Customer Support - No Response

[BernardK9]

I am in the UK and I have been trying to contact someone all week to get a quote for renewal of SSP. The current SSP has lapsed. There is no web location for renewing lapsed SSP and the site directs to the UK phone number and I have spent over 40 mins on hold so far this week. I have emailed sales@ni.com and so far there has been no response. Any ideas on what is going on!! Anybody got any suggestions for how to get a response?

[billko]

If you go to the account the SSP is linked to and select support --> register and activate, you will see your product there and you can choose to renew expired service.

[BernardK9]

I have tried that. The product appears in the list of software registered to me. When I click on Renew I get a message that there is a problem with this request. Please contact us for assistance. The link then points to the UK phone number and I am left hanging on hold.

I have always been able to get through to the NI switchboard and then on to a sales engineer. It seems that the process has changed and I am now falling foul of an inflexible system.

[billko]

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@BernardK9 wrote:

I have tried that. The product appears in the list of software registered to me. When I click on Renew I get a message that there is a problem with this request. Please contact us for assistance. The link then points to the UK phone number and I am left hanging on hold.

I have always been able to get through to the NI switchboard and then on to a sales engineer. It seems that the process has changed and I am now falling foul of an inflexible system.

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Sorry about that.  I don't have anything else for you because NI sales always used to respond.  😞

[MichaelBalzer]

It looks like you aren't the only one. Here's a couple of forum threads complaining about NI's increasingly poor to non-existent support over the last year.

Can't call NI to get help selecting hardware?

NI poor shipping and poor customer service

Is the UK under a distributor arrangement, like here in Aus? There's no longer any direct sales or support from NI here, only through the distributor.

[dkfire]

Have you tried: 
https://www.ni.com/software-renewal/#/

or is it the same page get through the profile? 

[GGT]

NI in the UK have indeed moved to a distributor arrangement. Happened a few years ago. We now get appalling or no practical support from NI. We have no technical field representative. They used to be the best. Now, nothing. They're all gone. What with this, going down the wrong road with the NXG, and the pointless blue to green thing, I really wonder what has happened at NI. If I wasn't so into and dependant upon LabVIEW I'd have probably ditched NI by now.

[BernardK9]

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, that is the same page with the same error message.

[BernardK9]

GGT - Thanks for the response. Its not very encouraging but what I suspected. I felt that the blue to green shift somewhat amateurish and a retrograde step. Its a couple of years since I have used NI support and I agree that they were very helpful. Clearly these oddball enquiries are more trouble than they are worth. I have a significant client where they have a substantial NI based system. The software requires an update due to a fault that has only just become apparant. The client is pressurising me for a response and I just can't help.

Very disappointed with NI and like you, I will now look for longer term alternatives as its clear to me which way this is going.

[billko]

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@BernardK9 wrote:

GGT - Thanks for the response. Its not very encouraging but what I suspected. I felt that the blue to green shift somewhat amateurish and a retrograde step. Its a couple of years since I have used NI support and I agree that they were very helpful. Clearly these oddball enquiries are more trouble than they are worth. I have a significant client where they have a substantial NI based system. The software requires an update due to a fault that has only just become apparant. The client is pressurising me for a response and I just can't help.

Very disappointed with NI and like you, I will now look for longer term alternatives as its clear to me which way this is going.

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I think the blue to green transition happened at the time NI got new leadership at the top, so it was like the new dog peeing on the fire hydrant.  A more sinister result of the change at the top was a move away from the customer in general.