Sierrachart annoyed with data fees and intend to rock the boat

[JSOP]

@JSOP what platform are you on nowadays?

as a non-programmer, I find SC to be the best value. small learning curve to use their studies & alerts. I am of course interested in anything better

Like I said SC USED TO BE very good when I was using them but NOT anymore and it's a shame. I tried MultiCharts and found them working well overall but not 100% reliable. Now I am doing manual trading and using nobody.

So I will have to see. If I can live with manual trading, I will just be status quo. If I find myself REALLY needing automatic trading, I might try to program my own API. I've had it with 3rd-party trading software.

 

[JSOP]

This would be pretty surprising to me as I lived in NZ for over a year + have family connections there and the unhelpful/defensive attitude is just so far off from the typical Kiwi.

I had my doubts too. SC never discloses their true location. They claim they are from New Zealand but if you look at the company address in tiny print at the bottom left hand corner of their "About Us" webpage, they state their address as:

30 N. Gould St.
Suite #4119
Sheridan, WY, 82801
USA

And yet if you google this address in Google maps, you will see in the Street view that it belongs to a run-down building with "The Mills Company Printers" written on the side walls. Nothing about Sierra Charts.

And yet if you look at your payment receipt that they send to you, you will notice at the bottom that their company is actually called "Sierra Pacific Software Limited" trading under sierracharts.com and if you google the company name "Sierra Pacific Software Limited", you get the address which is actually located in New Zealand:

3020/24b Moorefield Road
6037 Wellington - Johnsonville
Wellington - North Island - New Zealand

But I agree that their attitudes reflect NOTHING of New Zealanders which are the NICEST people that you can ever meet on this planet of earth. So since you still have family back in New Zealand maybe you can ask one of your family member to pay them visit and confirm whether they really do base in New Zealand. LOL Anyway I don't care anymore but I do agree they behave NOTHING like New Zealanders with their rude and defensive attitudes. For anybody who's ever talked to or met a New Zealander, you will notice that New Zealanders are the NICEST people that you can ever meet on the surface of this earth.

 

[JSOP]

If you can actually illustrate a problem and prove them wrong, then SC will fix it, almost immediately. If they think the problem is your lack of understanding, then they will just refer you to the documentation. If they think you're an idiot, they will treat you like an idiot. They will not hold your hand like other software vendors who are big on marketing/ customer service.

Well see that's the problem. SC believes that Customers are NOT always right (They actually stated this in a forum post. I am NOT joking.) but in fact they don't just believe customers are not always right, they believe customers are ALWAYS WRONG unless they can prove to SC that they are right. But the problem is they don't even listen to the customer who's trying to prove to SC that they are right; they just mark that customer's post as "User Discussion" and take it out of the Support Forum queue and don't look at the post anymore. So before the customer had a chance to convince SC that he is right, he's already shut out. At the end the customer just leaves which I guess is not a problem for SC since they are having such a huge increase in user base so they don't care. And for us customers, we will just vote with our wallet. SC doesn't care about us, so we will go somewhere else to find a company that does care.

 

[Pippi436]

Sierra used to have a russian language support board(not anymore). Someone said in another thread they are from Ukraine. I have psychological problems surrendering passwords to a closed source software from unclear origins. I have used them for charts only, that part is quite good in my opinion.

 

[Macca1]

Well see that's the problem. SC believes that Customers are NOT always right (They actually stated this in a forum post. I am NOT joking.) but in fact they don't just believe customers are not always right, they believe customers are ALWAYS WRONG unless they can prove to SC that they are right. But the problem is they don't even listen to the customer who's trying to prove to SC that they are right; they just mark that customer's post as "User Discussion" and take it out of the Support Forum queue and don't look at the post anymore. So before the customer had a chance to convince SC that he is right, he's already shut out. At the end the customer just leaves which I guess is not a problem for SC since they are having such a huge increase in user base so they don't care. And for us customers, we will just vote with our wallet. SC doesn't care about us, so we will go somewhere else to find a company that does care.

I tend to agree here, customers are not always right. Most of the time they are wrong. If you look at the majority of SC support requests they a trivial things that could be have been learned from reading the documentation ( I know i'm guilty of this and have definitely pissed of support before with requests, however, I have also had a lot of suggestions implemented). But, again, you are paying $20 odd dollars per month for a package as a whole that offers far more value than any other trading software package on the market.

Most popular trading software( Ninja trader, TOS, TS etc) has a big network of vendors who try fleece traders into purchasing add on/ custom coded products. With SC there are hardly any 'indicator vendors" because if something becomes popular enough SC will development their own custom version and provide native support, and then usually charge nothing more for it. Users then point out bugs/ make suggestions and improvements which SC implement- There are pages & pages of support discussions that illiterate this. For example, the Number bars study( Footprint charts), Market profile/ Volume profile, VWAP & Dev bands, Jigsaw style trading Dom, Market depth historical chart- heat map( similar to Book map), Study summary window( similar to the TS radar screen). When SC develop their own native studies they will provide the source cdoe, and add functions so that the studies are accessible via ACSIL, so you end being able to fully customize a study to suit your needs. This is above and beyond what anyone else will offer you for $20 odd dollars per month.

