HistoryNet vs Honeywell
By Scott
A tale of two different kinds of customer support: @HistoryNet vs @Honeywell_Home.
I have been a subscriber to HistoryNet’s Civil War Times magazine for a few years now. I don’t necessarily read it every month, but I usually download a few months and read those articles of interest to me. In November of this year, I decided to do some catching up so I downloaded the app onto my iPad Pro. When I fired it up, I saw that it was a newer version than I had previously used, and whereas in the past there had been a button to sync to my iTunes account (I am subscribed via the in-app mechanism), that functionality was no longer present. Instead, there was a username/password combo. Since I had never needed one, I tried a few options, including the Forgot your password option with my iTunes email address, all with no success.
I then went to the HistoryNet website, to see if there was a way to sign up for an account and then to tie it to my iTunes account. No joy there either. After spending an hour or so, I gave up, and the next day, I called their support hotline. The woman who answered asked for my name, and my subscriber information. I told her I subscribed via iTunes, and she told me it wasn’t their problem, that I should call Apple, and then she hung up. Since Apple did not write the app, I called back and got the same runaround from another support person, despite my explaining that this was their app, and they should be able to provide support for it. Click.
So, to this day, I cannot access my subscription. This is how you completely fail at providing any kind of customer support.
Today, since it is warm outside, we decided to open the doors to let in some fresh air. When I went to the HoneyWell website to turn off our HVAC systems, I found that I couldn’t sign in. I tried both Chrome and Firefox, and neither worked. So, I turned to Twitter. I tweeted that I could not sign in, and within two minutes, on Christmas Day nonetheless, a representative had contacted me and we began a conversation. I was finally able to sign in with Safari, and the representative had indicated she would notify the dev team about the issue using the other two browsers.
Now THAT, folks, is how you provide customer support. Kudos to Honeywell and Michaela for their support.