Complaint Review: Mitchell1

   I was approached by a rep from ProDemand in November about him asking me to subscribe to their services. Auto Repair information. I reluctantly decided to subscribe after a long and frustrating calls. He wanted me to try their ProDemandChallenge for thirty days or one month to see how I liked it and if it would help my business out. I accepted to this, but they wanted a credit card to bill me on if I continued their services. I asked why should a credit card be necessary if using a trial period? If I liked it, then at that time should decided to continue I would give them a credit card number to bill me on. He talked about a purchase order being another way to get this underway. I accepted,  unfortunately my time trial was up on a weekend and could not get a hold of anybody to discontinue services. Should have been a week day when they were actually in the office. Anyway the reason for this report is the let people know how they operate.

  I asked very politely if my services could be discontinued, even though it was two days past the deadline of the trial period they described. I was asked why I no longer wanted their services. I informed them about difficulty in finding information on their program. They have a search bar but to me it does not work properly. If I type in certain word(s) even exactly as they have sub headings listed on their site it will not bring up information someone is searching for. For example; engine removal, or engine replacement as search terms. This terminology is listed on their site but will not work. You have to type in: "engine mechanical" and then scroll or click on other links to find procedure(s) relavant to "engine removal or replacement". seems dumb. Then they offered or instructed me to watch their videos on how to use their product.

  Now here is the problem with watching videos on how to use their product(s). I use two or more other products that are also web based or on the internet, for looking up auto repair information. Both of which are very easy to understand and navigate around. In fact they both open to a page very similar to an index. ProDemand opens to a search or highly looked for or already repaired information. No index listed after logging onto site. A person has to know what search term(s) the designer(s) of this program used. Meaning you have to think like a programmer of this site. Auto Technicians are not programmers of sort, they repair item(s) that programmers messed up in the first place or could not get right prior to selling vehicle to the public.

  In short, if you are not a programmer or know how a programmer works or thinks when they make a computer program, I suggest staying away from this, as you might get a headache like me every time I try and talk some sense into someone at customer service from ProDemand.

  I just think it is wrong for the small businesses, like me, I am only a business of three people. Now am stuck in this "contract" for a year and very difficult to use. My employees would have to spend (on my company payroll) time watching these video(s) of however long to just learn how to find information on their data base, and programmed by who knows who and what that person was thinking when programming this data base.

  Just wrong the small businesses of America feeding the giants of American once again. If a product does not work for that business, then please let them out of a contract. Don't make that small company have hardships and have to close their doors just to keep you large businesses operating.

  Thanks for reading, and hope you learned something here.