Yesterday I spent some time on a WebEx conference evaluating a new service the are offering. It turned out that it wasn’t the right solution, so I logged off after 15 minutes of the hour-long presentation. I guess this behavior confused WebEx a bit. Later that day I received two emails from WebEx. The first was:

Subject: Thank You for Attending

Michael,

Thank you for attending the recent WebEx Web Seminar. We now invite you to get your complimentary copy of the special report, Best Practices in Online Customer Training and increase the effectiveness of your online training program.

Directly below that email was this one:

Subject: Sorry We Missed You

Michael,

We’re sorry you missed the WebEx Web Seminar. Don’t miss the opportunity to increase the effectiveness of your online training program. Get your complimentary copy of the special report, Best Practices in Online Customer Training now.

Struck me as kinda funny. Should I hear ‘Thanks for not being here’? Right back at ya’ WebEx.

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WebEx, however, has a number of annoying properties:

1. You must install a plug-in to get access to the webinar. When I was working in training for my last company, this downloading and installing caused a number of headaches. I was constantly having to walk participants through the registration/downloading process. Often there were tech problems that meant that potential participants could not access the live event. I did not have this problem, so whether they have gotten their act together is a matter of speculation.
2. I received an email today letting me know that the content was online and that I could access it and share it with collegues. I thought this would be cool since the content was fairly good. Unfortunately, I had to fill out a long and involved contact gathering form so that WebEx sales could contact me. Once I got there, I had to reinstall the WebEx plug-in. I had pulled it off my computer a couple of days ago. Once I did that, for some reason I was asked for a user name and password. The form would not accept my normal low level security UN & PW’s I use. Nor would it recognize any of my email addresses so that I could log in. I started over and was at last able to get into the webinar.
3. I sent the login information to another of my computers to see what it would be like for others to access this information. I realized that if I did indeed send this to collegues, I would likely loose friends and have clients tell me to never contact them again. Each person wanting to access the webinar had to submit themselves to the same long ‘contact info’ form I had to go through. This means that everyone I contacted would have to give them the info on how they can be added to WebEx’s marketing list. Like any of us want more junk mail or spam.
4. If I had any friends or clients left after this step, then each person had to download and install an msi file (microsoft install). I did not see any info on Mac or Linux installs, so your guess is as good as mine. Also, my choices for installs were either Explorer or Netscape. Netscape? I happen to know that Firefox (my browser) is a Netscape derivative. I am not sure how many people would know this. Also, there was no option for Opera, Safari, or any other browser.
5. If anyone got any further than that, they would be allowed to access the info that I thought my collegues ‘might’ find interesting.

I have a few suggestions for WebEx:

• Let your process speak for itself. If WebEx were really as wonderful as you think, then after viewing the webinar, people would be clamouring to get more information. Don’t force us to get onto your mailing list to view your content.

• Don’t make me alienate others for the privilege to experience WebEx. Forms, downloads, passwords. This is so web… um, Web point five. This is the way it was done in the 90’s. You seem to have missed the last ten years.

• When you want to showcase a webinar to show-off your capabilities. Make sure the presentation has more than four slides and is more than two people talking. Sure, during the 45 minutes I was online, there was one voice question and two email questions. Also, during this time, the webex operator disappeared so the presenters were left high-and-dry.

I thought the presentation was interesting, but if I did not know anything about WebEx, I would have wondered why I should spend a whole lot of money (it is VERY expensive) to facilitate a conference call. Also, the form, plug-ins, and other bs has alienated me from ever using WebEx again.

I wrote their media relations department letting them know that I was going to post this blog. I wonder if I will hear anything from them.

WebEx claimed that they had over 1000 people registered for the webinar and at one time they claim over 600 were online. I wonder if they were all as underwhelmed by the experience as I?

There are many other alternatives to WebEx, if you are interested in any of them, let me know. I’d be happy to recommend some to you. Right now it is a toss-up between freeconferencecall.com and banging two rocks together.

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