflated. I know a lot of people who rely on these data points for various reasons. Why offer the features if they don’t work properly and then leave them that way indefinitely.
They could simply wait, in non-critical cases.
I feel like waiting 2 quarters, 3 quarters or nearly a year qualifies as waiting. I never demanded it be fixed immediately, I would just like to have some sense that it’s been added to the roadmap and will be addressed at some point (whenever that is). This goes back to my comment about expectations, I don’t feel like a single comment ~10 months ago saying it’ll be addressed someday is a good example of expectation setting. It’s a commitment with no expectation.
Fully agreed, but at the same time the reality is what it is and there is no magic fix
Absolutely, but as a paying customer I feel it’s absolutely appropriate to say that I’m disappointed in the level of service delivered and internal strife doesn’t excuse it.
Exactly so… At first it was a nagging suspicion well suppressed in my mind wishing to feel happy with Roon… but now it’s grown into a conviction that I cannot ignore anymore… Roon doesn’t care about customer satisfaction.
But there is… as customer, convinced that Roon the company doesn’t care about my (dis)satisfaction with its product, I will begin to review in my mind if the perceived value (or lack of) still merits my monthly or yearly payment to said company. For a long time I was wishing Roon to succeed and kept a positive outlook… not anymore. Customer communication and support have never been great to begin with, but the marked deterioration in 2023 have pushed me to make up my mind. And that’s the fix to my personal dissatisfaction…
To understand Roon’s attitude to support we’d need to know their metrics, which we don’t.
They may be perfectly happy with 7 to 60 day response times by official support for all we know.
I would imagine they look at attrition rates and sample the reason and respond accordingly.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but calling fellow users apologists etc really is beyond the pale. (Again in my opinion)
I like this. Say what you will about consumerism but this is one of the few real powers consumers wield and at some point any company that forgets it, no matter how great the product, will be reminded.
. Others have been