If you want the kind of friendly support/ customer is always right attitude then you should expect to be paying $100 + per month. Investor RT is a good comparison of this( their base package is around $50, but with the adds on to match SC you will be spending well over $100).

Like I said SC USED TO BE very good when I was using them but NOT anymore and it's a shame. I tried MultiCharts and found them working well overall but not 100% reliable. Now I am doing manual trading and using nobody.

You could argue that their customer service has become worse, but I'm sorry there is just no way you can say that SC used to be very good, and is not anymore. The current SC platform is far superior to ever before! It's not even up for debate. If you are having trouble with other platforms as well, then have you considered that the problem could actually be you?

....Ironically, I happen to be from New Zealand But I have no affiliation with SC, apart from using their platform for the last 5 years.

 

[Macca1]

I tend to agree here, customers are not always right. Most of the time they are wrong. If you look at the majority of SC support requests they a trivial things that could be have been learned from reading the documentation ( I know i'm guilty of this and have definitely pissed of support before with requests, however, I have also had a lot of suggestions implemented). But, again, you are paying $20 odd dollars per month for a package as a whole that offers far more value than any other trading software package on the market.

Most popular trading software( Ninja trader, TOS, TS etc) has a big network of vendors who try fleece traders into purchasing add on/ custom coded products. With SC there are hardly any 'indicator vendors" because if something becomes popular enough SC will development their own custom version and provide native support, and then usually charge nothing more for it. Users then point out bugs/ make suggestions and improvements which SC implement- There are pages & pages of support discussions that illiterate this. For example, the Number bars study( Footprint charts), Market profile/ Volume profile, VWAP & Dev bands, Jigsaw style trading Dom, Market depth historical chart- heat map( similar to Book map), Study summary window( similar to the TS radar screen). When SC develop their own native studies they will provide the source cdoe, and add functions so that the studies are accessible via ACSIL, so you end being able to fully customize a study to suit your needs. This is above and beyond what anyone else will offer you for $20 odd dollars per month.



If you want the kind of friendly support/ customer is always right attitude then you should expect to be paying $100 + per month. Investor RT is a good comparison of this( their base package is around $50, but with the adds on to match SC you will be spending well over $100).



You could argue that their customer service has become worse, but I'm sorry there is just no way you can say that SC used to be very good, and is not anymore. The current SC platform is far superior to ever before! It's not even up for debate. If you are having trouble with other platforms as well, then have you considered that the problem could actually be you?

....Ironically, I happen to be from New Zealand But I have no affiliation with SC, apart from using their platform for the last 5 years.

^sorry there are some really embarrassing spelling errors in this that I need to correct.

I tend to agree here, customers are not always right. Most of the time they are wrong. If you look at the majority of SC support requests they are trivial things that could have been learned from reading the documentation ( I know I'm guilty of this and have definitely pissed of support before with requests, however, I have also had a lot of suggestions implemented). But, again, you are paying $20 odd dollars per month for a package as a whole that offers far more value than any other trading software package on the market.

Most popular trading software( Ninja trader, TOS, TS etc) has a big network of vendors who try fleece traders into purchasing add-on/ custom coded products. With SC there are hardly any 'indicator vendors" because if something becomes popular enough SC will develop their own custom version and provide native support, and then usually charge nothing more for it. Users then point out bugs/ make suggestions and improvements which SC implement- There are pages & pages of support discussions that illustrate this. For example, the Number bars study( Footprint charts), Market profile/ Volume profile, VWAP & Dev bands, Jigsaw style trading Dom, Market depth historical chart- heat map( similar to Book map), Study summary window( similar to the TS radar screen). When SC develop their own native studies they will provide the source code, and add functions so that the studies are accessible via ACSIL, so you end being able to fully customize a study to suit your needs. This is above and beyond what anyone else will offer you for $20 odd dollars per month.

If you want the kind of friendly support/ customer is always right attitude then you should expect to be paying $100 + per month. Investor RT is a good comparison of this( their base package is around $50, but with the adds on to match SC you will be spending well over $100).

You could argue that their customer service has become worse, but I'm sorry there is just no way you can say that SC used to be very good, and is not anymore. The current SC platform is far superior to ever before! This is not even up for debate. If you are having trouble with other platforms as well, then have you considered that the problem could actually be you?

....Ironically, I happen to be from New Zealand But I have no affiliation with SC, apart from using their platform for the last 5 years

 

[JSOP]

I tend to agree here, customers are not always right. Most of the time they are wrong. If you look at the majority of SC support requests they a trivial things that could be have been learned from reading the documentation ( I know i'm guilty of this and have definitely pissed of support before with requests, however, I have also had a lot of suggestions implemented). But, again, you are paying $20 odd dollars per month for a package as a whole that offers far more value than any other trading software package on the market.

If you want the kind of friendly support/ customer is always right attitude then you should expect to be paying $100 + per month. Investor RT is a good comparison of this( their base package is around $50, but with the adds on to match SC you will be spending well over $100).

