Sunday, January 17, 2010

Thumbs down for Rhino's new website

Robert Folsom Writes likes free stuff as much as the next blogger, so when an e-mail arrived from Rhino records saying it had a new website and it was offering a free download of a single track, RFW fell for it.
The single wasn't free. It was supposed to be. Just enter the promo code, and Rhino would subtract the cost of the track at checkout.
Didn't happen.
But Rhino decided to set up a hoop to jump through before that: You have to create a new account, even if you already had one, to access its new, shiny website, which offers high-def digital music.
Then, to download your free track, Rhino encourages you to install its download manager. Great. Just what the Internet needs, another download manager. This one came with a Java download and update. Yet more waiting for Java Sun Systems to update. With a Microsoft Bing (But It's Not Google) toolbar. Definitely took the check mark out of that box.
Rhino's download manager says its preference is to download your supposedly free song to iTunes. That was as successful as getting the free song at checkout. Opened iTunes. The song wasn't there, even though the file handling preferences on Rhino's download manager had iTunes as the download directory. Had to go looking for it in the newly installed Rhino folder. That's a favorite pastime of computer users: to go searching for a download because it isn't where it should be.
Rhino knows it has some bugs to work out. It has a link on its home page that says, "We’re still polishing the new site, so if you have any comments & suggestions, please email them to us." We're supposed to help Rhino? Rhino is the business. It should have its act together before launching a new, improved website.
An auto-response from Rhino said it would respond within five days. Five days. This isn't the unemployment office. A response time of five days is more than enough time to lose a customer.
Like it just did.

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