RPC Subscription renewal

[Ky Lane]

I got an email from Vismasters today, regarding my RPC all access subscription with them..

 

Hello Ky Lane,

 

Your RPC All Access Subscription is up for renewal

on XXX, 2009. For your convenience we will automatically

renew your subscription for the following products:

 

RPC All-Access: Ultimate

 

If you need to cancel your subscription, please contact us before

XXX, 2009 to avoid being charged. You can contact us at

http://commerce.vismasters.com/support.

 

VisMasters Support Team

share - learn -inspire

I found myself wondering, "Why bother?".

 

Do I use RPC? Yes. Enough to justify the fee? No.

 

They don't offer any incentives to renew, nor even any new content since I first bought my subscription.

 

Pretty lame really. And the email is pretty blunt and uninviting. We're going to take your money off you automatically unless you say so...

 

Not cool.

 

Anyone elses thoughts?

[rmccoy]

I understand your complaint about the auto renewal thing. The subscription can be pricey in a slow work environment. They definately could word things better. However, auto renewell can actually be a blessing sometimes. I have my website and hosting set to auto renew on a yearly basis which is really nice. I also have a lot of my bills set to automatically deduct from my bank account. it saves the hassle of going and paying the bills every month.

 

About the actual RPC stuff. There most likely have been updates released since you first got your subscription. They are not easy to find on the archvision website. We had a few licenses of the standard package at my last office. you have to manually go in and find the new stuff on their content manager site (not sure if that is the correct name of the area of the site). You have to drag them to a download container on their website which will then download using your rpc content manager. it's a huge headache and hassle, but they do release new stuff on a regular basis.

 

As to whether or not it's worth the cost is totally up to you.

[Ky Lane]

I understand your complaint about the auto renewal thing. The subscription can be pricey in a slow work environment. They definately could word things better. However, auto renewell can actually be a blessing sometimes. I have my website and hosting set to auto renew on a yearly basis which is really nice. I also have a lot of my bills set to automatically deduct from my bank account. it saves the hassle of going and paying the bills every month.

 

About the actual RPC stuff. There most likely have been updates released since you first got your subscription. They are not easy to find on the archvision website. We had a few licenses of the standard package at my last office. you have to manually go in and find the new stuff on their content manager site (not sure if that is the correct name of the area of the site). You have to drag them to a download container on their website which will then download using your rpc content manager. it's a huge headache and hassle, but they do release new stuff on a regular basis.

 

As to whether or not it's worth the cost is totally up to you.

 

Thanks for that.

 

Yeah, the auto-payment is fine - just the wording/attitude sucked. There seems to be no effort to try and keep a customer other than to make it an effort NOT to be one.

 

I havent received a single email from Vismasters (apart from this one) in 11 months of being a customer, introducing any new content they've produced or added to the collection.

 

I just had a quick browse, and don't see anything new?

[rmccoy]

the new stuff is there hidden somewhere in the great land of rpc content. they don't really showcase it at all. since I don't have access to the site right now I can't go and look exactly where it is. but they do release updates about once a month it seemed like.

 

it would be nice if they had a better way of tracking the content. or maybe even an auto-sync type feature for their subscribers. We never received any emails stating new content. I actually found out on accident when I went and set up our dedicated render farm and server. it was a nice surprise to see new content. but it was a pain to get to.

[Justin Hunt]

The only two reasons we have renewed is 1) they have finally introduced gamma correction so now they render with more contrast and 2) We have many past projects which have alot of RPC's, they keep on cropping up (some just wont go away no matter how hard we try )

 

Other than that I'd drop it today,

 

jhv

[dfife]

First, thanks for the feedback. We appreciate it.

 

 

We’re working on improvements to the email language and renewal process. We do send out regular emails regarding new content additions and software additions. Those emails are usually heavy with graphics and may be getting spammed out, and it is possible that you've inadvertently been placed on an opt-out list for that mailer.

 

 

Your comments were useful and we shared them internally with the development team to address. With regard to the search process and finding ‘recently added content’ we are adding features this week to improve that behavior. However, it will not solve the desire to ‘auto-sync’ and/or auto-download new/recently added content. That feature is in the works.

 

 

If you have additional feedback, please drop me a note directly or send a note to support@archvision.com

 

 

Dee Fife

ArchVision, Inc. | VisMasters