Open Letter to ALK

[lynnk]

Dear ALK:
I have been an avid ALK CoPilot supporter for quite a few years. After trying almost every GPS device that was available on the market a few years ago, I concluded that CoPilot had the best performance and features that I liked. I started with Copilot 4 and have gotten every version since including the latest one, CoPilot Live 8. I thought that your implementation of the right features in your software were very good and I especially liked the ability to plan my trips on my computer and then transfer the route to my PDA. I felt that customer support was not great, but I could almost always pick up the phone and get a tech support person to answer my questions, although as time passed, it was harder and harder to catch someone for information. I had conquered CoPilot 7 and was reasonably happy with it, being able to load custom POIs and plan trips on my PC.

Now we come to your current product, CoPilot 8 Live:

Your decision to totally revamp the process by making CoPilot Central only a portal to your web site to get new software and add options while deleting the PC mapping capability was, in my opinion, a major regression for CoPilot. CoPilot Central software is buggy and for many users it refuses to show us updated software that we know is available. Many have been faced with multiple reloads of Central in order to get it to work at all.

Your decision to make email the only way to contact tech support was also a major mistake. It’s bad enough that you can’t actually talk to a person, but the response time to get an email answer is totally unacceptable. I have sent several inquires on items and not even gotten a single answer. The ones that did get answered were clearly sent by someone that we simply trying to get the email off of his/her desk and didn’t answer the question at all.

Your ability to analyze problems that have been reported frequently and get a fix to the user is horrible. It appears your philosophy is to wait until you plan the release of a new version and put the fixes in there but you have always caused new problems on the new releases so the result is that you never have a version that is fully functional.

You don’t seem to have your finger on the pulse of your users. Either you don’t read the forums that discuss your product or you have turned a blind eye to the information. Many of the users have had to find work-arounds or solutions on their own and share them for others to get the benefit. Bravo Zulu to all of the users that have over the years discussed problems and helped your fellow users with solutions or at least a shoulder to cry on … not a single word ever from ALK on any of the forums.

My conclusion is that, while ALK could have possibly the best GPS solution out there, your lack of customer support, your unwillingness to listen to the voice of your users, your arbitrary changes to your software, and your lack of updates to fix documented problems have (and will continue to) drive your once many loyal followers to other products that can do the job and have friendly customer service and rapidly fix problems with updates.

As for me, I have jumped the fence and gotten a competitor’s product that works well and has the features I look for…. Including a customer service/tech service that is available and has answers to the questions that I have. I feel like I am losing a good friend and I am somewhat sad for making the move but know it is the correct one. I see your competition gaining market share and ALK losing. I believe the primary reason is poor customer/technical service. Silence is not the answer. I predict that you will be out of the GPS business before long unless you make a major change in that way you do business. So long CoPilot.

[Jonmcg]

At end of your letter you say you have found an alternative. Would you care to say which it is?

My worst experience was getting "activation failed your trial has ended" for a week and it was only solved (by ALK resetting my account) after I emailed US suport and faxed complaint to ALK in London.

[lynnk]

I'd be glad to share it.

After looking at all the major brands (TomTom, Garmin, Magellan, etc) I decided to go with a Garmin device. They make quite a few, each with some slightly different twist. I chose a Nuvi 765T. After having made that choice, I think I might have been slightly better off with the 855. The reason that I say that is that the 855 allows you to mark a route to be avoided and saves that info for anytime you are following a route. The 765 will let you avoid a road but does not save the info so if it recalculates a route, it may send you down a route that you wanted to avoid.

One of the reasons I like CoPilot was the ability to plan your route on a map and then transfer it to the device. It turns out that Garmin has Mapsource with allows you to do the same thing. However, there is one flaw in the Garmin process. When you transfer the route to the device, the device recalculates the route and may not take you the same way. The algorithm in the device must be different than Mapsource. The only way you can insure that it takes the route you plan on Mapsouce is to add a lot of waypoints ... the more waypoints you have the more likely is that it will calculate the same route that you planned with Mapsource.

Overall, I am quite pleased with the Garmin. It does custom POIs and things like red light cameras, etc very well. Over the years, I've tried quite a few different brands. I was quite fond of CoPilot but as I said in my letter, they seem to be going backwards and their communications with their customers if horrible. I think they could have been the absolute best but failed to listen to users.

If you want any more info on the Garmin, I would be glad to share.

Lynn

[Jonmcg]

Thanks. I will look at garmin.
I sent an email to Alain Kornhausaer, which he passed on to support, who replied unbelievably quickly. Sadly it was the normal rubbish. ALK have the "black hole" approach, ie it has been passed on to development and no feedback will be given on whether it is considered a fault and certainly we will not tell you if we are going to do anything about it.

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