Why I can never recommend Sketchup Pro again

SketchUp Pro
1

I’ve been unable to use my paid subscription for the past 3 days.

It began when a banner popped up for me to update to Sketchup 2023.

I downloaded it and deleted SU 2022 .
I’ve successfully updated in years past, but this time I was locked out, related to # of authorizations…
For the next few days, I emailed back and forth with SU customer service.
The instructions and links were a dead end (and even had a condescending language I would not use with my customers). Eventually the rep asked if I’d like to do a screenshare.
I said yes, and he got back with me the next day (today).

During our phone call/screenshare K (the rep), admitted that the Sketchup’s instructions/links to users of my lockout situation, could be improved.
That a software a company is having to address this issue frequently, admits that it could be improved, but doesn’t make an effort to fix it, OR warn people before that this could happen before they upgrade, is telling.

I would soon see why these issues are still happening to customers: You don’t need to fix a problem if you can convince the customer it’s their fault.

K got me up and running via phone call/ screen share, and I asked if they could extend my SU subscription for the 3 days I was not able to use it.
K told me this was not possible due to the way their subscriptions worked.

A minute later he told me that they actually could do this BUT it was not warranted in my case, because, “This was something YOU did.”
I have a business and I do not talk to my customers this way. I’m not sure why K thought it was okay to talk to me like this.

I told him I’d no longer be able to recommend Sketchup Pro to my cohorts or customers in construction (as I do many times a year), due to the risk that they’d be locked out and talked to that way, and I’d end up hearing about it…

This is my first time dealing directly with SU (having previously gotten answers from the helpful folks on this forum), and I’m not sure how deep this runs at the company, but I’m feeling disillusioned (in contrast to their upbeat and helpful YouTube channel).

That’s why I won’t be recommending paid versions of Sketchup after today.

Hopefully this post will help someone else.

2

I have come across this situation a few times over the years. I could have called my bank, internet provider, Sky TV, Insurance Company etc, and end up speaking to somebody with seemingly no idea about customer service. My reaction used to be, never deal with that company again. But now I realise every company has people like that who are probably just be having a bad day, and the next time I call I get somebody who is so helpful they make mexfeel their particular company is wonderful.

3

It’s your decision if you recommend or not a software or anything, I’ve never had a problem like yours, I’ve been able to manage the seats without any issue, if I had to solve a problem with customer support and the person doesn’t treat me like a customer I would still recommend sketchup, cause the program is awesome, one guy can’t make me change my mind, my opinion about the software is based on how useful it is, not on a single person who doesn’t know how to deal with customers, I understand your frustration but the program you used to recommend hasn’t change, you just had a bad experience, we’ve all had this kind of experiences with a lot of companies, restaurants, stores etc. But that doesn’t mean that the products they provide that I like suddenly became bad.

1 Like
4

SketchUp (Trimble) is not one person. If you like SketchUp as @francisquitof says you will recommend it as a software, what you should not recommend is the person you told with. It’s my opinion.

5

Your 1st mistake. Never delete a working copy of SU when a new one comes out :wink:

4 Likes
6

Blockquote
Your 1st mistake. Never delete a working copy of SU when a new one comes out :wink:

and then wait until at least revision 3 to even rename the folder :slight_smile: i keep 1 version back until the next release but i rename the folders with a .X suffix and update the registry so the links to the new app are working correctly. if i need to rollback, i can simply reset the registry and then rename the .X folders back…

1 Like
7

Uh… that’s a bit extreme. I’d advise against that but you do you.

1 Like
8

i do it to prevent the “where did my […] go?” plugins, files, settings, etc by renaming the folders i force any missed settings to reveal themselves :slight_smile: the registry settings so when i click on the file i don’t get the “please wait, installing SU” “please wait, now installing LO” etc - i already did it… but the SU/LO installers don’t do a good job of assuming that the latest version is the one i want to relate files to, and always seems to go to the previous version as well. and no, running as admin doesn’t solve those. ever. so 10 minutes and i’m good. re-save preferences once updated, and good to go until the next version :slight_smile:

1 Like
9

Most users here seem to screw up just a basic application install. I’ve honestly have never seen those prompts come up with SU and I just double-click and go when installing a new version and it’s always worked, 100% of the time (SU user since v3). Just did it with SU '22 and '23 on my new Win11 Pro box. 100% working as it should including all plugins. I honestly believe that most of the issues we see here are user self inflicted :frowning: You’re clearly a seasoned PC professional and know what you’re doing.

10

I would rather blame Windows restrictions from either company policies (they often create “admin” accounts that are not quite that) or some, for me unknown brands of virus protection or firewall applications.

11

Well that’s not Windows but a bad Admin doing those things. That’s like blaming AutoDesk because you got a bad dwg from a user that didn’t know what they were doing. Oh wait, we do see a LOT of that here :wink: I do get what your saying but I’ve seen posts were a user will say that they installed SU to some random folder on the D drive instead of where it needs to go or installing and then moving the install folder. I mean that’s a WHOLE next level of operator error.