I'm a fan of NHibernate. I've been using it for a little while and have grown to like it. Last year I found out that an NHibernate book was in the works from Manning. Being a huge fan of NHibernate and Manning, I decided to purchase this book from the "Manning Early Access Program". Basically, MEAP is a program they setup that gives customers early access to the chapters before they are published. You can either buy the MEAP e-book or the e-book and the print book. Obviously, the print book would be mailed to you once the book is published. The MEAP e-book and print option is usually just a little more expensive (~$5) than a print copy that you would buy in the store. Anyway, I purchased the e-book and print option in June of 2007.

All Is Well

After I purchased the book, a download link was sent to me pretty quickly. I downloaded the available chapters of the book and was pretty satisified. The MEAP program was pretty cool. I could read the book and then give feedback in the forum. Not a bad idea.

Delays and Moving

As time progressed I noticed the book kept getting pushed back. Not a big deal to me since I had most of the chapters, but I noticed I was quickly approaching my move date. Finally, in January of 2008, the time had come to move. 

Customer Support, Please

A month after moving, I remembered I had this book order floating out there.  Before I forgot about it, I went to Manning's site to see if I could change my address. Since I didn't find any such tool, I found their customer support section and sent an e-mail. This was on Feb 24th. On March 4th, I still did not receive a reply. I sent another e-mail reminding them that I needed to get this change as I won't be able to get to the old address. After this e-mail I waited quite some time and didn't receive a response. This time, however, I didn't sent another e-mail. I went to the site again and found their customer support number. I dialed the number and ended up listening to their voice messaging system. I left a message with my name, number and issue. 

Still Need That Support

I, again, waited some more. By now, we're in April and I still haven't heard from a single person there. No e-mail, no phone call, no voicemail on my end. Nothing.  Now I'm a little bitter. I sent another e-mail saying basically the same thing, with the added bonus of saying how many times I've tried contacting this company. I also copied the customer support manager (I think that's his title) on it as well. This was sent on April 17th. Can you guess what happened next? If you guessed "No response", you're right! Good job! You win half of a Manning book. Now, I challenge you to contact them for the rest. Good luck.

Seriously, though, Support? Please?

As of last week, I was still without support. Meanwhile, I've contacted the author. He told me that he forwarded my request to his contact. Another author also forwarded my request to his editor. Nothing. In my head I'm thinking, "Now what?". Well, I just did everything all over again. I left another voicemail. I sent another e-mail. This time, though, I copied every e-mail address on the site. I copied the webmaster, the support department, the support manager, and the infringement department. I even forwarded the e-mail to the support manager's personal e-mail address that he lists on the site. (I'll get into this more later) This was was on April 25th. Yeah, not too long ago, but still a few business days. Guess what? Yup, nothing.

A Little Research

As of today, April 29th, I'm still in the exact place I was when I started this adventure two months ago. Because of this, though, I've spent some time researching other situations. Apparently, I'm not the only one to have this issue.

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

If you read their customer support section, you'll notice that they a blurb about their e-mail support. They say that if you don't receive a response from them in a few days, e-mail someone else or call the number. The excuse they're using is "spam filtering". The support manager even put his own gmail account on the site so people could e-mail that to get around the filtering. I sent a copy of the e-mail to that address as well. No response. I pointed out several examples of customers not getting e-mails. Is the spam filter blocking every e-mail? If it was, don't you think it would make sense to maybe get a new spam filter or stop using one? Or if that's so impossible, maybe they should just get rid of e-mail support and ask people to call instead. Oh, that's right, though. They don't call back either. They probably didn't get my messages. The spam filter must block those too. 

In Summary

I've learned quite a few things from this experience.

- EAP is a good idea.
- Their customer support is a joke.
- It's unlikely that I'll buy another Manning book. There are a few EAP books that I like (DSL, Art of Unit Testing, ASP.NET MVC), but as it stands right now, I will not be buying them. I'm not going to spend $50 on a product when I can't even get recognized by the company.
- They have some good books, but...
- Their customer support is a joke.

The Numbers

Total E-mails Sent: 6
Total Phone Calls: Countless
Total Voice messages left: 2
Total Sandbox Forum Posts: 1
Number of e-mails/calls/voice mails received: 0

Update 4/29/2008 - 3:04pm: Just sent two new e-mails: one to an alternate e-mail found on the site, and an e-mail to two other Manning contacts.