CompuServe Messages

I said that if you don't have a lot of bugs, you don't need a huge _service_ department. Updates are not somethinf customers come screaming to you for, Henry – they don't say things like "It ate my Data!" "Why is the cursor on a different line than the one I'm changing!" "Why does it Guru!" and so forth. They call and say… is there a new version? We say, "Yep". They say, I wanna! we say, ok, we'll send it out in a few days. They hang up. No long phone calls with distraught users, no screaming, no complaints, and no trained personell costing me a zillion bucks because (a) I didn't make the software easy to use or (b) I made it broken. There is a world of difference between a company that simply keeps on updating it's products, and one that has to constantly fix them and deal with the consequences of publishing broken code as if it were a real program. For instance, SoftCircuits doesn't have a "support" person, per se – it has _me_. And I can handle it, _and_ I can still get a fair amount of work done, because what I have to do 99% of the time (or better) is listen for 60 seconds, then say "Read the manual – it's on page xx; meantime, here's how you do it (60 second explanation, cuz software is easy to use) and then I say bye and they run away happy (if slightly embarrassed). The remaining portion of the time, I have to deal with people who fit in a wide range of catagories, but, and this is an important but, since I don't have "specially-trained" personell (like WP does), there isxew_-w_g/one can say tt will make ME say: "Uh, I dunnoo, I'm not familiar '#P that part of the program (or) that use (or) etc." That makes my support better than theirs, Henry, cuz I can _always_ give a solid answer. And guess what? With PCLO being the very first CAD package that was available on the machine, and selling into a highly technical market too, with us well into 4 digits of sales… I can still handle it. That's what I mean when I differentiate between "bug" support and "update" support. Of course, quaility is a big issue… and I think that's why WP's support group is so large. No Quality. –Ben–