Downpour.com 4+

The customer service here is outstanding. My original review is below but I have to say that the customer service has really blown me away. I am now a subscriber and stand by the company. The app gives me lots of issues and force closes a lot but the service and support are great. I would rate the app a 3 until they can fix it but customer service a 5. So I’ll rate in the middle of a 4 stars

The service isn’t bad but misleading. I assumed which is a fault of mine to think it was just like audible. I instantly purchased 6 credits and a membership to find out that the books that I wanted are more than 1 credit. I’m on the fence of just going back to audible because I am leaving such a large library. Also some of the books listed here that I’m interested in aren’t available in digital form. So I want to not be so quick to pull the trigger as I have because you’ll lose money as I have.

We are verry sorry for any confusion regarding using our Downpour services. We appreciate your feedback and would like the opportunity to make this right with you. Please check your email for communication regarding your issue. We appreciate your understanding and look forward to working with you.

Ashley Edwards
Lead Customer Service Representative
Downpour.com
855-369-6768

While I like that the new app updates my library almost immediately. Since I'm not a subscriber I can't purchase books through the app as it only seems to want to use credits. I'm not fond of the new interface, you've shrunken my sorting options to title and most recent and replaced everything with a Hyde icon. Really it doesn't need to be flashy it just data and columns I just be able to list it in text and sort by author/title or author/series, date purchased, whatever. I'm also not liking the management. I don't like the idea of having to mark something as finished. Really what's the point in that. I want to be able to delete a book whether it's finished or not. I'm not sure that it is actually deleting the book locally even when I mark it as finished. Downloading seems to be funkier and less reliable with the new app. It says that it's downloaded things completely but there are way too many times I've received an invalid file error, and had to re download the next 10 tracks. It's really annoying when this happens and I'm driving. Also the addition of DRM books is disturbing. I would prefer it that you keep downpour DRM free.

We appreciate the feedback. You'll be happy to know in-app purchases is in the works and will hopefully be available in the coming weeks. You're right sorting has changed but library searching has also been greatly improved; you can now search by author and series, in addition to title, which should help you quickly find your titles. Marking titles as "finished" is just way to let you hide books you're done with. Finally, a large portion of our titles on Downpour remain DRM free but some titles have restrictions from third-party publishers. Happy listening!

I would like to point out three problems with your app, all of which make me more inclined to use Audible instead, even though I would prefer to buy titles directly from you, whenever possible... if only you would fix the app.

First, the time display shows progress and time remaining only in the current chapter. I would like to be able to switch that display, but could not find an option for doing so.

Second, the volume level drops whenever I get an email or other alert tone, but does not pause playback, and so I miss several words of the book, every time this happens. It is quite annoying, and mostly, I would like a setting to choose how I want this behavior to exhibit.

Third, is that the playback will pause when I remove an AirPod, as does Audible, but if I have it out for more than a very few seconds, it will not resume without my taking out my phone, opening the app or pull-down access, and hitting the play button again. This is a lot of extra effort every time someone makes a comment to me or demands my attention for a moment, while I am listening. This also should either be changed, or be made a selectable preference option.

I hope that you will fix these problems, so that I may use your service as much or more than I use Audible. If not, I will likely return completely to Audible, even though I am terribly annoyed with how poorly they treat authors.

Sincerely,
- Prof. Cascaddan

Hello,

Thank you so much for your detailed feedback. We will be sure to get your review over to our app developers. Thank you for your patience while we dive into this. As a thank you, we would like to offer you two free credits please email us at customercare@downpour.com so we may add them to your account.