Skill in certification for 3 weeks. Worst experience with Alexa support team.What's going on? Is this meant to be used at enterprise level?

Question

question

newuser-4417366c-a86e-4e2b-90ed-913b99ffa9a8 asked Mar 15, '18

Skill in certification for 3 weeks. Worst experience with Alexa support team.What's going on? Is this meant to be used at enterprise level?

Our skill is in certification review for 3 weeks now. No proper reply from the support team for several support tickets we raised. Someone at some offshore location wakes up and closes those tickets saying he will check with certification team and no answer for days. Worst ever experience with support compared to rest of AWS support. Alexa certification team. What's going on? Is there a support contact number to call or an email of a person actually in certification team? You should mention clearly in bold letters that skill development is just for fun and some college level experiment. Such kind of support is never meant for enterprise level use.

alexa skills kit skill certification

10 |5000

Attachments: Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

Answer 1 · 2018-03-15T19:22:52Z

indieshack answered Mar 15, '18

(did you cancel submission then resubmit by any chance? I've done that and my skill was overlooked) You just need to send an email to support - the longest I've waited was a few days.

1

10 |5000

Attachments: Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

newuser-4417366c-a86e-4e2b-90ed-913b99ffa9a8 commented · Mar 15, 2018 at 08:39 PM

No I didn't resubmit it. Few others suggested it. But every time we raise a support request someone comes back and says that the skill is being reviewed and in right place and he will come back with more details from certification team. Someone also suggested not to resubmit it as it will again start from ZERO.

0 ·

Answer 2 · 2018-03-15T20:43:45Z

micronick answered Mar 15, '18

For us the turnaround time is usually a day or two. Very fast. But good luck getting any meaningful response from the Alexa team. You are pretty much on your own there.

Also, I believe Alexa is going through the "Fart Apps" phase which the IOS app store went through in 2007-2008. 95% of the skills are useless and are created by hobbyists. I don't think Alexa is ready for Prime time business apps at least yet.

1

10 |5000

Attachments: Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

newuser-4417366c-a86e-4e2b-90ed-913b99ffa9a8 commented · Mar 16, 2018 at 03:53 PM

We got response for first 2 times when the skill was rejected because of few minor issues. After the 3rd submission I believe all the functional tests were passed because I could see all the activities in my Lambda next day. Then it went to a black hole.

You might be correct about the "Fart Apps" phase and not meant for business apps yet. We made the mistake of committing to our clients and are going to breach our SLA very soon.

0 ·

Answer 3 · 2018-03-16T10:21:46Z

Lowri@Amazon answered Mar 16, '18

Hello,

Thank you for posting on the forum. Sorry to hear that you are experiencing a delay in the certification process. Please let us know the case IDs that you filed so we can investigate properly.

3

10 |5000

Attachments: Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

newuser-4417366c-a86e-4e2b-90ed-913b99ffa9a8 commented · Mar 16, 2018 at 03:48 PM

4914434551, 4920379311

0 ·

Nige commented · May 22, 2018 at 06:24 AM

Hi, I am experiencing delays too.

0 ·

puwell commented · May 24, 2022 at 03:53 AM

Hi, can you help take a look of our case, we have raised this case for multiple times and it's over a month now. We really need a proper response from your support team. case ID: # 9933240151. Thank you

0 ·

Answer 4 · 2018-03-18T10:22:46Z

Carsten Deike answered Mar 18, '18

Same problem here. Skill in Re-Certification since 10 days, no feedback, no feedback from support, amazon employees in germany doesn't know which peope to contact to solve the problem. Resubmitting the skill ??? Are you kidding? This is like "Did you try to turn it off and on again".

1

10 |5000

Attachments: Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

Billy@Amazon commented · Mar 26, 2018 at 04:47 PM

Hi KasimirWetter,

I can confrim we recieved your contact us case. As this issue is specific to your account we will respond to you there.

Regards,

Billy

0 ·

Answer 5 · 2018-03-23T22:07:39Z

newuser-05830546-8c29-4f9c-b9f3-5dae2395ce9c answered Mar 23, '18

Add me to the list. I submitted almost 3 weeks ago. I opened a case (4928492451) over a week ago but that appeared to goto a black hole. This is indeed a broken process.

2

10 |5000

Attachments: Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

Billy@Amazon commented · Mar 26, 2018 at 05:30 PM

Hello,

It looks we've already reached to you on 3/21/18 and are working on your issue. As this issue is specific to your account we will respond to you there.

Regards,

Billy

0 ·

newuser-4417366c-a86e-4e2b-90ed-913b99ffa9a8 commented · Apr 16, 2018 at 01:05 AM

Did you get a response from Certification team? I have been waiting on them.

0 ·

Answer 6 · 2018-04-07T04:29:40Z

newuser-4417366c-a86e-4e2b-90ed-913b99ffa9a8 answered Apr 7, '18

I hate to go in this path again but I don’t have a choice. I resubmitted my skill 6 days back after all those discussions with Amazon folks after the skill got rejected last time after 4 weeks. I don’t see any activity in my skill since last 6 days. I opened a ticket 3 days back and haven’t got any response. Don’t want my skill to get rejected due to some stupid reason like last time. Is there anyone going to respond to those support requests and look at this case?

10 |5000

Attachments: Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

Answer 7 · 2018-04-07T09:46:04Z

Gavin Watson answered Apr 7, '18

While my experience has not been quite as bad regarding the certification process (though I have had many rejected for different reasons, then accepted), I agree with the issues regarding support. Amazon are going to really have to improve here if they want developers to engage. I've opened multiple cases and struggle to get a reply back.

I understand this is not the fault of the support people, but of the department that look after this in Amazon and will have to make a better investment in assigning more people to cope with the workload. Amazon support staff, please escalate this so that you can get more assistance!

10 |5000

Attachments: Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

Answer 8 · 2018-04-15T01:05:14Z

newuser-4417366c-a86e-4e2b-90ed-913b99ffa9a8 answered Apr 15, '18

Its been 17 days since I resubmitted the skill. No answers from certification team. No proper response to multiple support request created. This is really frustrating. One side Amazon is advertising for developers to create new skills to increase its engagement with customer and drive their sales on the other hand there are no proper process in place. I never had such experience with other AWS services since last 4 years. But I have been struggling with Alexa team from last 3 months just to publish a skill. Is it only the Alexa skills team who are dysfunctional?

10 |5000

Attachments: Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

Answer 9 · 2022-05-26T18:21:34Z

Joseph Kesselman answered May 26, '22

I haven't seen unreasonable delays yet -- but my skill is a (relatively) simple audio player, being released only in the US, with no connections to other accounts and no purchase mechanisms, which may make it something they can approve at a glance. I'm wondering what's different about the ones that are having trouble.

Other regions? Purchases? Child-friendly? Name-free interactions? Anything else which might require that Amazon do deeper testing?

10 |5000

Attachments: Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

question