Comments on: When buying online services is too hard

By: Devan

Devan — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:42:47 +0000

Jeffrey and Joshua,

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my post. This is precisely the sort of excellent customer service that I had heard about your company, and I am glad that you care enough to put your thoughts down here.

@Jeff – you are right, the first line on your Jira Studio page _does_ state the 5 user blocks, and I totally missed that in my search for the ‘$’ amount!

I still have a very high regard for your company and your products, and do look forward to the time in the future when I can become a customer of yours.

By: Joshua Wold

Joshua Wold — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:18:52 +0000

I’m sorry to hear of the troubles you had in dealing with our sales group here at Atlassian. I head up this group and I really want to hear feedback (both positive and negative) so we can work to make the experience better.

The response you received could definitely have been better crafted so that it didn’t come off negatively. That isn’t at all the vibe that we want to exude and I’m sorry you felt that way.

Unfortunately there really isn’t anything that we can do as far as your need for licenses go. We do have that 5 person limit JIRA Studio and there just aren’t any personal licenses for any of of our hosted products. I wish we could shape the offerings a bit to fit your needs but unfortunately we cannot.

I hope you still have a high regard for our products and we’ll work to make sure that your next interaction with our sales team is positive, regardless of outcome. Thanks for sharing your experience.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Joshua Wold
j wold at atlassian dot com

By: Jeffrey Walker

Jeffrey Walker — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:51:13 +0000

Devan — I’m sorry you could not find what you wanted: a 2 person user hosted. We try very hard to satisfy small (very small in fact) and large customers, but sometimes we cannot. To keep our prices low, we try to simplify and standardize our pricing. Lots of variations drive your costs up. I would point out:
– We think equal treatment, full transparency, and low prices are important to the vast majority of customers. We do not make exceptions nor grant special discounts, even when pressured by a large customer who buys lots of licenses. Special deals (‘we’ll check with the boss and see what we can do’) are precisely what to avoid.
– In the spirit of openness, the first sentence on our pricing page for JIRA Studio says “sold in 5 user increments”. I apologize if you consider this fine print. We are really trying to be upfront.
– Should you someday consider otherwise, we would welcome you as a customer. Consider JIRA Studio includes much more than JIRA and Confluence. Most consider our pricing very aggressive given hosting costs. If you find something competitive, we want to know. And yes, Nick in our Sydney office would love to chat with you, mate.

Jeffrey