Nuance (Dragon NaturallySpeaking) Gave Us a Full Refund

UPDATING: Jul 2, 2019 – FYI There is a newer version of Nuance Dragon voice software. After 9 years, I still use Dragon speak naturally, and blog.

Here is the post from October 2010 about Nuance Dragon Naturally Speaking Full Refund:

I recently canceled my order for Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Wireless Teacher and Student Edition.

It’s not because I don’t love Nuance Dragon 11 – I’m still cautiously optimistic and excited by the voice-recognition software.

(In fact, this post was written using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Premium Wireless. (Jump to the bottom to see how accurate the speech-to-text dictation software was.)

No, I returned the Education Edition back to Nuance because I found a better deal at Staples in our hometown.

When I wrote my initial review of Nuance Dragon 11, I was having some trouble with Nuance’s cancellation/return policy.

I’m happy to report that I received a full refund from Nuance.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Premium goes for $199.99 US. The Premium Student and Teacher Education Version is exactly the same product, except they only charge $99.99 US (for academic purposes only.). In other words, you save $100.

I don’t have a problem with buying things online, but at the time (October 2010), Best Buy and Future Shop were not carrying Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 on the shelves. (Actually, they still had Nuance Dragon 10 in stock.)

So I ordered the Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Premium Education Edition online from Nuance after breakfast.

Then I discovered that Staples had a special sale on the Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 premium wireless version. Instead of charging the regular price of $299.99 US, it was on sale for $199.99 Canadian.

In other words, you save $100. (The same amount you save on the Student and Teacher edition.)

I really wanted the wireless version because it comes with the Plantronics Calisto headset with Bluetooth USB adapter included inside.

Why wireless? I’ve used previous versions of Nuance Dragon with a USB headset and then recently I was messing around trying to see if I could get my cell phone’s old Bluetooth headset to work with Nuance Dragon.

(The sound quality on the Motorola Bluetooth headset H790 was horrible for voice-recognition, but great for phone calls. Nuance has on their website a list of compatible hardware that has been tested to work with Dragon naturally speaking.)

Wireless is easier – no cables connecting you to your laptop.

(One time, I had students in my classroom use a USB headset to do some podcasting with Audacity. One student walked away from the computer, forgot that she was wearing my headset and yanked out the USB cable. That was the end of the headset, but that’s another story.)

$199 is a great price for Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Wireless Premium.

Best Buy and Future Shop were both selling the same product for $325 online. Heck, I could have gotten Best Buy and Future Shop to price match Staples to save an additional 10%, but by this point, I was tired of running around.

So five hours after I placed an initial order online with Nuance for the education edition, I tried to cancel my order.

At first, I was disappointed with the whole cancellation process.

• Even though they hadn’t processed my order yet, the customer service rep wasn’t able to cancel the order.
• They could only place a cancellation ticket so that the Fulfillment Department could hopefully cancel the order (if they got in time.)
• In the end, the education edition got shipped two hours after I phoned to cancel the order, and then later in the evening of the same day we received a polite e-mail from the fulfillment Department saying that the order had already been shipped.

The e-mail give us some options, namely that if I refused to accept the package it would be returned to their warehouse and I would be entitled to a refund, less shipping costs.

Suffice it to say, I was disappointed with this whole customer service experience and was expecting to lose around $20 in shipping.

In the end, however, I was pleasantly surprised when I looked at my credit card statement.

• It turned out that I received a full refund including the cost of shipping.
• (In fact, I made $0.69 because of the American-Canadian exchange rate, and the Canadian dollar got stronger between the time I bought the software and when I got a refund.)

Although it’s hard to shake first impressions, it seems that buying Dragon NaturallySpeaking online directly from Nuance might not be that bad.

(Actually, it’s the only place you can get Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Premium Student/Teacher Edition.)

Shipping was quite quick:

• In my case, I placed an order for the Education Edition online on Tuesday morning.
• The shipment arrived at my house in Ontario, Canada the next day on Wednesday afternoon.
• I refused to accept the package (because I just bought the wireless premium version on sale at Staples) and so the Courier (DHL) sent the package back to Nuance.
• On Thursday morning, when I contacted customer support, they said that the product arrived back at their warehouse and they would issue a refund in their next billing cycle.
• By Saturday, I was fortunate enough to have a full refund from Nuance (including shipping) back in my account.

Things I’ve learned about buying Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Premium.

1. Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 is kind of cool. It’s not perfect, it makes lots of mistakes, but it’s kind of cool speaking and watching your words magically appear on the screen.
2. Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Premium Wireless was a good decision. It seems that you can use any Bluetooth headset with the regular Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium version (or the Student Teacher Premium version), but the fact that the Plantronics Calisto headset comes bundled in the wireless version for an extra hundred dollars makes it a good price. Especially when you consider that the Plantronics headset is sold separately for $149.99 (and you can’t easily buy it anywhere here.) Nuance has a compatibility list on their website where they have rated various Bluetooth headsets that work well with Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Unfortunately, none of them were really sold at regular stores in Ontario, Canada, although we did find one seller on eBay.
3. Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Student and Teacher edition is a great price. At $99.99, it’s $100 off the regular premium version. Future Shop, Best Buy, Staples, all sell Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 online, but they might not carry stock in stores. The great thing about buying it from these brick-and-mortar retailers is that if you get buyer’s remorse and have second thoughts, you can always return the product as long as you don’t open the software.
4. Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Student and Teacher Education Edition is only sold online from Nuance. At the time of writing, we couldn’t find the education edition listed at Future Shop, Best Buy, or Staples, but definitely check because things change.
5. Buying online from Nuance was easy, as long as you don’t plan on returning the product or canceling your order. When I bought online from Nuance, I received my shipment the next business day and the customs duty was pretty much the same as the sales tax that I would pay in Canada. (I didn’t pay any sales tax when I ordered online from Nuance, but I did have to pay $19 for shipping to Ontario.)

I’m giving Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 a thorough run through to see how effective it is.

I’m looking for creative and drastic ways to become more efficient in the classroom. Since I do a lot of lesson planning and marking using the computer, I’m hoping that speaking my ideas is quicker than typing ideas down.

Stay tuned for an upcoming post where I show you how long it’s taken me to get used to Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11, as well as the kind of accuracy I’m able to get.