Smartsheet, built for failure

Jeny Lee

I'm have not found a proper place to lodge a complaint so as a last resort, I'm posting things here.

[Dates and personal account information have been removed by moderators.]

We are a smartsheet enterprise user located in Canberra Australia. A smartsheet client development manager based in Sydney reached out to me suggesting a chance to review our account for renewal. After I told him that we were looking at to half our licenses (due to covid impact on the business), i was getting introduced to a customer success person to discuss our system requirements. In the meeting with him, I told him we were looking at to cut down our license and change to a month to month payment plan if possible.

I sent through to the customer success person an inquiry asking if there is anything on our side we could do to help with adjusting the renewal plan, I didn't hear back from him, between multiple emails of chasing this up as our renewal is coming up I finally get a response saying that "the best way to switch payment terms and reduce license is by cancelling our account and create a new one".

We could not cancel our account because our account was linked to our other systems, plus I could not do that because our account was not set up for cancelling.

I was told to finalize a list of 7 users before they could move the change our account and was informed that

"Your invoice has been reduced to 7 licenses and Finance is just finishing of the last step to convert you to monthly credit card."

Just when I thought everything has finally being done and dusted, I got the following message,

"Please see response. We don't send out order forms for monthly plans because we do not invoice them.  Please have the customer purchase a monthly plan via the app, invite the current users of their annual plan, and cancel their current annual plan. So what you will need to do is create another account with another email address via Smartsheet.com ."

Again I told them I can't cancel our current account because we've got our account linked to other systems...

so after a few emails of chasing up again I got this reply from the client development manager,

"Thanks for your patience with this. I have worked with our operations team to make the change to your Smartsheet plan to be billed monthly. This will be processed within the next 24 hours and should you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us."

just when I thought everything was finally getting done and dusted, our finance department received a warning

WARNING: YOUR SMARTSHEET ACCOUNT WILL BE SUSPENDED IN 7 DAYS Our records indicate that the attached invoice was due for payment and remains in serious arrears. We’ve made multiple contacts with you concerning this and require immediate attention to this matter. If this matter is not resolved within 7 calendar days, your account will be suspended and users/processes will be unable to utilize Smartsheet functionality.

Again, this was flagged with the customer success person I was told that "The information has been resubmitted to finance yesterday and takes up to 3 days to process."

In between, I have been copied to emails the customer success person sent to smartsheet finance, saying

Hi Finance, I've been trying to close this opportunity a few times and it keeps getting pushed back. We have the customer waiting for their invoice. Can we please have this sent out asap?

I was told that "Our finance and operations team have advised that in order to have the plan changed from annual to monthly, you will need to execute another order form. This will be sent through to you via our operations team shortly."

I signed the doc on the day, making a note to the client development manager that the please make sure our account does not get affected while our renewal gets processed. I got confirmation from him saying that Yes – the invoice is in the process of being finalized. I have made a request for you account not to be blocked in the meantime which has been approved.

While I though this was finally the end, it's way from over. I reached out to the the client development manager telling him that our finance department is yet to receive anything from smartsheet, the manager reassured me again that "Yes – the invoice is in the process of being finalized. I have made a request for you account not to be blocked in the meantime which has been approved."

Our account was locked.

As the client manager is not responding to my emails, I had to call smartsheet finance US. While there is no after hour support so I had to speak to a lady in sales to help me get through to finance. We got a lady from finance telling us that essentially, smartsheet can't do month to month billing and ask us if we are happy to do annual payment. Given that our whole production team and customer service team can't work without access to our sheet, our finance manager made the decision to pay over the phone via credit card of the whole year's charge. Our access was back after we made the payment.

I dropped an email to our client development manager letting him know that we've got this sorted. He did not respond until [removed by moderator] to have me signed a document via doucsign which I did instantly.

When you are getting tired of reading this post, I'm experiencing all the frustrations of being cheated and being questioned by my team.

Our account got locked again without any warnings. This time we had no luck of reaching smartsheet finance team in the US. Our client development manager refused to take my call the third time i called and emailed me saying

Apologies for missing your call earlier. I have been in contact with our operations manager in Sydney however unfortunately they do not have the permission to reactive your account.It will need to be actioned by our finance team in the US which will happen overnight.

I got another email saying that It looks like the issue was the only part of the invoice was paid which is why access to the platform was blocked. Access to Smartsheet has been temporarily restored while we issue a new invoice so leave this with me.

Unreal!

I then found out that smartsheet invoiced us with the amount for 14 licences and therefore our payment was half of what was invoiced. However in our system's admin portal, the right information for 7 licenses was there.

Hopeless!!!

Andrée Starå

Hi @Jeny Lee

Sorry to hear that you haven't had the usual Smartsheet Experience.

I completely understand your frustration!

The experience you describe is not the usual way Smartsheet conduct their business.

@Genevieve P Can you help Jenny?

I hope that helps!

Be safe and have a fantastic day!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

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Jeny Lee

smartsheet is supposed to facilitate team work, how could you guys be crippled with info silos that led to disastrous experience of your customer like this?

Andrée Starå

@Jeny Lee

For clarification.

I'm not an employee of Smartsheet.

I'm a Partner/Consultant trying to help.

Jeny Lee

Thanks jumping on this, I believe it's different than what you have seen in most cases. I'm feeling helpless talking to our client manager and trying to reach out to smartsheet finance.

Andrée Starå

@Jeny Lee

Happy to help!

Genevieve will help you as soon as she sees the message.

Let me know how it goes!

Genevieve P.

Hi @Jeny Lee

First, I’d like to stress that as @Andrée Starå notes, the experience you have had is not at all standard and we’re working to resolve not only this specific issue for you, but the underlying processes that led to this situation. 

Please note that because some of the content that you shared here is private to your account, I have removed it from the post. 

To summarize the current issue, I understand that the invoice amount you have been billed is incorrect based on your latest plan adjustment, and that you have already paid the amount due for this year’s subscription. I have confirmed that the Finance team is actively working to correct this situation. If you have not yet received communication from them, you will be hearing from them shortly.

I will also reach out to you privately to confirm that the issue has been resolved to your satisfaction. 

Thank you,

Genevieve

Community Moderator

Stephen Branstetter

Jeny, (@Jeny Lee )

Genevieve brought this to my attention and I first want to say I’m sorry that we put you through this experience. Thank you for all the detail you provided to give insight into both your overall experience and the timeline.

We’ll be doing a full internal review of what led to your experience to identify ways to help make sure we do not repeat it for other customers. As Genevieve mentioned, our Finance team is reviewing your account now. I just checked in with them and they’ve updated your account in our billing system to 7 licenses and to reflect your full payment. They will follow-up shortly with a more complete resolution message to you directly .

Stephen Branstetter

SVP Operations

Jeny Lee

I appreciate the timeliness this community leaders have come to help. I have confirmation from your billing department that our account issue has been sorted.

We've been a smartsheet client since 2018 and had been impressed with your sales and engineers and the product itself. The experience I had with smartsheet this year is nothing like previous and much like what covid has brought to us, uncertainties, distant. However in the time of uncertainty, all we need as a customer is open communication like this.

Andrée Starå

@Jeny Lee

Excellent!

I'm always happy to help!

Have a fantastic weekend!