Nuance, owners of Dragon Dictate, have been using information gathered by millions of iPhone and iPad users dictating emails and notes. The trade-off has been: “We give you a free app and you give us normal US language structure and vocabulary,” then Nuance continuously upgrades the apps with the information it has gleaned from us.
It works. My iPhone and iPad understand my voice, while MacSpeech Dictate 1.5.9 on my computer gets about 87% accuracy, even with a lot of wasted time “training” it, which means dictating isn’t efficient enough for real work.
Men I know who use Dragon swear they get nearly perfect recognition. I suspect that Dragon isn’t sexist, but that it doesn’t hear female voices as well as men’s — I don’t either. (The first notice I had that I needed hearing aids came from the female end of the testing scale.)
So when Nuance sent an email announcing a big upgrade for $50, I was filled with desire. Finally, I, too, could dictate books and emails and blogs, do a quick check for spelling and send, just like the guys. Just like the apps.
That was about two weeks ago and I still don’t have the upgrade. I can log in to my account with Nuance, but on the next step, when I am supposed to type in the product I want, I can’t do it. I can’t do it with Safari. I can’t do it with Firefox. I can’t do it several times in a row, with restarts in-between. I can’t even do it several days in a row.
Moreover, I can’t get help from Nuance. The first email I sent received a puzzled response. The customer service rep didn’t understand the problem. S/he didn’t reply when I sent more details.
A second complaint. The second email said Nuance was looking into it. Thus ended Week I.
Week II
Another advertising email arrived promoting the upgrade. This time I saw a phone number to order. I called on Tuesday, Sept. 28. They can’t take orders, but they wrote down my troubles and gave me a ticket number: 391 – 911. “I’ll send this to the escalation team,” I was told. “If you don’t hear back within two to three days, call back.”
Silence.
On the third day, Friday, Oct. 1, I called again. No one had looked at the problem yet, according to my ticket. The customer service rep told me that she was putting “high priority” on my ticket and if I didn’t hear back within 48 hours to call again and ask for a supervisor. In a few hours, I received an email saying they were looking at my case.
Forty-eight hours later, I still hadn’t heard anything more, so I called and asked for a supervisor. “Oliver” told me that the team only works from Monday to Friday, so I would probably hear back on Monday or Tuesday.
“Tuesday?” I said. “But you’re probably in India and it is 12-hours ahead there. Why can’t I hear on Monday?”
The United States decides the order in which cases are worked on, Oliver said. “Again, we’re very sorry…”
C’mon, Nuance! We’re entering Week III and I still can’t buy your product?!