#reply
Problem with mail. No sirreee. Knowing the problem with support by mail,
a company that decides that that is the primary support channel shows its
disdain for professional and serious amature users of their products. Can
your business afford 3 days mail, 3 days internal processing, 3 days
return mail to get your phones restored if they go out? your power? your
UPS service? How would you feel if ANY of the goods/services your
business depends on DAILY gave you that choice? If your honest you'll
admit that you'd feel you weren't very valued as a customer. And, as so
often is the case, it takes a couple of back and forths to get on the same
page and understand what is really the root problem (never mind the cure),
by mail you've lost over a month of what could have been accomplished in
15 minutes of conversation. Your assumption that ALL the details can be
supplied up front is unbelievabley niave and a ridiculous argument.
Please don't insult your own intelligence by making such lame statements.
I am trying to make a serious set of points based on practical situations
not unrealistic lawyering cliches.
I didn't buy it mail order. I BOUGHT IT FROM YOU AND YOU WON'T TALK TO
ME! The dealer I bought a few ROM upgrades and memory from is out of
business. And to my knowledge, you don't give specific training, recurrent
training and regular technical bulletins to your dealers. And dealers
sell such a variety of hardware and software, one cannot rightly expect
them to have the expertise that the manufacturer has. Additionally, many
dealers I have asked certain questions of regarding things as basic as the
proper set-up of the cache/burst/fastom enabling sequence (not adequately
documented as, when you still provided phone support, it took one of your
tech support to tell me a problem with crashing was due to following the
defualt install disk startup when a different sequence was required…)
68040.library revision, and ROM releases that may fix certain more
"exotic" bugs or compatitility issues with 3rd party software/hardware.
Thanks for the information on how to get to customer service. I never
would have guessed it from the menu. When I tried to navigat the menu
Igot to a "have your credit card handy" area and immediately hung up.
Didn't want to have to PAY to find out.
Anyway, I'm not picking on you personally as I'm sure whether or not you
agree with the policy you prbably have little or no say-so in continuing
or changin it. I should apologise if I sounded harsh. I'm not
particularly overrought about it, but it has some elements that seem
absurd to me.
1) the density of and training of dealers does not make them an adequate
source of support for users of your products. (You haven't got the market
penetration of Microsoft, Borland, IBM or Compaq).
2) There are people who depend on your hardware for a living. It is
possible for a person in this situation to experience a problem that would
be costly enough at a 3 day turn-around, but at a multi-week turnaround
would be devastating. (Remember, many of your professional users are
going to be small operations running on a shoe-string).
3) If you just added a voice-mail with 24 hour call-back for the non-CIS,
non-FAX equipped people, I think your goal of reduced phone support
overhead, but effective technical support would be realized. I believe
without this change you are going to start to see your products, for which
there is competition from companies that still have phone support,
experience a slow fall-off in sales.
I bought the first SCSI controller you had, and grew in controllers and
accelerators right along with you. I am loyal to companies to the point
where it is unhealthy for my company. That is part of why I am tellling
you this. I am planning on adding a 4000 with an accelrator/SCSI for
another Toaster to the two I have. I wouldn't have even considered the
"other" 4000 accelerator had not this change in the tech support
arrangement come up. If it looks like the support for the other board is
more 'instant', they get the sale. Has your management considered how
many other loyal GVP users like me there are out there who would rather
switch than fight the phone menus?
Thanks for checking the ImageFX registration for me, and again for
illumining me on where customer service warm bodies live in the phone-pak
jungle. (Maybe they could add that tip to the menu description, "upgrade
information and customer service..")
Hey – we LIKE you guys – that's why we want to be able to TALK to you! :^}
wmc – via Autopilot!