AbacusNext™ and HotDocs™ – Frustration with Sales Tactics
Last night I received an email from AbacusNext™ purporting to be a warning that my permanent-use HotDocs desktop license was expired and unsupported, and that I needed to upgrade to the HotDocs subscription service immediately – for the good of my computer and my document automation, of course.
Like many of you, this is not the first frustrating email I’ve received from Abacus and/or HotDocs over the past year, but it’s the one that has been the most blatantly offensive to me.
Below is my summary of the email’s points (with my comments in parentheses):
- If you don’t upgrade to the HotDocs subscription service now, bad things will happen – your computer will probably get infected with ransomware or spyware (please, please, pretty please upgrade, we’re desperate over here).
- Your desktop version of HotDocs won’t work right anymore since we don’t support it! You really need to upgrade now so that your HotDocs will keep working (our sales are so poor that we’re now trying to scare you into buying an upgrade).
- Even if your desktop version of HotDocs works, it probably won’t work right with the newest version of Word (if you won’t upgrade when we ask nicely, we’ll threaten you with your automation system failing so that you have no choice but to upgrade, even though our testing has shown Word 2019 to work).
- If you don’t respond, we’re going to keep sending you these emails telling you that your current version of HotDocs won’t keep working and will open your computer up to vulnerabilities (we’re going to keep sending out scare emails until you upgrade).
I’m going to be blunt here. My company worked with HotDocs for twenty years and was satisfied with their product, business practices, and customer service until the acquisition by AbacusNext. HotDocs wasn’t perfect, but it worked well and was a good company. However, since Abacus took over, that has changed.
If you want to learn about a HotDocs alternative let me know and schedule a time to talk.
