Lame. Thanks for the warning CallWave. Callwave drops the free Beta with less than a days warning.
Posted by Geoff Jennings on September 15th, 2008Tags: Phone, voicemail, Web Tools
Callwave, a voicemail to transcription service, has dropped the Beta version. All plans are now paid plans. Which is fine, whatever, you have to make money. But to give people less than 1 days warning is lame and inconsiderate when you’re talking about a service like voicemail.
I’d like more than a day to figure out if i’m going to contiinue using the service, and the fact that you treat customers like this doesn’t tempt me to continue.
Strange, they don’t even mention it on their blog. And the free trial still shows up in the menu, but the email I got says it’ll be discontinued tommorow. So if someone signs up today for the free version, do they get a warning at all?
http://www.callwave.com
Update: As a commenter from Callwave mentioned, they did extend the period before they discontinued the free, full-featured version. I really enjoyed it while it lasted. I liked getting my voicemail as a written transcript, and I might sign up for the service again at some point. But right now, the free version doesn’t offer the level of service I need, and $180/year is a bit steep for the service and the level I would use it. So I’ve decided to cancel it, and go back to old fashioned voicemail. At least for now.
I agree 100%. I just did a Google Blog Search to see if anyone else was reporting the same thing and found your site. The fact that they only give me 1 day has assured that I will not continue to use their service. I think as a minimum for being a beta tester, we should have at least been given a discount.
I have the same complaint. My response from customer service was “We also apologize for the sudden
notice about the changes to our service. Due to recent upgrades to the
service it is no longer cost effective for us to offer a free transcription
service.”
I thought that was a chuckler. As if the upgrade fairy fell out of the sky and slapped them with a huge unforeseen bill that caused upper management to say “Oops..we’d better drum up as many paid subscribers as we can, and FAST!”
Just got an email that Callwave understands that their announcement “may have caused you some concern” and they’ve extended the upgrade period to Sept. 22.
Hi Geoff, My name is Wendy and I work at CallWave. I wanted to apologize to you and our customers for the irritation caused by the one-day “beta ending” notice. We realize that it wasn’t enough time to review our plans, compare, and transition.
I hope you received the follow-up email sent out yesterday extending the upgrade period to next Monday, Sept. 22nd.
If you’d like to speak with one of our Customer Care managers, please feel free to email Jose at care-v2e@callwave.com.