Support - Do we need Xaxa Ltd?

[ajreed]

Being new (like 1 day left on my 30 free trial of XaxaX) I have encountered a few problems and a simple and repeatable way of crashing XaxaX. I emailed Xara support and got a fairly nippy reply from John Richardson, followed his advice, replied the same day to let him know how it had all gone, then nothing. All that took place on 9th April.

Brilliant though Xara is, am I being too old fashioned to expect manufacturers to provide good responsive support for their products?

Maybe - just maybe - this board and its members might offer better support.

What do you all think? I got just one more day before I face the big decision on buying. Am already beginning to feel pangs of withdrawal, so maybe purchase is inevitable whatever the support.

[ajreed]

Being new (like 1 day left on my 30 free trial of XaxaX) I have encountered a few problems and a simple and repeatable way of crashing XaxaX. I emailed Xara support and got a fairly nippy reply from John Richardson, followed his advice, replied the same day to let him know how it had all gone, then nothing. All that took place on 9th April.

Brilliant though Xara is, am I being too old fashioned to expect manufacturers to provide good responsive support for their products?

Maybe - just maybe - this board and its members might offer better support.

What do you all think? I got just one more day before I face the big decision on buying. Am already beginning to feel pangs of withdrawal, so maybe purchase is inevitable whatever the support.

[philhendry]

Hi,

Well, I've had Xara since it was *****Xara 1.5, and haven't had many problems that have needed any support- in a sense, given how good XaraX seems to be, it wouldn't really matter if the support wasn't very good. But anyway, I had a problem early on with XaraX, and Mark Goodall was quick to respond very helpfully. I use a lot of software, some of it very specialist, and the response was better than most- not the very best I've ever had, but pretty good, and waaay, waaay better than the worst (who shall remain safely anonymous). I've no complaints about Xara Ltd's product support.

This list is pretty darn good too though! Nothing can beat a bunch of enthusiasts when it comes to being helpful.

Cheers,
Phi

Trust the computer industry to shorten 'Year 2000' to 'Y2K'. It was this sort of thinking that caused the problem in the first place.

[tonylondon]

My experience is the same as Alan R. I can't help feeling that Xara must be overwhelmed at the moment - I have been waiting for a reply since February. Having said that, not many suppliers these days give such a personal service anyway.
I think it is probably too early to judge Xara Ltd in this matter.
Tony

[ivca]

It's all relative, I suppose and I would guess that it would depend on how each person would like to be treated. It's like one waitress being great for one table but for the people at the other... atrocious. One thing I "can" safely say, they weren't stupid to adopt these forums as they've served as a very large safety valve in terms of support. As we know, looking around you can find answers to many questions that could have been fodder for email to Xara's support.
On the whole, though, they are an excellent company with an excellent product, and what you see here on the forums is a rarity indeed. Where else can you see a company take the chance and sponsor a public forum that praises and trashes your product at the same time. Xara ltd just happens to be confident enough in thier product to know that the former is likely to happen.

On the subject of Corel (I'm not afriad to say it [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]) Philhendry said of Xara's support: <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> waaay better than the worst (who shall remain safely anonymous). <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

As a Canuck, during the Cowpland regime, and a Draw 8 owner, Corel's (phone) support was nothing short of embarrassing. I can't say what it is today ... but that's how it was when Draw 8 was released and needless to say, that was the last corel version I bought. I love the product, though...

Buy it [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] ... errr Xara X, i mean.

Wayne

[ajreed]

Well what can I say? A fairly mixed responce, but at least I got one! I think product excellence will win over perceived support inadequacies, after all it does work (quite well most of the time) and where it doesn't, most of you seem to have worked out how to get around it.

As a new user (but familiar with Artworks) I find myself being able to work out some of the problems put here by other users, such is the similarity with Artworks. I just love Artworks and XaraX is a very good PC equivalent, and with my dependancy on graphics (addiction?) I guess I've just got to have it. Get ready to welcome a new owner - its not long now.....

[stlewis]

Perhaps we can find you a work-round?

www.thelondonhouse.co.uk

[ajreed]

Simon

Not so much a bug as me (probably as a new user) doing something silly.

It went:
Load XaraX
Click on bitmap gallery
Highlight inbuilt default bitmap
Click save. XaraX crashes.

Looking back - it seems a dumb thing to do but I still felt Xara should not be crippled quite so easy.

But guess what, 30 days down the free trial line and I cannot get it to repeat the above. Must be run-in or something [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif[/img]

But since it was a) probably a silly thing to do anyway and b) won't crash as it used to, all I can say is thanks for your offer.

Alan.

[gwpriester]

Alan

At least Xara still offers tech support, albeit a tad inconsistent, and at no charge!

Most software companies go out of their way to make sure you can never ever communicate with a human being, either by e-mail, or telephone, unless you pay either a flat fee--often around $25.00 US per call, or dial a 900 number where you are charged for the time it takes your problem to be solved.

On the other hand, there are very few user group conferences, such as these, where you can not only get answers to many questions from a variety of advanced users, and almost instantly, but also where Xara employees check in on a regular basis and field the difficult questions.

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

Be It Even So Humble...

[james_frost]

Alan,

No probs doing that with the patched CD version (1.0c) of the app (so shouldn't be a problem when I mean if you decide to purchase the product)

I've made Xara crash a couple of times since I bought it, but never doing "normal" things. Do bare in mind that there are a lot of users here who stretch the package to its physical limits, and they're much more likely to have these crashes/issues/bugs!

IMHO, it's well worth the money...

James