Why Exactly Does Anyone Use WebEx?

Why Exactly Does Anyone Use WebEx?

We had a terrible experience with WebEx a couple years back, which I blogged about here.  Since then, we've happily been using Ready Talk with nary a problem. 

WebEx's sales reps spam me all the time, and no matter how many times I try to get off their list, I keep getting the spam.  It's embarrassing that an e-company is in flagrant violation of CAN-SPAM, the most permissive anti-spam law around.

But I've been on two or three WebEx calls lately where, sometime in the middle of the call, an automated voice comes on and says "thank you, your conference call is now over," and closes down the call.  Sometimes, dialing back in works, sometimes it doesn't.  Once a couple weeks ago, when dialing-in didn't work, I just emailed everyone on the call, and we switched to my Ready Talk number.

I'm not sure how much due diligence Cisco did on them before acquiring them for a gazillion dollars recently, but the mix of poor technology, overly aggressive sales reps in violation of the law, and awful customer service sounds like a nightmare to me.

Comments

[Brian]

My use of WebEx has been only with their PC sharing service - it's popular with the vendors we have who need to dial-in and remote control for installation and setup.

I suspect it's used because it doesn't suck that much and there is mindshare lockin. I'd never heard of ReadyTalk.

[Elizabeth]

I work on a team that is located across seven offices. We use WebEx almost on a daily basis and I've never had the problems you noted. I'm not a fan -- I do think it's clunky -- but it serves it's purpose.

I'll have to look at ReadyTalk -- is this a paid plug?

[raja]

i work with webex and we wont spam anyone..... its Cisco 5 bn$ company

[Paul Clieu]

You get invited to a Webex demo. The Webex system asks you for your email address. If you give it (and you don't have to I have since discovered) then in my experience starting one week later you will be inundated with Webex spam.

Webex fans tell me it is a co-incidence. The may be right but I believe my gut feel.

[robert henrichs]

We just received spam to multiple users - all of a sudden - all at once !!

These names were undoubtedly copied off our web page, there's no logical way the recipients would have been selected otherwise.