karl@cbrma.UUCP (Karl Kleinpaste) (05/29/86)
In article <134@prairie.UUCP> dan@prairie.UUCP (Daniel M. Frank) writes: > In short, the ideal would be to talk to someone polite and knowledge- >able. My next choice, though, is someone abrasive and knowledgeable. >Most folks, in my experience, aren't irate when they START trying to >get support. They are irate after talking to a bunch of ignorami, >polite or not, for a few hours. I agree wholeheartedly, with one qualification: If you're in the habit of having to talk to said bunch of ignorami on a regular basis, just the prospect of having to do so again can lead one to irritation, even before making the call. A history of having ignorami answering the phones at your company will lead to people becoming progressively more irritated from the outset of a support request, not just after having chased down the first N phone numbers given. -- Karl Kleinpaste
jay@isis.UUCP (Jay Batson) (06/01/86)
In article <4616@cbrma.UUCP> karl@cbrma.UUCP (Karl Kleinpaste) writes: >In article <134@prairie.UUCP> dan@prairie.UUCP (Daniel M. Frank) writes: >> In short, the ideal would be to talk to someone polite and knowledge- >>able. My next choice, though, is someone abrasive and knowledgeable. > >.... A history of having ignorami answering the >phones at your company will lead to people becoming progressively more >irritated from the outset of a support request, not just after having >chased down the first N phone numbers given. After all this discussion, I have to finally say something. I'm happy with my support group!!! I own (gasp - that 'dog'?!?) an original NCR Tower 1632, which, BTW, is not even sold in my incarnation anymore. Let me take a minute to tell you how NCR handles support. I'm not sure how 'unique' it is, but it seems to work. When you have a problem, you call an 800 number, and leave some pertinent info, which includes a type classification (e.g. Kernel, Utilities, Application prog, ...), and a priority (1 - 5, being "system down - no alternatives", "system down, alternatives available", "feature failure - no alternatives",... to a "call me whenever" type priority), along with a "problem description". The operator e-mails it to a support facility, who is watching for things, and calls sites back in reasonably prompt time, varying actually very little between priority assignments. Due to supplying a type classification, usu. the person who knows the most at the facility calls you, so you get somebody who \probably/ knows an answer. If he/she doesn't, they have an e-mail setup back to the facility that \designed-developed/ the Tower, and the person whose job it is to design/implement this particular item on the Tower will call you, and tell you if your problem can be solved. (BTW - usually, they already know of the problem, and it is "already fixed in the next OS release"). My only complaint is that, during the normal development life of the Tower product, they changed from V7 to SYS V, which is good, but they STILL don't have a way to allow my old hardware configuration to run the SV port, so I can't get these bug fixes until they do. (NCR - are you reading this?? I gave you a plug - now get OS release 3.0.... to run on a 1632 with an expansion cab. w/84 meg fuji, but NO 5 1/4" winchester in the main cab.; I _know_ I can upgrade to an XP, but our firm doesn't have the cash - we're in the Oil business, and while your gas prices are decreasing, so is our company income - to \very/ low levels now.) Overall, I've always been pleased with the support. I don't have to chase anybody - they come to me. We bought our Tower early on, before a lot of the UNIX personnel were scattered throughout NCR, and we still never had problems. I receive no fee for this endorsement, but those of you who are looking for workstation class machines, who are tired of your support network, look at the NCR Tower 32 - it's a screamer, and NCR does nice things. Jay Batson Energy Logic Systems, Inc. {seismo,hplabs}!hao!isis!jay