2005 / August 12^th/ Dissapointed by Pragmatic Programmers

Some companies take customer loayalty for granted. Pragmatic Programmers is one of them. No disrespect intended, but customer support has been less than stellar. As soon as Agile Web Development With Rails was available for purchase, I bought the PDF + Book combo. I thought the whole beta-book idea was awesome, and I still do. It got me my immediate needs while I waited for the comforts afforded by print. Great idea to boost sales from pragmatic (the beta book was not available if you pre-ordered from Amazon or other retailers) - thereby increasing their profits by leaps and bounds.

But still, I preordered the book. I gave them nearly $50 back back in May. I gave them my trust that I would be getting a book, knowing that the actual product didn’t even exist yet! Had they decided to run with my money, in all actuality there is little I would have been able to do. Granted, that didn’t happen, nor are the chances of that happening very high. But my point is, I was willing to extend my hand in trust without knowing what I was getting. This is how all pre-orders work.

First, let’s take a little side-trip back three years ago when Jack Johnson was releasing In Between Dreams. I pre-ordered that CD off Jack Johnson’s website about a month before the release date. About a week before the CD hit stores, I got a suprise package in the mail - Jack Johnson had decided to mail out all pre-orders early. Now that’s how you handle pre-orders. You realize that the customers are fans of yours and willing to give you money without anything in return for quite some time.

That’s not what has happened with Pragmatic Programmers. When we first bought the book, we were assured the book would be hitting shelves the first week in August. So it got a little behind schedule, I can understand that. But here’s the thing… people who ordered the book through Amazon have been recieving it since August 5th. Those who pre-ordered the books started getting them shipped on the 9th - 4 days after those who had purchased it through Amazon. As of today, August 11th, I’ve yet to receive mine. In fact, I just got an email this afternoon that my book was shipped on the 9th, two days after shipping.

I’m sorry - but where’s the customer appreciation Dave? I feel like I was cast aside as a second priority (yes, I am fully aware of OSCON, but you still have a business to run first and foremost). I purchased it through Pragmatic because I know of the rape that occurs selling books through Amazon. In fact, many authors end up making more money on affiliate sales of their book than the actual commissions. So I thought I’d be generous, support a worthy cause and lay out my trust in Pragmatic Programmers. Instead, I’m going to be some of the last people to recieve the book. And let’s not put the PDF version up too high - if I had so well chosen, I’m sure I could have downloaded it off some P2P client - but instead I bought the book more because I wanted to help support what seemed like a worthy cause.

Is this how you treat customers? All the Web 2.0 technobabble aside, there are real people on the other end of websites. I’m finding all too often these lucky small-person companies that are making large sums of money off some chance product that hit the market at the perfect time are thinking they don’t run a business. They’re off perusing conferences while their inventory lies unshipped in their warehouses. This doesn’t just apply to Pragmatic Programmers.

Just remember, that even the “good guys” can act like WAL-MART if they see fit. Why should we as consumers chose the hole-in-the-wall mom-and-pop shops if we’re paying more, and recieving sub-par service? To feed some fantasy that we’re on the “right side?” I think not.

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