Nuance CS blues...

I bought NaturallySpeaking 8.0 to evaluate for the business just prior to going on this campaign. A couple of days ago, Nuance, the publisher, announced version 9.0, which is, of course, "new and improved." I sent a note to their customer service department, asking whether my having bought the product merely 3 weeks ago entitled me to an upgrade to the new version.

The following was their response:

PM-Agent: michelles Level: CS
Status: Closed
Dear Mr. Lane,

Thank you for contacting Nuance Customer Service, formerly ScanSoft.

If you have Dragon NaturallySpeaking 8.0 Standard, you are entitled for an upgrade to version 9.0 Preferred for only $99.99. This is currently the ongoing promotion that we have for the vouce-recognition software. To avail of the promotional price, feel free to call us at Nuance Customer Service at 1-800-654-1187, Mondays-Fridays, 9am-6pm EST.

Let us know if we can be of any further assistance.

Kind regards,

Michelle
ScanSoft Customer Service

Hmmm. The wording "you are entitled for an upgrade" seems to indicate, perhaps, offshored customer service, as does the misspelled "vouce-recognition" and the exhortation "to avail of" a price. But what I particularly like is the status line, where the email informs me that this issue is "closed."

Uh-huh.

As they gave me an opportunity to reply, I did:

Thank you for your response. I just would like to confirm the following, as I feel you missed the point of my inquiry: the fact that I bought your voice-recognition product 3 (three) weeks before you released a new, improved version puts me in the same upgrade group as customers who have been using the previous version of your product since, say, it was first released?

To be frank, I don't think that's fair, especially to a new customer like me. I bought your product to evaluate it for use in my business, as I have other products from other vendors in the past. On two of those occasions, I bought products within 30 days of the release of new versions and in each case, the vendor of the product upgraded me to the new version at no additional charge.

If you're telling me that I need to, in effect, pay you additional monies to get what I would've gotten simply by delaying my purchase to until after I returned from my trip, then I have to ask you: Do you think that's fair?

Cordially...

I worked on this for a little bit, taking out quite a bit of vitriol. It should be interesting to see how this plays out.

Cheers...

UPDATE (26 Jul 2006): While the company won't do what they call a "courtesy upgrade," they did offer to take back the software I bought so I could buy the new version.