This I find is a business model issue. In my opinion, SC is just too stubborn to realize that their level of customer support is just not adequate to service and support the software that they have designed. It is NOT enough to just design a good solid software (used to be anyway not anymore) if there is no support provided to users to guide them on how to use it and debug problems that users have about the software. And at the price that they are charging, it is just not sustainable to provide good customer support. Although I am not saying customers are always right but customers are not always wrong either which is the attitude that SC has that the software that they have designed is just so perfect that it came from God. LOL And if the customer found something wrong then it must be the customers' problem. All in all, I believe that SC should really raise its monthly price to provide better customer support which is now the weakest link to the business.

The current SC platform is far superior to ever before! It's not even up for debate. If you are having trouble with other platforms as well, then have you considered that the problem could actually be you?

....Ironically, I happen to be from New Zealand But I have no affiliation with SC, apart from using their platform for the last 5 years.[/QUOTE]

Typical SC attitude! If there's something wrong with the software then it must be the customer that is wrong. LOL Seeing attitudes like these just convinces me that walking away from SC was one of the best business decisions that I have made. Anyway if you are from SC, you should go back to your Support Board and provide better support to your subscribers instead of wasting time here defending SC. If SC improves on its software and its customer support, people will notice and you don't really need to defend it on a forum.

 

[Macca1]

This I find is a business model issue. In my opinion, SC is just too stubborn to realize that their level of customer support is just not adequate to service and support the software that they have designed. It is NOT enough to just design a good solid software (used to be anyway not anymore) if there is no support provided to users to guide them on how to use it and debug problems that users have about the software. And at the price that they are charging, it is just not sustainable to provide good customer support. Although I am not saying customers are always right but customers are not always wrong either which is the attitude that SC has that the software that they have designed is just so perfect that it came from God. LOL And if the customer found something wrong then it must be the customers' problem. All in all, I believe that SC should really raise its monthly price to provide better customer support which is now the weakest link to the business.

Their customer support is not even bad. Most of the time it's actually really good. The real issue for people like you is the "attitude" of their support. If you discover a genuine bug with their software, it will be fixed immediately and an updated release will be pushed through. It's a very grass roots process. Also, look at their documentation, it is very precise, and constantly updated- That's why they always refer people to it.

You say that you don't use any trading software anymore, and you trade manually, what does that mean? Are you on of those people who draw lines of charts?

What were your actual technical issues that that made you feel SC were monkeys who don't know how to make things work? Can you at least provide one example so we can establish who the monkey actually is.

Typical SC attitude! If there's something wrong with the software then it must be the customer that is wrong. LOL Seeing attitudes like these just convinces me that walking away from SC was one of the best business decisions that I have made. Anyway if you are from SC, you should go back to your Support Board and provide better support to your subscribers instead of wasting time here defending SC. If SC improves on its software and its customer support, people will notice and you don't really need to defend it on a forum.

How could SC improve on their software? Please prove some more details. The majority of the time it is the customer who is wrong( Not always) But usually it's the customer who doesn't understand something because they haven't read the documentation or they have made some trivial mistake because they haven't quite grasp the platform yet. I honestly have no affiliation with SC, i'm just some dude from New Zealand. Do really think SC would waste their valuable time on Elite trader. Of course not, they are too busy developing their platform whilst trying to answer annoying support tickets.

 

[truetype]

What were your actual technical issues that that made you feel SC were monkeys who don't know how to make things work? Can you at least provide one example so we can establish

Exactly. "Vendor XYZ sucks!!" posts with no specifics aren't even worth reading, let alone replying to. Save your breath.

 

[JSOP]

Their customer support is not even bad. Most of the time it's actually really good. The real issue for people like you is the "attitude" of their support. If you discover a genuine bug with their software, it will be fixed immediately and an updated release will be pushed through. It's a very grass roots process. Also, look at their documentation, it is very precise, and constantly updated- That's why they always refer people to it.

You say that you don't use any trading software anymore, and you trade manually, what does that mean? Are you on of those people who draw lines of charts?

What were your actual technical issues that that made you feel SC were monkeys who don't know how to make things work? Can you at least provide one example so we can establish who the monkey actually is.




How could SC improve on their software? Please prove some more details. The majority of the time it is the customer who is wrong( Not always) But usually it's the customer who doesn't understand something because they haven't read the documentation or they have made some trivial mistake because they haven't quite grasp the platform yet. I honestly have no affiliation with SC, i'm just some dude from New Zealand. Do really think SC would waste their valuable time on Elite trader. Of course not, they are too busy developing their platform whilst trying to answer annoying support tickets.

Ok this is getting personal. I am not getting into this. Not interested in posting my private codes to a public forum. Judging from your English you don't sound like somebody who's a New Zealander either not native to New Zealand anyway. So I guess the other poster is right. Sierra Charts is prob. Russian. Hope you are being paid well by Sierra Charts at least for blindly defending them. It's not Sierra Charts' first time trying to do defensive PR in a public forum. LOL

Anyway ignoring you. Goodbye!